It will soon be Holy Week. The heat in Manila has people thinking of an escape to cooler climes. I wonder who will brave the traffic and trek up to Baguio. It is crazy to be on the road on that last week of Lent. Friends of mine tried it last year, and it took almost 10 hours to get to Kennon.
Gone are the good old days of taking a train from Tutuban to Damortis and scrambling for sedans for the slow climb up the zigzag.
It was my favorite way to get up to the summer capital. I remember packing coloring books and crayons to entertain the kids. We had no cell phones or iPads. The only “tablets” we knew were medicinal. We brought baon of Yaya Lucina’s delicious galantina in pan de sal and bought cold drinks from the diner.
If we got off quickly in Damortis, we got to ride their air-conditioned cars. Otherwise, there was a bus waiting. We looked forward to the smell of pine on Kennon Road. I remember opening car windows just not to miss that wonderful scent that announced we had arrived. Today we ride with our windows completely shut lest we inhale poisonous fumes.
When did the trains stop running? Is the public in such a hurry today that it is no longer worth keeping the line? I wonder if my own grandchildren would consider going chug-chug on a choo-choo? Probably not, but I would. In a heartbeat.
Walkway
For the past five years Holy Week for our family has meant going to “Walkway,” an interactive exhibit that revisits the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For me there is no more meaningful way of following Christ’s footsteps on the ViaDolorosa.
“Walkway” opens on Palm Sunday, April 13, with a free concert at 6:30 p.m., at Bonifacio High St. Central until Easter Sunday, April 20. The show will feature US bands Gungor and Jars of Clay.
They’re back!
It is too hot, especially for politics. Publicists should cool it and stop speculating on who will run in 2016. Some of the wannabes shouldn’t even run for dogcatcher.
Election time brings thoughts of spring-cleaning. Mama called it “limpieza general.”
When I lived in the States, spring always brought with it a surge of activity at home. After a cold and wet winter we were eager to open windows, beat carpets, shampoo rugs, organize closets, scrub floors and walls with soap to remove every trace of scum, and with an urn of burning citrus rinds, walk all over the house to deodorize rooms and get rid of anything foul.
Will we have what it takes to do this before 2016?
Never too late
I have read many graduation stories. The other day there was an amusing one about kindergarten stress. It made me laugh out loud. But reading about Flordeliza Edroso was truly inspiring.
Flordeliza wanted a high school diploma all her life. She studied for as long as she could, took on odd jobs to help the family, stumbled on to second year, and then married. She and her husband raised three children who today are college graduates.
Years later, after many starts and stops, Flordeliza went back to school.
Last week, at the age of 70, she marched on the stage of the Valenzuela National High School to receive her diploma. For Flordeliza, it has only just begun. She has been offered a scholarship to continue on to college. Bravo, Flor. Way to go!
In the words of Henry Ford: “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. ”
The ex factor?
Someone asked me if there should be “etiquette for exes.” How should one behave when in the presence of the one who “used to be”?
There are no rules of disengagement. Some can’t handle it. No matter how things end for a couple, they can’t help but remember what it was like in that once upon a time. Based on those memories, one could end up looking like a sore loser. Not acceptable.
As I groped for an answer, I happened upon the romantic story of Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra, who, according to friends and by Mia’s own admission, “never really split up.” Were they ever exes?
Stories abound that the May-December couple (Sinatra was 50 and Mia 21 when they married) remained “intimate friends” even after their hasty divorce. I wonder what it took—“one old song and a thousand memories”?
Today attention is on a young man called Ronan (legally Woody Allen’s son) who is the spitting image of Sinatra.
Ronan has the blue eyes and that enchanting Sinatra smile. The Twitter genius with 245,000 followers is a lawyer, Yale alumnus, Rhodes scholar, a journalist and is labeled as an American activist. He was expected to break records with “Ronan Farrow Daily,” but bombed. One critic said, “He stinks on television.” Ouch!
But we are not here for the reviews, are we? We are talking about exes and what they do when once again they chance to meet. I really don’t know. I had only a few encounters with mine, some happy and fun, others clumsy and awkward, but always civilized. After all, what happened in the past should stay there. Shouldn’t it?
Maybe a book of rules would be useful. But who will write it? Will the ex without an ax to grind please stand up?
