Manila paper? My maid looked blankly at me, then declared firmly, No such thing! No one knew what Manila paper was?!
The one used for covering notebooks! I was about to say. But then I remembered, notebooks are no longer “covered.” They’re plastic, with spiral spine, cheap and disposable. One didn’t neatly cover notebooks with fitted Manila paper, write one’s name and grade on the right-hand corner, and the name of the subject in the center.
The notebooks’ original cover when bought had a Bureau of Education seal with an eagle and a wreath on it. Too proletariat for colegialas?
I suppose there’s no Manila hemp anymore, either. Just nylon rope? Wrong! says my smart friend Julio Tan. Manila hemp is still very much around, being used to line the seats of—hold your breath—Mercedes Benzes and BMWs!
Bonton ink
What about Bonton ink? Does anyone remember Bonton ink? (Pang-bolpen ho ba?) Or at least the later Quink ink? Boy, I must have been around a long time!
Bonton ink was what we used in the primary grades (meaning Grade 1 to 4) after graduating from the pencil. The Bonton ink bottle was square and it had a cork stopper. The ink’s color was a dazzling blue, no other choice.
We dipped our writing pens in it. Not feather quill pens, silly, that was Jose Rizal’s time. The standard school pen had a wooden body, tapered at the tail end. Its rounded front had a slit into which the nib was inserted.
The nib should take up just enough ink in one dip to write two or three sentences. If you took in too much, the ink splattered on your uniform. You also had to be extra careful not to drop your pen to plummet to the floor. The nib would surely be twisted and you could never write properly with it again.
The old inks didn’t dry fast so we used blotters. It prevented one’s writing from getting imprinted on your hand. Blotting paper (the size of a personal letter envelope) had a coated cardboard backing sometimes with a map, or a globe or even an advertisement printed on it.
Blotter colors were pink, blue or white and you could actually read what the last person wrote if you used the same blotter (mirror image, of course). Kids who didn’t have a blotter would be gently waving their test papers to dry before submitting them. Professionals had blotters attached to half-moons that you could rock back and forth over the handwritten work.
Later on, the Bonton ink I knew disappeared. It was replaced by the quicker-drying Quink ink which went with the more sophisticated fountain pen that could store ink. It meant you were already in the higher primary grades. Quink ink colors were red (for teachers), the popular blue (for everyone), black (sad) and green (yucky).
Fountain pens
The first fountain pen I think I owned was Waterman (will check with Butch Dalisay). Later ones were Parker and Sheaffer, but I was already in college when I owned those. Parker pens struck me as too staid and formal, something my father would use.
The early fountain pens I knew had fat bodies with an elongated rubber intestine inside where ink was stored. A tiny lever on its side that you lifted up and down pumped the ink in. Alas, as the pen got old, it vomited ink. There was often some bit of ink leaking into the cover and you always had this ink stain on the inside of your third finger. Early pens and fountain pens were unsanitary implements for learning.
Mongol pencils were marked No. 1 for soft, No. 2 for medium, No. 3 for hard. Today those markings are not so reliable, or maybe people don’t care what pencils they used since there are now ballpens.
Young children used fat black pencils and short ruled writing pads. For penmanship lessons, the pads had red lines in between the regular ones for guidance. (I think doctors never heard of them).
Where I studied, there was a Kindergarten (there were some 4-year-olds since there was no minimum age requirement then), Kindergarten B (no longer eating their crayons) and Kindergarten A (ready for Grade 1). Today they would all get lumped under nursery.
The desk of the teacher was always on top of a platform. She had a long stick to point out words on the blackboard or to whack your behind (now a legal offense). Behind her was a blackboard, not a white board) with chalk to write on it. They had an accompanying rectangular packed fiber eraser. Beating chalk dust out of the erasers was an important chore of the monitor.
Our desks were individual, with hinged slanted covers that could be lifted. You could store in it books, notebooks, pad paper, pencil box, raincoat, green mango and even a pet turtle. The top right of the wooden desktop was hollow for your ink bottle.
Male Thereseans
In St. Theresa’s of the 1930s they were then still accepting boys until Grade 4, and so there are Thereseans named Nicomedes Yatco, Robert Wilson, Ramon Arevalo, Renato and Felix Ira, Alex Reyes and Felix Lacsamana. I often wonder where they are now and whether anybody remembers Bonton ink.
Come to think of it, Bonton doesn’t sound American at all. Maybe it was a Japanese brand (lots of Japanese toys at the time). Or maybe a Chinese one (like imported dikyam). Or a European one with a Singapore branch (like Bata shoes).
Oh, yes, I forgot! Before graduating to paper and pencil, we used slates. They were the size of a bond paper, and we used chalk for writing. I think we were provided sponges for erasers. What I remember is a really gross thing. Boys who lost or forgot their sponges just spat and spat on their slates and erased them with crumpled paper!
In grade school, the girls all wanted to be nuns. It was a saintly profession. We believed in the communion of saints even if we had no idea what it meant. Over and over we sang “No mas amor que el tuyo” from the Eucharistic congress of 1937.
We prayed for the conversion of Russia. We knew all nuns were bald. We were told to finish every grain of rice on our plates in sympathy for the children in China who were starving. (Now look what their grandchildren are doing to us!)
We believed that if you crossed your eyes and someone blew on them, the condition would become permanent. If your tongue would stretch long enough to lick a mole around your mouth, you would become rich. If you slept immediately after bathing with your hair wet, as your yaya said, you would become crazy. Or blind. And “Cross your heart and hope to die” was what you told your friend to do if you wanted to make sure she was telling the truth, or would do something she promised or would keep a secret.
You are invited to see my art show “Same Difference: Ganon Pa Din Ang Diperensya” on July 10, 6 p.m., at Silverlens, 2/F YMC Bldg., 2320 Don Chino Roces Ave. Ext., 1231 Makati City. Forty paintings na hindi naman lahat baliw.