Those Days Are Gone!

The sunset was waving adios behind my back through the rubber tree branches. I could feel a change in the cool breeze signaling the beginning of the holiday season. I took stock of the cement wall and roof that envelops what I call home. It’s warm during the rainy season, oven-like temperature in summer. I took a quick trip back in time when life was simple and air-conditioners were unheard of in the old village.

Though the old houses are gone, most of us grew up `neath tin roofs and wooden houses that cool-off at dusk. How soothing a feeling to hear the rain drops tap dancing on tin roof as we pull our Navy blankets to call it a night. It has served as therapy for most young boys who had to endure stress from wood chopping and gathering, animal feeding at the family ranch or grass pulling along long lines of corn and taro.

Occasionally, I could feel tiny drizzles gently descending on my face when the rainstorm is a bit heavy. Nature’s pyrotechnics (lightning) across the heavens was an entertainment in itself through window cracks. There was no TV then.

People in the old village really had a sense of community. Each family looks out for the welfare of others. When traditional fishermen bring in their day’s catch, neighbors are given a plateful each for lunch or supper. Fish then was a poor man’s diet. Even at school, it’s almost embarrassing to admit you ate fish. We never knew that it was this diet that has kept most indigenous people away from fatal heart diseases. As we learn of healthy diet, we learn that we either change back to this humble dish or we’d be part of the welcoming committee at CHC’s ICU or morgue for fatal strokes and heart attacks.

How humbling to have benefited from the golden days of humility and tranquillity when life was simple and so richly satisfying. Most of us have earned our permanent scars of hard work and exemplary work ethics. Those were the days when young boys head to family farms after school or join their elders net fishing along the leeward side of the island. After a cold shower, it’s time to hit the books completing homework for the next day’s class. There’s hardly any energy left after expending them in family oriented chores. My most egregious crime was peeping through a hole at a movie theater in Chalan Kanoa (old Herman Guerrero’s in Lali Fo`).

If I may be allowed redundancy, those were the days when parents speak highly of learning how to type with classic Underwood or Royal typewriters. It’s big community news when someone is hired by the Navy or Interior to do clerical work. Those days are gone! Young kids today learn how to use computers and either they attain computer literacy or they’d miss the boat altogether. It’s the thing of the future. Who knows what would replace this technological innovation in the other millennium.

Those were the days too when we even steal young coconuts or sugar cane at the neighbor’s front or backyards. It wasn’t an intentional thing to harm our neighbors. It’s just the locally twisted bravery of insulting an arrogant old lady or wisemen of the village. I recall a friend tying a sugar cane bunch one evening. If it weren’t for the tin fence that came along with the sugar cane bunch, we would have made it to the beach free. But it came tumbling behind the jeep making loud noises that woke up the entire neighborhood. Man, were we worried sick when police officers came along and squeezed our ears. I knew in an instant that I’d get the belt when I get home. It wasn’t the whipping that hurts, but mom’s deathly words recanting the Ten Commandments (Thou shall not steal) as she slowly swings that belt. I often wonder too why is it that mom’s light spanking hurts more than dad’s? Geeeesusssss!

I recall too coming home from class after PE hungry as a dog. There was nothing in the pots sitting atop traditional wooden-lit stove. The only quick choice is to drink faucet water and fill up your belly until it hurts from all the chlorine the Navy dumps into our water system. After that, head to catechism and hope you’d make it through the evening rosary (Ora Santa) before dusk. Heading home, I’d start a prayer of hope that there would be something to eat. I head straight for the faucet for another refill. I found out that even such an object could be a faithful partner in difficult times. Well, those golden days are gone!