Have a good Boo-Tee Hee-Full Day!

Have a ‘Boo-Tee Hee-full’ dayCoined the above word while working with the Student Council at San Vicente Elementary School in their planning for their annual Halloween celebrations. It now stands to mean a cross between Boo-hoo-hoo and Brouhaha. In short, to wish someone a BooTeeHeefull Day is to say, at least: Surprise yourself! Be alert! Be happy! This would be comparable to an older expression: “The Spirit is upon you. Have a good one!” More recently, George Lucas’ Star Wars would get us saying: “The Force be with you!”

One should discern by now that there is no single drift on this. We offer only a mosaic of images, in this season of human follies and our seemingly contradictory delights in laughing at them. Take last Saturday, for example. Our school young ’uns were sorting out what they needed for Monday’s candygrams, a student council fundraiser. I had to run out to get plastic bags so I hightailed it to one of our office supplies’ store down Beach Road, and also dropped off some stuff south of Kilili Beach. A normal 15-minute errand turned out to be a full hour.

First, there was the frantic crowd doing their last minute Halloween décor shopping. Then, I ran into the Democratic Party’s flag-waving crowd by Oleai. Spilling into the edge of the driving lane, it was obviously meant to slow down traffic. And it did, rather irritatingly so, since I was in a hurry to do my errands and get back to the dozen children waiting back at the school for their candygram wrappers.

In earlier days, candidate recognition, along with a touch of neighborhood support, made the side of the street waving routine an appropriate and effective tool. I had seen this tactic used well in Hawaii, Guam and now, the CNMI. I thought it most effective when I chanced on the BB tandem by their lonesome, standing at the corner of the Kagman turn-off on the Back Road very early in the morning before the last election. Looking fresh and eager, they stood in front of where the new Mobil gas station is now situated, smiling and waving their yellow pennant to the passing traffic heading for work.

In contrast, last week’s BB round-the-island cavalcade and the street waving in front of the Kristo Rai Church the week before only got some of us gray suit types a chance to consider reworking our sartorial couture. Neither events appealed to my sense of public relations and appeal. I suspect, if my sentiments were any measure, the undecided one’s in this election were neither induced to change nor make up their minds by these events.

During our school’s Halloween party last Friday, when the earlier maturing young girls tried to find ways to get the boys interested in dancing, they sought permission from the supervising teachers to allow the boys to break dance. They claimed that it would crack the proverbial ice and get the juices flowing, or in this case, the bodies undulating. Unfortunately, the existing choreography in the break dancing routine involves neck harming and back breaking moves which enhances gymnastic and acrobatic skills in the gym rather than graciously display of body finesse on the quadrangle’s cobble stones.

The young boys were undeterred and executed their fancy footwork in front of the stage. It became clear to this old foggy that the allure of the dance is the subterranean motif of warfare, a symbolic encounter of gangs, ala the classic gang encounters in the movie/play West Side Story. The dance parties line up against each other to execute taunting gestures against each other through dance steps and body movements.

When young Kevin Villagomez went down on his fours, crawled to the other side of the dance floor, and raised one leg like a dog would on a fire hydrant, before the “opposing” dance team, I finally got a clear picture. The intensity and passion surrounding break dancing is akin to the Gangs of New York, expressed in dance!

I find a similar sentiment present in our street waving and round-island cavalcades, neighborhood pocket meetings and house yard caucuses. They are taunting displays of force and number. As has been expressed in many written comments, they hardly clarify issues nor enlighten the electorate on party platforms and candidate commitments. Instead, as the hodge-podge of parked cars aligned fronting Heinz and David’s yard meetings at dusk on Msgr. Martinez boulevard near Movie Station shows, we get instead an irritating example on how the display of force often runs against the grain of common order and routine decorum.

Which brings me back to Saturday. After dropping off a delivery, I tried a U-turn from Kilili Beach to head toward Chalan Msgr. Guerrero to no avail. The Ben & Tim Cavalcade was in progress so I went with the flow and turned into the Post Office, headed to Chalan Tun Joaquin Doi toward NMC, and thought I was clearly on my way back to school.

But lo, and behold, I ran into the same cavalcade on Msgr. Martinez Blvd. When I attempted a left turn, the uniformed police officer directed me to turn right. Going over to where he stood, I explained that my apartment was only a block away to the left. “I am sorry, sir. You can only turn right,” he sternly declared. So I drove to a nearby parking lot and waited for a gap in the cavalcade of festooned green and white vehicles. Chalk up one disenchanted electorate!

It is a season for Boo-hoo-hoos and Brouhahas, so we more than endure the follies. We deign to laugh and dare celebrate them.