Camanchile Drive

Except for the corner street sign that says “Camanchile Drive”, I would not have recognized the street where I grew up. In fact, missing the street sign, I walked past it a couple of times, my direction a little bit disoriented. It was only the sign that assured me that I was on the right street. The familiar landmarks that I knew then were gone.

Upon entering the street was the ( or used to be ) Villarosa house. It was a semi bungalow with a nice den at the basement. I used to walk past this house daily on my way home from school. It would be about 4 to 5 pm and I could hear the Ray Conniff Singers from the den. Or once in a while, Santana’s Oye Como Va. The Villarosas had nice “sounds” down there.

A big Acacia tree greets you a few meters away. It was so huge that it blocks the sun and offers a welcome shade for those traversing this road. That was the landmark that I grew up with. But to my disappointment, the tree was no longer there. Instead, a big tall cold concrete wall stands in its place. The wall extends almost at the end of the street where you could see a busy highway… Veterans Avenue, I think.

Just past the Acacia tree was the Smoyer’s Compound. It consists of rows of apartments where we lived for a while and a moderate sized pineapple plantation. Or was it papaya? I’m not quite sure now. Those were several years ago, like 20 to 30 years . Memories had a way of playing tricks with your mind sometimes and I could not even remember the particular street where we lived. The apartment’s gone now, so is the mini plantation. And yes, the big ( and scary during my time) balete tree fronting the apartment. A half finished open basketball court now stands between where the balete tree and the apartment once stood.

At the far end of Camanchile Drive , at the right corner also once stood the Manuel residence. A bank now stand it its place.

Just at the back of the Manuel residence along Veterans Avenue was the Cuyugan’s Hotel. Actually a cluster of cottages. As I approached the gate
I noticed that it was locked with a chained padlock. The gate itself tells the whole story. It was rusted and I could see unattended grass.inside the place. Some cottages still stood there although I could not tell if people still live there. From my perspective, the place looked abandoned. Although I could hear a dog somewhere.

I walked all the way back to the Astoria Hotel. It was a 15-minute walk. I wanted desperately to feel the old Zamboanga I once new …

But things change. Nothing really last forever. Only memories.

A wish to step back in time

(N.Bondoc,1999 Poetry )


A Lament to Time ( Why must it all end ? )
Wish you were here
just like the times
when everything else was young...
nothing seems to go wrong
for everything was
bliss
Wish I could go back
to the
time of innocence
of youth's fresh and
ecstatic fervor of going
through life's unending zest...
Why must all good memories
end ?
Why must it all end ?
Why end
at all ?

On SLRs, Film and digitals

Photography has always been my passion ever since I laid my hands on my first camera since I was 10 or something. My first camera was a Kodak instamatic. It’s one of those point and shoot cameras where even a kid like me and everybody else could take pictures, without having to fiddle and figure out the lens opening, and shutter speed. At that time, I thought all cameras were the same. It was only in College that I discovered the joy of shooting with an SLR camera. SLR stands for Single Lens Reflex. Several brands were At the forefront of the SLR market such as Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Olympus and other less known brands. Owning a Nikon SLR camera was (and is) a status symbol. But the price of the Nikon was too much for me, so I settled for a Cosina SLR. I put a Pentax135mm telephoto on the body and took some really great pictures . Then I bought a Pentax MG with an ME Motor Grip on it ( see above picture) . The Pentax MG served me well thru the years.

It was only when I caught my first job at COA that I was able to get a second hand Nikon FG and a couple of lenses. Then in the year 2001, got myself a brand new Nikon F75 then added a battery grip for a more professional look. By the next couple of years, however, some advanced amateur photo enthusiasts have shifted to Digital Photography . A lot of photographers , however, were reluctant to move to digital because of its inferior quality compared to film. . By that time, the highest pixel an SLR digital camera could offer was around 6 megapixels.

Guess what… last week I had a chance to shoot a digital SLR camera. It was a Nikon D40 and the camera just look and feels like your old traditional film SLR. So I think my transition ( if ever I decide to) to digital photography would not be much of a problem. As for picture quality, digitals have come a long way.

Reminiscence

Pass in Review

The Ateneo has large fields with green bermuda grass . The field at the back of the school was where the PMT( Preparatory Military Training) and ROTC ( Reserved Officer’s Training Corps ) made their pass in review and weekly parade drills ( I miss these, particularly ). Ateneans were proud of their military uniforms. Most often I would sit under the big Acacia tree and watch in awe the cadets pass by during their marching drills. I imagined myself in one of those crisp gray Air Force uniforms and indeed, several years later, I was donning the much coveted Air Force gray uniform with the rank of cadet 2nd Lieutenant. A year later, the gray uniform was discarded in favor of the green fatigue jungle uniform and PHILCAG hat.This was the kind of hat worn by Philippine Troops then in Vietnam in support of the U.S. forces.

Horrors of War

It was also in the 1970s when pockets of Muslim secessionists began their armed rebellion against the government .For us Christians, we consider them *savages”.For indeed they were. Nobody , I think, could really fault us for such perception for they beheaded and mutilated Christians . I remember passing by a morgue one afternoon after school with many people milling around , some with tears in their eyes, others hysterical, others simply watched silently in horror as dead bodies were unloaded from a truck . There , from survivors’ account, were tales of horror and rage. I learned that a passenger bus was stopped by armed men and separated Muslims from the Christians and then began to massacre the Christians. Some were beheaded, others mutilated.

The Muslims referred to Christians as Filipinos, which only showed that they never considered themselves Filipinos.

But that is altogether a different story which I would recount in my later memoirs( But I never did ).

( Picture above was scanned from my 1969 Beacon yearbook )

A Day Off

Car Repair

Called in sick for work today . But halfway thru the morning was feeling much better and decided to have the car’s front suspension have its much needed check because of suspicious noises coming from the front under chassis. The mechanic said that both tie rods needed to be replaced. The sheet where the wheel gearbox is attached was patched up with acetylene. Shelled out about Php 2,200.00 for the repair. The job was over in less than 3 hours and the car was in good shape again. My car’s a 1977 K30 Toyota Corolla sedan . Not exactly uour kind of muscle car. But it still serves me and the family well, No trouble with the engine. Paint job is excellent, except for some irritating scratches probably made by some moron with nothing else to do with his life but pick on some helpless car on parking areas.


1969 BEACON

In the afternoon, I decided to help out the wife ( in the office right now) by cleaning up the bedroom. I bet she’ll be delighted.

The bedroom closet is a mess, with assorted debris (mostly my own) accumulated through the years. About 20 minutes sort later, I found my 1969 Beacon Yearbook (ATENEO) still in one piece, though the hardbound cover edges had been eaten by mice or ants or something. Funny how time flies, huh? I looked at my grade school class picture and remembered those familiar faces .Hey, that’s me ! I looked funny. But so did my classmate’s faces. Why do old pictures always looked funny and horrible?

Too bad no 1973 High School yearbook . It was the year of Marcos martial law and publication was prohibited then.

Got to go and continue with the cleanup. I guess I’ll scan some pictures from the yearbook and post it later.