The Principal : Antonio L. Rodriguez, Jr. ( 1939 - 2006)

Today I received an e-mail from the Ateneo de Zamboanga Alumni Office announcing the demise of Antonio Rodriguez. The name sounded familiar until i realized that he was my Grade School Principal in Xavier way back in the 60s when we temporarily migrated to Cagayan de Oro. I didn’t know till now that he was a native of my hometown Zamboanga City.

Part of the email :

Dear Alumni/ae,

I would like to share with you an email received from Rene Michael Baños, our alumni coordinator in Cagayan de Oro City advising us of the demise of Antonio Rodriguez of HS Class 1956, our golden jubilarian during our last Homecoming 2006. The late Tony Rodriguez was also the recipient of a special award in Cooperativism. He was not able to get his plaque in person as he was airlifted to Manila for acute pneumonia.

We also learned that his body was flown to San Antonio, Texas.

Baybee M.

As a kid then in Xavier University , he was one of my favorite Principal . I remember approaching him one day to inform him that I would be transfering to Ateneo de Zamboanga ( it was in the middle of the school year) because my father was reassigned back to Zamboanga City.

His demise deeply saddened me , as he was part of my past faded life. One by one, I see them, all of them, who had somehow made an impact on me in my later years, fade from this reality (or is it?) we call life. Then the realization that all of us, with no exemption, are headed the same way --- into oblivion. As Christians, we are taught to believe of the afterlife. Some say that we don't really die at all . Our consciousness lives on. Some believe that once we die, it's the end. the only consolation that one can really count on is when we have lived our life as we should as a Christian, or as a Hindu or Moslem , whatever, then we can at least be consoled that we would be remembered by those we left behind, and not fade into oblivion and forgotten.

Vaya con Dios, Mr. Principal ! Farewell Sir ...

Random Thoughts: The Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher In The Rye was such a book that would forever be etched in my mind .it may have influenced the outcome of whatever decisions (and indecisions ) that I may have made in the course of my journey through life.

Reading books had been my pastime in those years when one was impatient of the years and the years do seemed slow to come by. I became one with the lead character and my life seemed like chapters in that book.

In those years (1970s) it was (reading books) the only pastime, second only to Hollywood movies, that would remedy and satisfy boredom . Internet as we know it today has not been invented yet ( or at least has not been made for public use, yet) . So I would pour over books at the Ateneo de Zamboanga library and got to intimately know Perry Mason and his cases and other books of different genres. But it was Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye that became one of my favorites.

Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It’s history. It’s poetry.

That last paragraph is not mine. It's a qoute from the Catcher In The Rye, Chapter 24.