Reunions - do I attend or not?

          In general, people tend to be excited about reunions of any kind - clan reunion, class reunion, etc.  But I have been thinking that may be this is not what all people think.  I know people who would say yes when asked to attend one but does not appear on the very day and there are people who explicitly detest reunions. Are there as many opinions on reunions as there are people? I hope not.  But maybe there are categories.
          For sure, people who are very successful look forward to attending reunions.  This is a given.  For why would he forego flaunting his material wealth or perhaps academic achievement.  In this case, material success seems to win by a far margin.  Ladies who married into riches may well belong to this category.   And why would a failure want to go to a group of enviable, successful high school or college classmates just to be reminded about how unlucky he was.  But those whose career is marketing might see this as an opportunity to sell all those 'dons' and 'doñas' goods or insurance or whatever.  But I do know of somebody who did not amount to anything and yet so cheerfully enjoys all this reunions to the extent of organizing small ones.Maybe he is just a good-natured guy or perhaps he enjoys free drinks and meals every now and then (this is the condescending me speaking).  Failures who have successful children feel that their failure has been wiped off forever.  I agree that success is not only the things that you yourself achieved but also how you raised successful children.  But I have no high regards for reunions with the children attending.  You know why?  Because the children would be the theme and focus of all conversations; they would steal the spotlight, so to speak. from those people who are the genuine focus of reunions.
          But what about the single people vs the 'happily' married ones?  Do single people feel uncomfortable attending reunions?  Single people are of different kinds.  There are those who have stayed single all of their lives and these people are very much able to muster courage to face ex-classmates and be able to answer questions of why they have stayed single all this time while at the back of his mind that everybody thinks he or she might be gay.  Or that she is a single mother, and this is a lot tougher to a very judgemental society like ours.  The other kind are those that have been separated or divorced somewhere else.  Definitely, those that belong to this group are attendees to reunions.  This is because our society values the adage of 'it is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all'.  But conversations with them are heavily weighed on philosophical rationalizations of difficult relationships without giving any direct hint about their own specific cases.  There is a tendency that his case might be the topic creating the much needed attention to himself.  To the ladies who are separated, this is a taboo topic, and all kinds of brushing aside will be demonstrated.  But people who are genuinely interested may pry into the specifics, feeling that the 30 years or more since they saw each other were just days ago that close friendship still exists and that the sanctity of privacy could be waived for the mean time.
          This does not mean that reunions are not valuable social interactions.  They are indeed to my opinion.  And also the stereotypes I imagined may not fit exactly any kind - they may overlap or perhaps altogether disproven. It all depends on who and what character one has.  So let us all do it and enjoy reunions.
         

The Big Guava Tree

Whenever I see a big guava fruit (now named guapple), I am reminded of my high school days.  I studied in Quirino High School in Project 3, Quirino District, Quezon City in Metro Manila.  I also spent a good deal of my childhood in these areas.  Most of my classmates live near the school which includes my classmate Benjamin Ramos who live in Acacia Street (if my memory serves me right).  They have a big guava tree welcoming everybody in their very nice residence there.  Now that I'm reminiscing it, I can't help by salivate over the thought of a nicely sliced guava dipped in Ilocano vinegar and sprinkled with salt. I don't remember now the name of the vinegar but it is comparable to the red wine vinegar I usually use in my cooking nowadays.  Ben's place is THE place for all 10 male high school classmates saved one who did not really socialize much with us.  It is the place where I drank my first alcoholic drink, the place where I drank to unconsciousness and the place where bets were placed during the 'Thrilla in Manila' days.  I always associate Ben's place with the guava with vinegar and salt.  It was such a wonderful memory that I always cherish up to this day.  Thanks to Ben and to her family who always welcomed visitors in their home, not to mention the countless sleepovers that took place there.

Boracay during Holy Week

          When I was a teenager (long time ago), holy week meant that my sisters and brother would be stuck in the house for a week and together bear the intense heat of summer.  Our mother would be blurting out commands for errands or any other household chore help.  It was also a time not to try to do menial things on a Good Friday or even on a Black Saturday. I could go on and on listing down all the donts on these two days.  But nowadays, when Holy Week is just around the corner, people start planning and budgeting. For what? For a big beach exodus.  Here in the Visayas, the big word and the place to see and be seen (in the words of my friend Tukayo) is Boracay.

          I have spent a number of Holy Weeks in Boracay in my 20 years or so here in Panay.  Just mention the name of the place during  Holy Week and it would elicit envy, excitement, among other things among the young ones.  At the gym, it is commonplace to hear one saying to another at the locker room while looking at his half-naked self in the mirror - is this body ready for Boracay?  The first time I heard it, I thought that people are joining Bikini Contests during this time but would be surprised when I looked at them and thought their bodies were far from being prepared for such display of narcissism.

          When I announced in FB that I drove from Iloilo to Caticlan and back, two of my friends could not help but comment.  In summary, they hoped that the effort and most especially the splurging was worth it.  Finally, they were unable to control their distaste for Boracay as a place of wild, rowdy crowd and a place to see and be seen.  While I agree partly with them, they were not altogether describing the reality there.  For one, there are three stations there -Station 1 and 2 are mostly party areas but Station is the cheapest and the quietest area there.  So there you are, there are choices.  If you are a party animal, go to these two stations but if you want serenity, you can have it.  In other beach resorts, you do not have any choices but the deafening silence.  Another is that at night, the eat-all-you-can dinners are competing with each other and the result is that they try pulling down their prices to outdo each other to the benefit of the beach goers.  I have been to a smaller but similar island in Negros Occidental, food is so pricey since there is no other entity to compete with.  At any rate, the sunset and other sceneries and the people are the attraction of Boracay not to mention the number of movie stars that go there year in and year out.  I enjoyed it so much during the Holy Week that I am going back this week.

After such a long time

Hello readers (if there are)

This is the first time in almost a year that I am back to this blog site.  Now I understand how some people could have their blog sites continue to churn out articles without really trying hard like I do.  Maybe I lacked time, maybe I lacked inspiration or maybe I was not born a writer after all.  At any rate, here I am now writing and how frequent and for how long I do not know.  My apologies for those who noticed that I stopped writing who I suspect there are none.  So I think I should voice out some opinions soon.  Thanks for stopping by