mornings in the 70s

In the 70s, waking up early was a pleasure because it meant joining Papa to buy either carabeef or pork in the market, a rickety building that stood where the present terminal is. The same building would press a woman to death when it collapsed from strong winds in 1978.

Near the left side facing the row of Bol-anon Stores was the meat section. It bustled with activity more than the stalls that sold tabaco in sugong, rice that formed a mound on wooden square boxes marked NGA, and supas like azucarada, rolling bayan, diyoy, binangkal placed inside cellophane bags that hung from tie wires.

My memory is a pastiche of faces and images: Tapingig, like a true war veteran, raising his bolo to chop meat; Nobing Pareja weighing entrails and extremities of beasts; Kulas Acevedo coaxing some tunes from his guitar while graceful smokes escaped from the Bowling Green tucked between his lips; dogs looking up, waiting for bloodstained manna to fall; the huge tree trunk that served as chopping board and whose top was dented from so much hammering; winged insects that ended their vigils in death inside the petromax that sat on an empty table.

I also remember the time when Papa and I would go to the tugbungan for this---




Fish then was sold not by the kilo but by tuhog (fish strung with a nipa midrib).

By the time we went home---with the sun still not out---people were already milling about at the intersection where Villamor Trading, Bert and Patring Yu’s Store, and Botica Curada were located. Many sat by the door of these stores that had yet to open while others stood and shared the day’s news. I would join all of them as we waited for this---




I couldn’t remember if that time there was a bakery in Tago. All I could remember was that pan de sal was brought from Tandag by a humungous, forest green delivery truck emblazoned on both sides with the word CASA. It was huge and tall, like a giant’s coffin.

As the Casa panel (until now it beats me why we call a delivery van a panel.) zipped past, I would run after it ahead of other kids until it stopped at the place where Alondoy now sells pudding. Always at this area!

I would position myself just an inch from the back door so that when it swung open, I’d lose myself in the aroma of oven-fresh bread. And even before I could open my eyes, people would crowd behind me, shouting a babel of monetary values to the man who put bread inside a brown bag made of pattern paper, securing it by twisting it at both ends. (I wonder why bakeries don’t pack bread like this anymore.)

I’d bring the pan de sal to our hovel of a home, which was where Curada’s garage now stands, and there I would open the brown pattern paper bag and engulf myself once more with the sweet aroma.

Waiting on the table was Mama’s tsokolate. Earlier she had put this heavenly concoction in a baterol where she twirled her grooved wooden boloniyo to make the tsokolate di mabugto, meaning thicker, sweeter, and creamier. Poison never tasted so good!

When we were done eating the pan de sal that we dunked into our tsokolate, I’d put the empty pattern paper bag over my head like a sailor’s cap, never really caring if the pan de sal’s pulbos blotched my face.

Ahh, to be a carefree kid in the 70s!