FRIDAY night. It’s supposed to be the last night of this year’s Paisanos’ reunion. Unfortunately, I can no longer be there, having things to do tonight, papers to write, blogs to update, this. But I think I’ve had my fill, my share of the fun. The retelling of old stories, the sharing of insights, the renewal of contacts and unspoken vows of friendship. The surprise at seeing one’s former classmates sporting new looks, new bulges midway and greying hairs. More furrows on the forehead perhaps. A permanent cap to cover thinning (ugh!) hairs. “O tempora! O mores!” Our old SVD teachers loved to say. Do you still use the expression, guys?
Yesterday at 3:00 in the afternoon when I registered, things had begun to pick up. I saw some familiar names in the registration paper, people from my baby boomer generation. I like to use the term. There’s a deceptive ring to it. Makes us ‘forever young.’ (Remember the Bob Dylan song?) But our pictures tell a lot. This is one of the reasons why I hate souvenir photos. They tell the harsh truths. No room for denial there. I hate mirrors too. They make me reflect, self-conscious… Enough of these musings.
Three ‘o’clock pm in the seminary on holidays means basketball, sports and freedom hour. So you know where to find people at this hour – at the basketball court. (Not the church or library, unless you’re looking for the religious or geeky types.) This is where I found Fr. Gil Cañete, one of the seminary’s better writers, sitting on the steps of the seminary chapel near the tennis court. I wanted to know where he is assigned now and what he thinks about his new assignment. I value personal insights about life experiences. It’s a smaller parish this time, he said. More free time to write? I asked. He smiled.
Our discussion of novel writing was interrupted by Fr. Ivo Acebedo Velasquez. He seemed very enthusiastic about the film ‘Heneral Luna,’ as he told us briefly about it.
Encounters like these with people from different time zones are always refreshing. They help us, seniors, to be on our toes, updated. It’s a way of expanding one’s world, our sources of vicarious experiences. They also tell us more about the people you talk to. They help us find our limits.
As in all reunions, the Holy Mass kicks it off. Well, sort of. It opens our hearts and minds, putting the occasion in its right perspective. What does a reunion mean to us, paisanos, and how different is it from other school reunions? Well, it's quite obvious. Most schools I know spend at most a day of eating and singing, capped perhaps by parades and evening shows. For us it's more than just these things. because the seminary has been literally home to us for at least a couple of years. And home is where your heart is, said Gabriel Garcia Marquez (A Hundred Years of Solitude). Most of us alumni have lived within these walls for several years, slept in its old dormitories, refreshed our often hungry stomachs in its simple refectory with food that could hardly qualify as nourishing, nurtured our young minds in old but newly painted classrooms, the lists of professor-teachers ever lengthening and fading from our memories.
There are things that never really fade away, experiences that never recede. Reunions like these reinvigorate them. A solemn mass, especially one officiated by its oldest resident, Bishop Bactol, does that in the well-composed homily. The strong, vibrant all-male choir gave me goosebumps.
The bonding comes in the evening, after the mass, where everyone partakes of the sumptuous dinner, thanks to the sponsoring classes of Leo Giron, Buboy Equipaje, Oscar Lopez et al.. They raised the funds, solicited donations, hauled in the entertainers who specialized in jazz and soul, got the tents (marked with epal…sige na la). The weather was cooperative. Not a drop of rain. But the blasted tents shielded us from a lot of fresh air from heaven. I guess everyone was perspiring too. Still we gorged on the food and drowned it with beer. Fewer and fewer people are going for the good old bahalina these days. It must have been because of Yolanda.
But the silliness of our youths breaks out on these occasions. What we were once is what we are again. The only difference being our age. Imagine a feisty Tacloban lawyer, grandson of a local revolutionary hero, taking on an empty chair to the floor because no one wants to dance with him. Or another Ateneo trained lawyer, with a posh office in Makati, marching to the organizers to tell them he wants to sing. And the emcee, a fellow lawyer, telling him he is ‘out of order.’ A fourth lawyer of the same generation finally gets his wish granted, and he goes to the stage and belts out a jazzy number, some segments of the song performed a la Bob Dylan. And he does it twice. Omigosh!
Some things never change really. Not when you’re tipsy and your audience knows who you were some 40 years back.
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