Of my childhood escapades and mischief, stealing mangoes stayed vivid in my memory. On my way home from school, I joined other kids hurl sticks or stones at the clusters of ripe mangoes tantalizingly hanging on the branches. The kids would eventually disperse when the orchard caretaker’s invective had reached crescendo. The arthritic old man would issue his threats of cutting our testicles and penises at the window of his hut quite a distance away. Spared of any physical harm, the kids would return to the old mango tree near the river and the old man would keep on yelling invective until the kids took heed and walked away with their pockets bulging with mangoes.
There were also wild guavas and blackberry trees to climb and gather fruits; adventures that could lead to bruises and fall injuries and the perpetual admonitions from my mother who was weary of accidents.
However, I spent most of my youthful energies to safer and more productive endeavors. With Rose Senados, a tomboyish girl of my age, I drained idle rice fields and sections of the canals along the highway to catch mud fish and catfish, unmindful of the cakes of excreta left by wallowing water buffaloes but on alert for venomous rice snakes that took refuge at crevices. With childish abandon, we laid siege on the slippery mud fish and catfish slithering in the mud.
The Senados house stood near the right side of ours. Rose had an elder brother, Marcelino, who survived two suicide and three homicide attempts and a freak accident. Unable to bear the pain in his neck, swollen by mumps, he jumped headlong from the ladder of their elevated house. He suffered severe stiff neck and long after the mumps was gone he was still walking like a zombie, unable to turn his head. One day, drunk, he poured kerosene on his head. A neighbor, who saw him running aflame, came to his rescue by dousing slops as he passed by the kitchen. The fire was totally extinguished by a wet doormat but his head had to be cleaned of moringa leaves, fish bones and bits of corn grits. For days, his burnt scalp stank and maggots fed on the rotten tissues. His crinkled ears, disfigured right hand and ugly stomach scars became perpetual reminders of his follies. Much later, when I was already out for my college studies, Marcelino had three deadly fights that resulted to a gunshot in the stomach that spilled his intestines, a stab wound in the abdomen and three lost fingers. He was declared as literally hard headed when a falling coconut broke on his head. The six incidents which happened within a span of two decades eventually made him levelheaded and sober.
My brother Silvestre and I waded and swam in greenish pool waters to gather tangkong. Mother would sauté the swamp spinach tops and tender leaves with oil and soy sauce for our viand. We gathered feeds for the pigs. The friendly hired hand that operated the old corn mill at the town proper allowed us to glean the drifts of corn bran and grits. The half-sack of corn bran that we collected for a day’s gleaning was enough for a week’s ration of the few heads of pigs that our parents raised in the backyard. The corn bran was mixed with slops, tangkong or chopped banana stalk.
In my elementary school days, television was unknown and access to AM radio airwaves was supplied through a cable system introduced by an enterprising businessman in town. Subscribers did not mind listening to the same selected programs since portable radio sets were not yet popular then. My parents could not afford the subscription so I went to the house of Sergio Villame, about a hundred steps to the left side of ours, to hear the episodes of “Korak, Ang Hari Sa Kalasangan” and “Kapitan Kinsi Saysienta.” The first thriller was a localized adaptation of “Tarzan,” the second, of “Superman.”
