What are on this page:
C. Do things happen for a reason?
C. Do things happen for a reason?
B. My first glimpse of the grandeur that was Rome
A. "Things happen for a reason"
by Roger M
“It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.”
…..William Ernest Henley (1875)
[Note: Being a valedictorian, JoeGon (Jose Gonzales for short) was a real trailblazer. But it was against his grains to talk neither about his own achievements nor for someone to write about them. To be true to that singularity, I’ll be writing, instead, about his personality as a high school classmate and friend for more than half of a century.]
A rousing call at 5am on Nov. 14, 2008, California time, has shockingly signaled to me the end of a friendship which I have treasured for 52 years. The caller was Fil Olegario from Henderson, NV and his words were “’Manong Joe’ is gone.” ‘Manong Joe’ is JoeGon, his first cousin and the valedictorian of our batch, Class ’59, from the Mangatarem National High School (MNHS). I remained speechless for a moment as I cleared a lump in my throat --- an attempt to subdue the grievousness of my grief. But hardened by a strong conviction that is deeply rooted on the temporariness of human life on earth, I quickly picked myself up and mechanically asked Fil: “What has he died of?”
Since JoeGon hasn’t been sick of any lingering illness, the cause of his death --- collapse at mid-noon in the hot open air while overseeing the leveling of a newly bought hilly beachfront lot by a paid operator using his newly-acquired bulldozer in Mangas, Sual, Pangasinan --- suggests only one thing: heat wave.
Three omens
As I hanged up the phone after the talk with Fil, it eerily dawned on me (my hindsight is often sharper than my foresight) that JoeGon had already given me the sign that his time on earth is coming to an end soon. He gave it to me in the same place where he gave it to class-members nine months before --- at his house on Gen. Luna St. in Mangatarem.
The sign he gave me happened during my visit to his house in Mangatarem in April, 2007 and consisted of three omens: his inordinate and newly found fascination with the “All Seeing Eye” (ASE aka “Eye of the Providence”. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDOfzwMfboY), (Foto #1), his asking me to plant a tree so he has something to remember me by, (Foto #2); and, while on our way to the table to have lunch together, an impulsive pull on my hand to briefly pose with him (Foto #3) on the steps of the stairway leading to the rooms upstairs while asking Mima, his wife, to take a photo of us.
Ominous last Mangatarem meeting
What brought me to Mangatarem to rendezvoused with JoeGon in April 2007, I can’t recall now. Though I arrived quite late (10pm), he and Mima was patient enough to wait for me so we can have dinner together. At that time, they have newly bought the lot adjoining their backyard and JoeGon was busy converting it into a garden. The following morning shortly after breakfast, JoeGon asked me to come with him to his new garden. I closely followed his heels as we skirted a deep excavation which he had made into a fishing pond. After passing the iron gate, we swerved to the left and came to a stop before an image on the concrete wall --- a replica of a huge eye with a pupil as large as a toddler’s ball hanging from above. On top of the eye was a big letter “G”, the first letter of his family name. For about five minutes, he lectured me on the symbolism and occultism of ASE and how America’s founding fathers were hounded by it. (I regret having failed to ask him his reason for constructing the ASE on that spot). Knowing him to be always down-to-earth pragmatist who never pried beyond the boundaries of the physical earth, he struck me as having suddenly transformed into a transcendentalist who was reaching out into another world.
I have a penchant for talking and it comes with a problem. Proof of this was the constant comment I got in my report card from my high school teachers: “He exercises too much freedom of speech.” And what is the problem? Once my mouth starts shooting, I can hardly stop!
Anyway, during that particular morning, I must have ruined JoeGon’s peaceful wake-up composure by talking and talking when he suddenly cut me short in a raised voice: “Roger, you cannot solve all the problems of the world!” On hearing that, I reflected for a moment and thought maybe he was right. The problems of the world are for Pres. Obama and other world leaders to solve.
At one point during our garden talk, he picked up one of the seedlings strewn around (whose roots were still wrapped in plastic for transport while waiting replanting) and said to me: “Can you plant this so I have something to remember you by?” The tree he selected turned out to be a “Tree of Life” aka “Miracle Tree” or “malunggay” as is commonly known in the Philippines.
Not wanting to spoil JoeGon’s humor any moment longer, I walked away from what he was absorbedly doing (building a bridge to span a small meandering irrigation canal) and surveyed the yard bordering the ASE. What I saw at the other side of the fence was so tempting not to yield to it: a log sawyer’s (one who cuts logs with a large saw) workplace with a wood slab of ample width being laid out like a rectangular table under the cool shade of a tall tamarind tree. I quickly flattened my back on the slab and forget about the worries of the world in what could be my soundest one-hour sleep during that episode of my Mangatarem visit.
I regained consciousness by a voice seemingly coming from the bowels of the earth. It was JoeGon’s yell telling me to wake up because the table was ready for lunch. That was when we had the stairway photo together.
“Stay healthy, don’t die yet!”
I mentioned above about JoeGon’s ‘adieu’ to a group of Class ’59 members. It took place during the January, 2008 Eye Medical Mission (EMM). After the Brgy Ponglo Baleg clinic, the 4th of seven of such clinics in as many barangays, JoeGon invited the group to a dinner at his house on Gen. Luna St. in Mangatarem (Foto #4). In that gathering, he prodded the class-members to “Stay healthy, don’t die yet. Let’s all see each other during the ‘Golden Reunion’.” The Golden Reunion was then scheduled to be held exactly a year away.
I came to know about JoeGon’s ironical statement from one class-member (Emong Mondala) who was present during the meeting with JoeGon. While pausing for a one-minute silent prayer in front of JoeGon’s ashes in his home garden In Mangatarem during the Cocktail and Bonding portion of the Golden Reunion on Jan. 23, 2008, Emong sidled up to me and told me about JoeGon’s “Don’t die yet” statement. Maybe, JoeGon had subconsciously intended to say it in “reverse psychology”.
Affinity to class reunions
By nature, JoeGon was a very private person; he was not bent to throwing a party to celebrate any momentous occasion that comes by, providential or not, nor go to join parties to celebrate the glory of others. He was, however, attracted to join in the celebration of Class ‘59’s reunions. In the 1986 “Silver Reunion” which he and his family attended, he came up with the “on the spot” idea of “Self-introduction” portion of the program and emceed it himself. In the 2002 RINA 1 reunion, he emceed again the program at the Red Canyon Park where Class topnotcher-attendees repeated their graduation speeches. In 2006, he and Mima went home to Mangatarem to beef up Class ’59's group for participation in the MNHS Grand Reunion event. In the 2007 RINA 4, he and Mima not only acted as hosts for the occasion; he served also as our mini-bus driver for picking up and bringing the attendees back between their respective hotels and following sites: beach, botanical garden, Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (CBBT) and MacArthur Memorial Park in Norfolk.
In January, 2008, JoeGon and Mima were in Mangatarem for some important things to do. From the events of that period, JoeGon had his sight enthusiastically fixed on January 23-24, 2009, the date of the “Golden Reunion” which was exactly a year away. On a date two months before the Class’ Jubilee (Nov. 14, 2008) was to happen, JoeGon died.
What went wrong? (Watch for the coming of the article “Is Class ’59 bedeviled as Batch '13'”)
Historic meeting
I retired as seaman in 1994 and in the following year, I landed a job as instructor at a Training Center for seamen in Intramuros, Manila. In January 2006, JoeGon and Mima made a trip to Mangatarem to join our Class ’59 batch in attending the Grand Reunion event at MNHS. I and Turing Bautista made elaborate preparations for the event: beribboned “buri” hats and white t-shirt with words “”Batch 13 – Lucky Batch” in front and Class’ motto at the back – “What matters is NOT the Years in your Life. It IS the Life in your Years.”
The 2006 MNHS Grand Reunion (Foto #5) was historic and memorable for Class ’59 and me: twice it brought face-to-face four (JoeGon, Amelia Olegario-Flores, yours truly and Fil Olegario) of its topnotchers (first was during the reunion’s activities at the school grounds and second was during an elegant dinner gathering.) The second occasion, a “house warming” dinner party to mark the completion of the remodeling of the Jazmin-Olegario’s ancestral home on Maravilla St., afforded me for the first time to rub elbows with Mangatarem elites. At one instant during the reception, the four of us were huddled in one corner of the area talking and exchanging notes of each other’s past. What a missed rare opportunity not to have photographed that face-to-face encounter!
Leaving Mangatarem for Manila the following day, JoeGon has gifted me with warm parting words: “Roger, whenever you come to Mangatarem, stay here in the house. That’s your room.” He pointed to me a renovated small room which was the same room he used to occupy during our high school days with its window overlooking Gen. Luna St. I wanted to be true to what I promised JoeGon but I was also careful not to abuse his and his wife’s hospitality. When they were not in town and I needed to journey to Mangatarem in connection with Class ’59 matters, I stayed in the house of Turing Bautista, a Class ’59 member who lives in Cabaruan. For one thing, Turing has a car and was only willing to drive me whenever and wherever I wanted to go around town.
The die is cast
Shortly after we have settled down in the living room of his modest Virginia Beach, VA house coming from the airport where he and his wife met us to begin our two-day RINA 4 get-together on September 5, 2007 (Foto #6), JoeGon announced to us: “I have retired. I have gotten my dual citizenship and will look for a beachfront lot in the Philippines where I’m going to spend the rest of my life.”
Judging from what I learned of what happened, there seemed to be an inexorable cosmic force that pulled JoeGon to buy that hilly seafront lot in Mangas, Sual, Pangasinan where he breathed his last. While searching one day along the Sual Bay coast coming from the NAPOCOR plant, they came to a crossroad: the national highway that bends to the right and a dirt road to the left going to Mangas peninsula. They took the dirt road. Allegedly, JoeGon prodded their driver to keep driving on despite Mima’s vehement insistence that they ended their search for the day and go back home to Mangatarem. After driving for some time, they came to a seafront lot with a pier structure and a caretaker’s house on it. They inquired from the caretaker, have learned that the next lot was for sale, asked for the name of the owner and how he could be contacted, negotiated with him and eventually bought the property for a large sum. What they bought was a small hill whose coastal side slopes 45 degrees to the sea and whose foot is continuously lapped by it.
JoeGon died from collapse at mid-day in the open air at Mangas with only the bulldozer operator as his companion. When help has arrived from Mangatarem which is more than an hour’s drive, he was rushed to Dagupan City hospital where he was pronounced officially dead. In her desire to move on quickly and do the immense grieving privately, Mima had JoeGon’s remains cremated without autopsy and set a date for scattering his ashes in Mangas Bay in front of the lot. On the appointed date, the sea became dangerously choppy. Mima canceled the scattering plan, erected a pedestal in JoeGon’s garden with words of affection and “No Mercy” inscriptions on the side and had the urn containing his ashes perched on it.
Had he not died, JoeGon’s dream of a retirement lifestyle was nothing less than exotic. On one of my trips to Mangatarem after JoeGon’s death, Mima has shown me the detailed development plan of their Mangas property which included a rest house and a pier for berthing a pleasure yacht.
Recurring dream
Not long after his death, JoeGon appeared in a dream to Fil Olegario. In the dream, the three of them (JoeGon, Fil and Mima) were talking in the ground floor of his Mangatarem house when JoeGon stood up and gestured to Fil to follow him to the door to go outside. The dream, however, was instantly cut short by a phone ring. It was Fil’s niece calling from another state.
Occasionally since then, JoeGon still appears in a dream to Fil.
The quintessential JoeGon
Who was JoeGon? Strictly speaking, what you see in JoeGon as a person is “what you get”. He never wore a façade nor donned any artificiality. As a person, he is a stickler for modesty and duty to the point of being ruthless even to himself. He expected people to follow his norm, questioned their culture if they don’t and applied to himself what he wanted to apply to others.
No sooner had I stood by the wayside to have a better view of the cruise dinner show during Class ‘59’s reunion in Virginia Beach, VA in September, 2007 which JoeGon and Mima hosted than I heard Fil Olegario whispering to my ear: “Manong Joe said go to your seat.” I felt chastened, obeyed but suffered in silence.
One visit to Mangatarem with JoeGon, he asked me, after being engaged in a conversation by a drunk cousin: “Why are people like that?” I explained to him that by culture, naïve lowly Filipinos are typically shy and need a drink of “bottled courage” in order to muster self-confidence when speaking to highly respected people like him. JoeGon simply had no tolerance for such cultural faux pas.
JoeGon’s deep sense of modesty made him shun publicity, ostentatious display of wealth and indulgence in the luxuries of life. Fil Olegario recalled that when JoeGon was doing his residency at UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) on his arrival in the U.S. from the Philippines, he lived in an apartment in the school campus that was modestly furnished.
It’s often said that most people have high standards for others but not for themselves. Not for JoeGon. What he wanted to apply to others, he also applied it to himself. (See “Jose E. Gonzales’ uniqueness: His Unforgiving Work Ethics” in “Uniqueness” page).
JoeGon was a “chip off the old block.” He was an exact copycat of his father who was quiet, reserved and not given to taking things lightly or playfully. (Foto #7). JoeGon knew he was a different person --- maybe an outlier data in a statistical graph showing the “line of best fits” for most persons --- and prided himself in it. One time in the 60s he declared to me: “I may not be the best but at least I’m different.” (See Class ‘59’s “Golden Reunion” slideshow)
Flashback of the high school days
JoeGon was the only child of a school teacher-father and mother who tended a sari-sari store at home and a stall at the town’s public market. In terms of economic standing in the town, his family was modestly well off and money was never in short supply. When he needed some cash and it was market day, I often accompanied JoeGon to the public market to see his mother. Upon seeing him, his mother immediately gave him enough cash to buy what he needed.
Though we saw each other in the campus daily on school days, not a week-end passed without me and JoeGon seeing each other. Always it was me going to his Gen. Luna St home where I was always welcome as a visitor by his parents, Tio Maning and Tia Panyang. On vacation after our Freshman year, I invited JoeGon to Sta. Cruz, Zambales, my maternal hometown. We had ridden a carabao together and fell off its back when the animal started to gallop.
While in the school campus, mostly my decisions were JoeGon’s derivatives. The high school curriculum then called for a rotation in taking the vocational subjects: 1st year – Poultry and Swine, 2nd year – Horticulture, and 3rd year – Woodworking. On reaching 4th year, you were given a choice to pick up your specialization among the three. Being a farmer’s son, my heart was closer to the first two but JoeGon pulled me to take up Woodworking with him. What happened was, I helped him most of the time finishing his wood cabinet project while I ended up with an incomplete project of my own.
If JoeGon was not a popular campus figure during the four years that we stayed at MNHS despite his good looks, brilliance as a student and a number of female admirers, it was because of his stiff propriety code: the school was a place for pursuing academic excellence --- no less, no more. From what I learned from the grapevine, however, he was keeping a girlfriend from another barangay.
I and JoeGon had capped our stay at MNHS in the 4th year by attending the NSSPC (Nat’l Secondary Schools Press Conference) in Dagupan City along with two other classmates.
Flashback of the college years
After graduation from high school, I and JoeGon parted ways; he went on to take medicine course at UP (University of the Philippines) Diliman while I enrolled for a one-year radio vocational course in Dagupan City. Soon it was time for me to go to Manila to look for a job and began my visits to JoeGon at his boarding house in Bacood, Sta. Mesa. Each time I saw him, he kept urging me never to stop reading books because if “I rest, I rust.” To follow up his advice, he once lent me his newly bought typewriter and Political Science textbook and asked me for a favor --- to produce an essay assignment for him. On giving him his assignment on the agreed date, he allowed me to keep his textbook for a while so I have something to read on and keep me busy with. Being jobless and penniless at the time, I’ve fallen prey to the temptation of peddling JoeGon’s textbook to the scalawags at Claro M. Recto Ave at a dirt cheap price. Feeling remorseful on our next meeting, I confessed to JoeGon what I did. He didn’t get angry; he just said “Why didn’t you tell me you needed cash so I just lent you some instead?”
During his early years at UP, JoeGon used to commute between Sta. Mesa and Diliman on a scooter. Perhaps, out of his desire to keep the fire of scholarship in me continuously burning and not to stagnate academically, he invited and toured me one time around his school campus with his scooter. He drove and showed me the institutions of learning around: Vinzons Hall, Arts and Letters and Engineering buildings, etc.
In 1962, I landed on my first job as radio operator on board various fishing vessels in Navotas, Rizal. In March of the following year (1963), my application for a job at the old MIA was approved and I started working there. Finding my pay at MIA as more than comfortable, I adopted a freewheeling lifestyle. I sought the best lit beer houses in Santa Ana, Manila and Bocaue, Bulacan until I got hooked and married in 1967 at an early age in 1967. A year later, I realized I had been straying away from my high school dream of finishing an engineering course. With the pledge of my wife to support me, I re-enrolled in electrical engineering at MIT and finished it in 1973.
All the while between 1968 and 1973, my movements were strictly confined to three areas: home to rest (morning), school to attend classes (evening) and work to earn an income to support a family and for paying school expenses (midnight). In early 1970s, JoeGon transferred first, to a dormitory in the old PGH (Philippine General Hospital) compound and later, to a room at the PCI (Philippine Cancer Institute) building along Padre Faura St. Every now and then, I used to visit JoeGon at PGH for the time he was there. On one occasion, it was already late for me to go home; JoeGon had looked for me an empty patient in one ward and spent the night there.
By the beginning of the 70s, I have been complaining of pain in my kidney. JoeGon had me admitted at PGH to have me examined. He planned to look inside my kidney by injecting me with a kidney tracer solution that glows on a scope as it skims the surface of my kidney. Alarmingly, large bumps started growing on my head soon after he injected me with the solution. JoeGon immediately injected me with an antidote and decided to forego the examination as I was allergic to the solution.
Friendship from a Distance
Interestingly enough, JoeGon and I have left the Philippines for abroad in the same month --- October, 1973. Norman, the first of his three children, was born on this year, a few months before he left for the U.S. His destination: UIUC (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) to take up his residency in medicine. My destination: Port-of-Prince, Haiti to go on board my first commercial vessel as radio officer after spending one week in Miami, Fl. In due time, we resumed our communication through letters and long distance telephone calls and practiced our friendship from a distance.
In mid-1982 I was on board a ship loaded with banana from Central America to Baltimore, MD when I thought of calling JoeGon. He was then the Chief Urologist at Norfolk U.S. Public Health hospital. “Where are you?” he asked. I told him we were five miles off Cape Henry lighthouse at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay on the Virginia coast. He told me: “Pretend to be sick and I’ll have you pick up by a helicopter.” I never doubted his seriousness but I declined by saying I was not a good actor. I feared the U.S. Coast Guard might find out I was only feigning and would let me pay for the cost of the helicopter’s fuel.
As a seaman for twenty years, I have visited JoeGon’s VA home twice. The first was in May 1987 (the second was in July 1994) on a voyage to Newport News, VA on board a coal ship. On this visit, he, Mima and their three children (Norman, Stephanie and Roy) have prepared me a welcome fit for a royalty. JoeGon had taken leave from his work and have given me a tour, first to the City’s famous beach where he pointed to me where the Cape Henry Lighthouse is sited and then to MacArthur Memorial Park in downtown Norfolk.
While inside their house, I saw being displayed two mementoes I gifted JoeGon from my sea voyages: on a table, the empty shell of ostrich egg (an equivalent of 32 chicken eggs) and on a wall, a cardboard frame embossed with precious stones both of which I bought on a trip to Richards Bay, South Africa. I recall JoeGon thanking me very much for the last gift because it arrived on time to beat the deadline for Roy’s school project. On my return to the ship the following morning, JoeGon and Mima gifted me with shirts, native cakes and 10 lbs of prawn which I and my crewmates have feasted on onboard. Two of the items given me, however, stood out among the rest. One was a photo of the two of us during our first year at MNHS (Foto #8) and the other, a book by William Manchester with the title “American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880 – 1964” which JoeGon bought from the MacArthur Memorial Park.
Did JoeGon die for a reason?
As a successful kidney surgeon, JoeGon earned a lot of dough; there’s no question about that. What I know about the work he retired from, he was a partner to four Jewish doctors who put up a clinic (or hospital?). Given his strict adherence to his code of humility and uprightness, nobody knew exactly the nature of his professional job. When I first visited him in his VA home, he skipped work to tour me around Virginia Beach and Norfolk but never took me to his place of work.
I remember one time JoeGon telling me that one of his doctor-partners had bought a luxurious vacation resort along the North Carolina coast and was taunted by him: “Why don’t you do the same? What are you going to do with your money?” Not long after, hurricane Katrina came and wrought untold havoc along the East Coast. His doctor-partner lost everything he had invested in his NC estate and was frank enough to confess to JoeGon: “You did right in not following after me.”
I think I know why JoeGon preferred to spend his retirement years in the land where he saw the first light of day. It came from a moral value which dyed him in the core --- nationalism. Each time we debated (we always do that when we get together even during our last meeting) when he was attending UP (University of the Philippines, often touted as a bastion of Filipino nationalism), he would staunchly defend his nationalism as if it was the only thing that mattered to him in this world. If there was one small boast I remember coming from him, it was when he told me after he has successfully established himself professionally that he finally succeeded in being looked up to by the Americans under him.
With JoeGon’s death, he did not only leave a friend’s void in my being; he had also been my best man when I got married and the godfather of my second born. And now the question: Did JoeGon die for a reason? I think it’s more discreet to leave this question open as open like another one which says: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”
Good bye my friend. Wherever you are now, I want you to know that I’ll go to my grave happy with the thought that I have befriended you although I lack the peacefulness to accept that things in your life have happened for a reason.
A. "Things happen for a reason"
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C. Do things happen for a reason?by Roger M
“It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.”
…..William Ernest Henley (1875)
[Note: Being a valedictorian, JoeGon (Jose Gonzales for short) was a real trailblazer. But it was against his grains to talk neither about his own achievements nor for someone to write about them. To be true to that singularity, I’ll be writing, instead, about his personality as a high school classmate and friend for more than half of a century.]
A rousing call at 5am on Nov. 14, 2008, California time, has shockingly signaled to me the end of a friendship which I have treasured for 52 years. The caller was Fil Olegario from Henderson, NV and his words were “’Manong Joe’ is gone.” ‘Manong Joe’ is JoeGon, his first cousin and the valedictorian of our batch, Class ’59, from the Mangatarem National High School (MNHS). I remained speechless for a moment as I cleared a lump in my throat --- an attempt to subdue the grievousness of my grief. But hardened by a strong conviction that is deeply rooted on the temporariness of human life on earth, I quickly picked myself up and mechanically asked Fil: “What has he died of?”
Since JoeGon hasn’t been sick of any lingering illness, the cause of his death --- collapse at mid-noon in the hot open air while overseeing the leveling of a newly bought hilly beachfront lot by a paid operator using his newly-acquired bulldozer in Mangas, Sual, Pangasinan --- suggests only one thing: heat wave.
Three omens
As I hanged up the phone after the talk with Fil, it eerily dawned on me (my hindsight is often sharper than my foresight) that JoeGon had already given me the sign that his time on earth is coming to an end soon. He gave it to me in the same place where he gave it to class-members nine months before --- at his house on Gen. Luna St. in Mangatarem.
The sign he gave me happened during my visit to his house in Mangatarem in April, 2007 and consisted of three omens: his inordinate and newly found fascination with the “All Seeing Eye” (ASE aka “Eye of the Providence”. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDOfzwMfboY), (Foto #1), his asking me to plant a tree so he has something to remember me by, (Foto #2); and, while on our way to the table to have lunch together, an impulsive pull on my hand to briefly pose with him (Foto #3) on the steps of the stairway leading to the rooms upstairs while asking Mima, his wife, to take a photo of us.
Ominous last Mangatarem meeting
What brought me to Mangatarem to rendezvoused with JoeGon in April 2007, I can’t recall now. Though I arrived quite late (10pm), he and Mima was patient enough to wait for me so we can have dinner together. At that time, they have newly bought the lot adjoining their backyard and JoeGon was busy converting it into a garden. The following morning shortly after breakfast, JoeGon asked me to come with him to his new garden. I closely followed his heels as we skirted a deep excavation which he had made into a fishing pond. After passing the iron gate, we swerved to the left and came to a stop before an image on the concrete wall --- a replica of a huge eye with a pupil as large as a toddler’s ball hanging from above. On top of the eye was a big letter “G”, the first letter of his family name. For about five minutes, he lectured me on the symbolism and occultism of ASE and how America’s founding fathers were hounded by it. (I regret having failed to ask him his reason for constructing the ASE on that spot). Knowing him to be always down-to-earth pragmatist who never pried beyond the boundaries of the physical earth, he struck me as having suddenly transformed into a transcendentalist who was reaching out into another world.
I have a penchant for talking and it comes with a problem. Proof of this was the constant comment I got in my report card from my high school teachers: “He exercises too much freedom of speech.” And what is the problem? Once my mouth starts shooting, I can hardly stop!
Anyway, during that particular morning, I must have ruined JoeGon’s peaceful wake-up composure by talking and talking when he suddenly cut me short in a raised voice: “Roger, you cannot solve all the problems of the world!” On hearing that, I reflected for a moment and thought maybe he was right. The problems of the world are for Pres. Obama and other world leaders to solve.
At one point during our garden talk, he picked up one of the seedlings strewn around (whose roots were still wrapped in plastic for transport while waiting replanting) and said to me: “Can you plant this so I have something to remember you by?” The tree he selected turned out to be a “Tree of Life” aka “Miracle Tree” or “malunggay” as is commonly known in the Philippines.
Not wanting to spoil JoeGon’s humor any moment longer, I walked away from what he was absorbedly doing (building a bridge to span a small meandering irrigation canal) and surveyed the yard bordering the ASE. What I saw at the other side of the fence was so tempting not to yield to it: a log sawyer’s (one who cuts logs with a large saw) workplace with a wood slab of ample width being laid out like a rectangular table under the cool shade of a tall tamarind tree. I quickly flattened my back on the slab and forget about the worries of the world in what could be my soundest one-hour sleep during that episode of my Mangatarem visit.
I regained consciousness by a voice seemingly coming from the bowels of the earth. It was JoeGon’s yell telling me to wake up because the table was ready for lunch. That was when we had the stairway photo together.
“Stay healthy, don’t die yet!”
I mentioned above about JoeGon’s ‘adieu’ to a group of Class ’59 members. It took place during the January, 2008 Eye Medical Mission (EMM). After the Brgy Ponglo Baleg clinic, the 4th of seven of such clinics in as many barangays, JoeGon invited the group to a dinner at his house on Gen. Luna St. in Mangatarem (Foto #4). In that gathering, he prodded the class-members to “Stay healthy, don’t die yet. Let’s all see each other during the ‘Golden Reunion’.” The Golden Reunion was then scheduled to be held exactly a year away.
I came to know about JoeGon’s ironical statement from one class-member (Emong Mondala) who was present during the meeting with JoeGon. While pausing for a one-minute silent prayer in front of JoeGon’s ashes in his home garden In Mangatarem during the Cocktail and Bonding portion of the Golden Reunion on Jan. 23, 2008, Emong sidled up to me and told me about JoeGon’s “Don’t die yet” statement. Maybe, JoeGon had subconsciously intended to say it in “reverse psychology”.
Affinity to class reunions
By nature, JoeGon was a very private person; he was not bent to throwing a party to celebrate any momentous occasion that comes by, providential or not, nor go to join parties to celebrate the glory of others. He was, however, attracted to join in the celebration of Class ‘59’s reunions. In the 1986 “Silver Reunion” which he and his family attended, he came up with the “on the spot” idea of “Self-introduction” portion of the program and emceed it himself. In the 2002 RINA 1 reunion, he emceed again the program at the Red Canyon Park where Class topnotcher-attendees repeated their graduation speeches. In 2006, he and Mima went home to Mangatarem to beef up Class ’59's group for participation in the MNHS Grand Reunion event. In the 2007 RINA 4, he and Mima not only acted as hosts for the occasion; he served also as our mini-bus driver for picking up and bringing the attendees back between their respective hotels and following sites: beach, botanical garden, Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (CBBT) and MacArthur Memorial Park in Norfolk.
In January, 2008, JoeGon and Mima were in Mangatarem for some important things to do. From the events of that period, JoeGon had his sight enthusiastically fixed on January 23-24, 2009, the date of the “Golden Reunion” which was exactly a year away. On a date two months before the Class’ Jubilee (Nov. 14, 2008) was to happen, JoeGon died.
What went wrong? (Watch for the coming of the article “Is Class ’59 bedeviled as Batch '13'”)
Historic meeting
I retired as seaman in 1994 and in the following year, I landed a job as instructor at a Training Center for seamen in Intramuros, Manila. In January 2006, JoeGon and Mima made a trip to Mangatarem to join our Class ’59 batch in attending the Grand Reunion event at MNHS. I and Turing Bautista made elaborate preparations for the event: beribboned “buri” hats and white t-shirt with words “”Batch 13 – Lucky Batch” in front and Class’ motto at the back – “What matters is NOT the Years in your Life. It IS the Life in your Years.”
The 2006 MNHS Grand Reunion (Foto #5) was historic and memorable for Class ’59 and me: twice it brought face-to-face four (JoeGon, Amelia Olegario-Flores, yours truly and Fil Olegario) of its topnotchers (first was during the reunion’s activities at the school grounds and second was during an elegant dinner gathering.) The second occasion, a “house warming” dinner party to mark the completion of the remodeling of the Jazmin-Olegario’s ancestral home on Maravilla St., afforded me for the first time to rub elbows with Mangatarem elites. At one instant during the reception, the four of us were huddled in one corner of the area talking and exchanging notes of each other’s past. What a missed rare opportunity not to have photographed that face-to-face encounter!
Leaving Mangatarem for Manila the following day, JoeGon has gifted me with warm parting words: “Roger, whenever you come to Mangatarem, stay here in the house. That’s your room.” He pointed to me a renovated small room which was the same room he used to occupy during our high school days with its window overlooking Gen. Luna St. I wanted to be true to what I promised JoeGon but I was also careful not to abuse his and his wife’s hospitality. When they were not in town and I needed to journey to Mangatarem in connection with Class ’59 matters, I stayed in the house of Turing Bautista, a Class ’59 member who lives in Cabaruan. For one thing, Turing has a car and was only willing to drive me whenever and wherever I wanted to go around town.
The die is cast
Shortly after we have settled down in the living room of his modest Virginia Beach, VA house coming from the airport where he and his wife met us to begin our two-day RINA 4 get-together on September 5, 2007 (Foto #6), JoeGon announced to us: “I have retired. I have gotten my dual citizenship and will look for a beachfront lot in the Philippines where I’m going to spend the rest of my life.”
Judging from what I learned of what happened, there seemed to be an inexorable cosmic force that pulled JoeGon to buy that hilly seafront lot in Mangas, Sual, Pangasinan where he breathed his last. While searching one day along the Sual Bay coast coming from the NAPOCOR plant, they came to a crossroad: the national highway that bends to the right and a dirt road to the left going to Mangas peninsula. They took the dirt road. Allegedly, JoeGon prodded their driver to keep driving on despite Mima’s vehement insistence that they ended their search for the day and go back home to Mangatarem. After driving for some time, they came to a seafront lot with a pier structure and a caretaker’s house on it. They inquired from the caretaker, have learned that the next lot was for sale, asked for the name of the owner and how he could be contacted, negotiated with him and eventually bought the property for a large sum. What they bought was a small hill whose coastal side slopes 45 degrees to the sea and whose foot is continuously lapped by it.
JoeGon died from collapse at mid-day in the open air at Mangas with only the bulldozer operator as his companion. When help has arrived from Mangatarem which is more than an hour’s drive, he was rushed to Dagupan City hospital where he was pronounced officially dead. In her desire to move on quickly and do the immense grieving privately, Mima had JoeGon’s remains cremated without autopsy and set a date for scattering his ashes in Mangas Bay in front of the lot. On the appointed date, the sea became dangerously choppy. Mima canceled the scattering plan, erected a pedestal in JoeGon’s garden with words of affection and “No Mercy” inscriptions on the side and had the urn containing his ashes perched on it.
Had he not died, JoeGon’s dream of a retirement lifestyle was nothing less than exotic. On one of my trips to Mangatarem after JoeGon’s death, Mima has shown me the detailed development plan of their Mangas property which included a rest house and a pier for berthing a pleasure yacht.
Recurring dream
Not long after his death, JoeGon appeared in a dream to Fil Olegario. In the dream, the three of them (JoeGon, Fil and Mima) were talking in the ground floor of his Mangatarem house when JoeGon stood up and gestured to Fil to follow him to the door to go outside. The dream, however, was instantly cut short by a phone ring. It was Fil’s niece calling from another state.
Occasionally since then, JoeGon still appears in a dream to Fil.
The quintessential JoeGon
Who was JoeGon? Strictly speaking, what you see in JoeGon as a person is “what you get”. He never wore a façade nor donned any artificiality. As a person, he is a stickler for modesty and duty to the point of being ruthless even to himself. He expected people to follow his norm, questioned their culture if they don’t and applied to himself what he wanted to apply to others.
No sooner had I stood by the wayside to have a better view of the cruise dinner show during Class ‘59’s reunion in Virginia Beach, VA in September, 2007 which JoeGon and Mima hosted than I heard Fil Olegario whispering to my ear: “Manong Joe said go to your seat.” I felt chastened, obeyed but suffered in silence.
One visit to Mangatarem with JoeGon, he asked me, after being engaged in a conversation by a drunk cousin: “Why are people like that?” I explained to him that by culture, naïve lowly Filipinos are typically shy and need a drink of “bottled courage” in order to muster self-confidence when speaking to highly respected people like him. JoeGon simply had no tolerance for such cultural faux pas.
JoeGon’s deep sense of modesty made him shun publicity, ostentatious display of wealth and indulgence in the luxuries of life. Fil Olegario recalled that when JoeGon was doing his residency at UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) on his arrival in the U.S. from the Philippines, he lived in an apartment in the school campus that was modestly furnished.
It’s often said that most people have high standards for others but not for themselves. Not for JoeGon. What he wanted to apply to others, he also applied it to himself. (See “Jose E. Gonzales’ uniqueness: His Unforgiving Work Ethics” in “Uniqueness” page).
JoeGon was a “chip off the old block.” He was an exact copycat of his father who was quiet, reserved and not given to taking things lightly or playfully. (Foto #7). JoeGon knew he was a different person --- maybe an outlier data in a statistical graph showing the “line of best fits” for most persons --- and prided himself in it. One time in the 60s he declared to me: “I may not be the best but at least I’m different.” (See Class ‘59’s “Golden Reunion” slideshow)
Flashback of the high school days
JoeGon was the only child of a school teacher-father and mother who tended a sari-sari store at home and a stall at the town’s public market. In terms of economic standing in the town, his family was modestly well off and money was never in short supply. When he needed some cash and it was market day, I often accompanied JoeGon to the public market to see his mother. Upon seeing him, his mother immediately gave him enough cash to buy what he needed.
Though we saw each other in the campus daily on school days, not a week-end passed without me and JoeGon seeing each other. Always it was me going to his Gen. Luna St home where I was always welcome as a visitor by his parents, Tio Maning and Tia Panyang. On vacation after our Freshman year, I invited JoeGon to Sta. Cruz, Zambales, my maternal hometown. We had ridden a carabao together and fell off its back when the animal started to gallop.
While in the school campus, mostly my decisions were JoeGon’s derivatives. The high school curriculum then called for a rotation in taking the vocational subjects: 1st year – Poultry and Swine, 2nd year – Horticulture, and 3rd year – Woodworking. On reaching 4th year, you were given a choice to pick up your specialization among the three. Being a farmer’s son, my heart was closer to the first two but JoeGon pulled me to take up Woodworking with him. What happened was, I helped him most of the time finishing his wood cabinet project while I ended up with an incomplete project of my own.
If JoeGon was not a popular campus figure during the four years that we stayed at MNHS despite his good looks, brilliance as a student and a number of female admirers, it was because of his stiff propriety code: the school was a place for pursuing academic excellence --- no less, no more. From what I learned from the grapevine, however, he was keeping a girlfriend from another barangay.
I and JoeGon had capped our stay at MNHS in the 4th year by attending the NSSPC (Nat’l Secondary Schools Press Conference) in Dagupan City along with two other classmates.
Flashback of the college years
After graduation from high school, I and JoeGon parted ways; he went on to take medicine course at UP (University of the Philippines) Diliman while I enrolled for a one-year radio vocational course in Dagupan City. Soon it was time for me to go to Manila to look for a job and began my visits to JoeGon at his boarding house in Bacood, Sta. Mesa. Each time I saw him, he kept urging me never to stop reading books because if “I rest, I rust.” To follow up his advice, he once lent me his newly bought typewriter and Political Science textbook and asked me for a favor --- to produce an essay assignment for him. On giving him his assignment on the agreed date, he allowed me to keep his textbook for a while so I have something to read on and keep me busy with. Being jobless and penniless at the time, I’ve fallen prey to the temptation of peddling JoeGon’s textbook to the scalawags at Claro M. Recto Ave at a dirt cheap price. Feeling remorseful on our next meeting, I confessed to JoeGon what I did. He didn’t get angry; he just said “Why didn’t you tell me you needed cash so I just lent you some instead?”
During his early years at UP, JoeGon used to commute between Sta. Mesa and Diliman on a scooter. Perhaps, out of his desire to keep the fire of scholarship in me continuously burning and not to stagnate academically, he invited and toured me one time around his school campus with his scooter. He drove and showed me the institutions of learning around: Vinzons Hall, Arts and Letters and Engineering buildings, etc.
In 1962, I landed on my first job as radio operator on board various fishing vessels in Navotas, Rizal. In March of the following year (1963), my application for a job at the old MIA was approved and I started working there. Finding my pay at MIA as more than comfortable, I adopted a freewheeling lifestyle. I sought the best lit beer houses in Santa Ana, Manila and Bocaue, Bulacan until I got hooked and married in 1967 at an early age in 1967. A year later, I realized I had been straying away from my high school dream of finishing an engineering course. With the pledge of my wife to support me, I re-enrolled in electrical engineering at MIT and finished it in 1973.
All the while between 1968 and 1973, my movements were strictly confined to three areas: home to rest (morning), school to attend classes (evening) and work to earn an income to support a family and for paying school expenses (midnight). In early 1970s, JoeGon transferred first, to a dormitory in the old PGH (Philippine General Hospital) compound and later, to a room at the PCI (Philippine Cancer Institute) building along Padre Faura St. Every now and then, I used to visit JoeGon at PGH for the time he was there. On one occasion, it was already late for me to go home; JoeGon had looked for me an empty patient in one ward and spent the night there.
By the beginning of the 70s, I have been complaining of pain in my kidney. JoeGon had me admitted at PGH to have me examined. He planned to look inside my kidney by injecting me with a kidney tracer solution that glows on a scope as it skims the surface of my kidney. Alarmingly, large bumps started growing on my head soon after he injected me with the solution. JoeGon immediately injected me with an antidote and decided to forego the examination as I was allergic to the solution.
Friendship from a Distance
Interestingly enough, JoeGon and I have left the Philippines for abroad in the same month --- October, 1973. Norman, the first of his three children, was born on this year, a few months before he left for the U.S. His destination: UIUC (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) to take up his residency in medicine. My destination: Port-of-Prince, Haiti to go on board my first commercial vessel as radio officer after spending one week in Miami, Fl. In due time, we resumed our communication through letters and long distance telephone calls and practiced our friendship from a distance.
In mid-1982 I was on board a ship loaded with banana from Central America to Baltimore, MD when I thought of calling JoeGon. He was then the Chief Urologist at Norfolk U.S. Public Health hospital. “Where are you?” he asked. I told him we were five miles off Cape Henry lighthouse at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay on the Virginia coast. He told me: “Pretend to be sick and I’ll have you pick up by a helicopter.” I never doubted his seriousness but I declined by saying I was not a good actor. I feared the U.S. Coast Guard might find out I was only feigning and would let me pay for the cost of the helicopter’s fuel.
As a seaman for twenty years, I have visited JoeGon’s VA home twice. The first was in May 1987 (the second was in July 1994) on a voyage to Newport News, VA on board a coal ship. On this visit, he, Mima and their three children (Norman, Stephanie and Roy) have prepared me a welcome fit for a royalty. JoeGon had taken leave from his work and have given me a tour, first to the City’s famous beach where he pointed to me where the Cape Henry Lighthouse is sited and then to MacArthur Memorial Park in downtown Norfolk.
While inside their house, I saw being displayed two mementoes I gifted JoeGon from my sea voyages: on a table, the empty shell of ostrich egg (an equivalent of 32 chicken eggs) and on a wall, a cardboard frame embossed with precious stones both of which I bought on a trip to Richards Bay, South Africa. I recall JoeGon thanking me very much for the last gift because it arrived on time to beat the deadline for Roy’s school project. On my return to the ship the following morning, JoeGon and Mima gifted me with shirts, native cakes and 10 lbs of prawn which I and my crewmates have feasted on onboard. Two of the items given me, however, stood out among the rest. One was a photo of the two of us during our first year at MNHS (Foto #8) and the other, a book by William Manchester with the title “American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880 – 1964” which JoeGon bought from the MacArthur Memorial Park.
Did JoeGon die for a reason?
As a successful kidney surgeon, JoeGon earned a lot of dough; there’s no question about that. What I know about the work he retired from, he was a partner to four Jewish doctors who put up a clinic (or hospital?). Given his strict adherence to his code of humility and uprightness, nobody knew exactly the nature of his professional job. When I first visited him in his VA home, he skipped work to tour me around Virginia Beach and Norfolk but never took me to his place of work.
I remember one time JoeGon telling me that one of his doctor-partners had bought a luxurious vacation resort along the North Carolina coast and was taunted by him: “Why don’t you do the same? What are you going to do with your money?” Not long after, hurricane Katrina came and wrought untold havoc along the East Coast. His doctor-partner lost everything he had invested in his NC estate and was frank enough to confess to JoeGon: “You did right in not following after me.”
I think I know why JoeGon preferred to spend his retirement years in the land where he saw the first light of day. It came from a moral value which dyed him in the core --- nationalism. Each time we debated (we always do that when we get together even during our last meeting) when he was attending UP (University of the Philippines, often touted as a bastion of Filipino nationalism), he would staunchly defend his nationalism as if it was the only thing that mattered to him in this world. If there was one small boast I remember coming from him, it was when he told me after he has successfully established himself professionally that he finally succeeded in being looked up to by the Americans under him.
With JoeGon’s death, he did not only leave a friend’s void in my being; he had also been my best man when I got married and the godfather of my second born. And now the question: Did JoeGon die for a reason? I think it’s more discreet to leave this question open as open like another one which says: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”
Good bye my friend. Wherever you are now, I want you to know that I’ll go to my grave happy with the thought that I have befriended you although I lack the peacefulness to accept that things in your life have happened for a reason.
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| Foto #1 |
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| Foto #2 |
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| Foto #3 |
Foto #4: 1-Fil Olegario, 2-Carlito Sindaydiego, 3-Andoy Mendoza, 4-JoeGon, 5-Pete Collad0, 6-Juan Dacanay, 7-Turing Bautista, 8-Ely Solis-Sangalang, 9-Norma Bato, 10-Lea Blanco-Pimentel, 11-Remy Quibal, 12-Emong Mondala, 13-Narsing Budol, 14-Arsing Gutierrez
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| Foto #5: JoeGon (2nd from R, seated) and Amy Olegario-Flores (3rd from L, standing) |
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| Foto #6: Dinner at JoeGon's house, RINA 4 |
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| Foto #7: JoeGon (R) and Dad (L) |
Foto #8: Roger M (L) and JoeGon (R), circa 1955
---o0o---B. My first glimpse of the grandeur that was Rome
by Roger M
“On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.”
…..Edgar Allan Poe
It was New Year’s Day, Jan. 1, 1978 and a Sunday to boot. In most countries (New Zealand especially), nothing moves on a Sunday: it’s the day for resting man’s temporal body and for purifying his soul. Since it was also the first day of the year, the sluggishness of the Italian humanity at the seaport where we were on that day was almost palpable presumably because they have done so much revelry the night before.
Our Liberian ship, the M/V “Coyoles” was berthed at a Naples pier discharging its cargo of bananas which we loaded in Somalia three weeks ago. With nothing much to do, we formed a group and contracted a coaster van taxi driver whose reflexes were still intact (we had a smooth ride all the way) for not partaking in last night’s wild celebration, to drive us the two-hour distance Naples-Rome and back.
Our group consisted of 2/O Nepomuceno, yours truly (Roger M as Radio Officer), Bosun Sanchez, Elect. Labit, Fitter Tolentino, Motorman Terry, Motorman Mendoza, Wiper J. Cruz and Messman E. Cruz.
For first time tourists coming to Rome only for a day, they easily get overwhelmed by the many things they want to see. Because of our religious moorings, we opted to see first the seat of our faith: St. Peter’s Square on the west side of the Tiber river.
We arrived St. Peter’s Square at around 10AM and found it almost deserted (Foto #1). On entering St. Peter’s Basilica, we genuflected on nearing the Baldachin on the left side, rode the elevator to get to the roof top, then to the Cupola. From the Cupola, we feasted our eyes on the breathtaking view of St. Peter’s Square, all the way along Via di Conciliazone to the heart of Rome on the other side of the Tiber River (Foto #2) (Foto #3).
After spending some time at the Cupola, we retraced our steps, went down to a subterranean cavern beneath the Baldachin where the Popes are being buried and ended our St. Peter’s Square tour just like any visit to a tourist’s spot: making the last stop by the souvenir shop.
The seven hills on which ancient Rome was founded and still stands today are, not necessarily according to their importance: Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline. Capitoline, Palatine, Caelian and Aventine. On a map, the first three fall on a straight northwest-southeast line, the second three on a lower parallel line and the last lying southwest of the second parallel line.
By design, St. Peter’s Square opens its ‘arms’ eastward almost facing squarely Quirinal Hill.
From St. Peter’s Square, we visited next the “most famous and well-known monument of Roman antiquity” --- the Roman Colosseum (Foto #4). Construction of this enormous Flavian Amphitheatre was begun in 72 A.D. on a valley hemmed in by the Palatine, Caelian and Esquiline Hills. Standing close to the Roman Colosseum is the Arch of Constantine in honor of the Roman Emperor who legalized Christianity. While jockeying for position for best shot near the Arch of Constantine an "interloper" popped up --- a Pinoy U.S. Navy. He said his ship was at Gaeta Naval Station southwest of Rome and had come over to tour alone. On his suggestion, we instantly "adopted" him as "sabit" of our group and joined us on our way to Campidoglio (where the Mayor of Rome holds office) atop the Capitoline Hill. After that, we lost him as mysteriously as we found him. Who cared anyway!
From the Colosseum, we proceeded to the Capitoline Hill, climbed up to the Campidoglio and meditated momentarily at the silver statue of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. After a while, we walked to the eastern side of the Hill, had photographs and briefly communed with the Ruins of the Roman Forum (Foto #5). I felt like everything I was seeing was surrealistic! I pinched myself to assure me of my physical being; what I had voraciously consumed in books during my school days had materialized before my very eyes!
Soon it was beginning to dark and we were about to head back to Naples when someone from our group reminded we missed seeing one important site --- the Fountain of Trevi, or more popularly known as “The Wishing Well” (Foto #6).
At mid-evening, we were back to our “floating cell” (ship) comparing notes on what our Rome visit has done to our minds and spirits. For me, I was drawn into a continuum that joins man’s three epochs of his life: the classical past, the free-wheeling present and the disturbing afterlife. Why disturbing? Nobody ever gets sure if he has complied with all the commandments while on earth in order to assure himself of a slot in heaven when he dies. If by chance he does enter heaven, that’s an even greater ‘grandeur’ than that which Poe has spoken of.
Fotos:
Foto #1: R/O Roger M backgrounding St Peter's Square from the door steps to St Peter's Basilica.
Foto #2: St Peter's Square from the Cupola. Who says St. Peter's Square is square? It looks more like two giant human arms embracing humanity. The statues in the foreground are those of the Apostles of Jesus Christ while the column at the center is that of Bernini in honor of the Neapolitan architect who designed the Square.
Foto #3: A pose at the Cupola, L to R, R/O Roger M, Fitter Tolentino, Electrician Labit and Wiper Cruz.
Foto #4: At the ruins of the Roman Colosseum, L to R, 2nd Off Nepomuceno, Elect Labit, Pinoy US Navy 'sabit', Motorman Terry, R/O Roger M, Wiper Cruz, Fitter Tolentino, Messman Cruz and Motorman Mendoza.
Foto #5: At the slope of the Capitoline Hill with the Ruins of the Roman Forum as background and a part of the Arch of Septimius Severus at left, L to R, R/O Roger M, Motorman Terry, Electrician Labit, 2nd Off Nepomuceno, US Navy Pinoy 'sabit', Bosun Sanchez and Wiper Cruz.
Foto #6: R/O Roger M at the Fountain of Trevi.
---o0o---o0o---o0o---o0o---o0o---o0o---o0o---o0o---o0o---o0o---o0o---o0o---o0o---o0o---
A. "Things Happen for a Reason"
Foreword: This is the story of a skinny brave young woman who have seen the horrors of war (Vietnamese monks setting themselves afire), crisscrossed the earth’s most inhospitable terrain (Alaskan tundra) to eke out a living, have come face to face with death (comatose for two months after a vehicular accident), only to emerge triumphant in later life by having a blast with her late Master Mariner second American husband in an Academy reunion. She is Cleofe Madarang-Freeman (CMF), the valedictorian of MNHS Class ’57. Her secret? The power she derives from steadfastly believing that "Things happen for a reason."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyQ5ZSMENF0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyQ5ZSMENF0
Grade school memories
CMF was born in Camiling, Tarlac on July 28, 1940. As the youngest of three girls, she became spoiled for a few years until the arrival of a brother ten years later. Her parents were both teachers: her father, from whom she believes she inherited her intellectual prowess, taught Math in the high school while her mother was in the elementary. After attending 1st to 3rd grade at the Camiling Central (Elementary) School, CMF’s parents decided to transfer to Mangatarem to take advantage of better teaching location.
CMF continued her 4th to 6th grade primary education at Mangatarem Central Elementary School (MCES) from which she graduated as the valedictorian in 1953. While at MCES, she discovered one thing she w as not good at (dancing) that even to this day she hates doing it (ballroom dancing). In one occasion at school, she was cast as the heroine in a Cinderella play where she was to perform ballroom danc-ing. On finding out she could not dance at all, she promised to herself never to go near the dance floor again.
At MCES, CMF forged a close friend-ship with classmate Juliana D. Bautista (JDB) which relationship extended through high school and, briefly, in college. JDB graduated from MCES as the salutatorian and from high school as 1st honor. She later became Mrs. Juliana Laoag and installed as the 4th Principal in the history of MNHS. On one occasion between 1958 and 1962, JDB with two classmates from Philippine Normal School (PNS), briefly visited CMF at Adamson University (AU). That was the last meeting between the two.
Recalling today from the mist of time, CMF remembers one MCES English teacher (“Mr. Acosta…can’t remember his first name”) whom she admires as “being gentle, reserved and very well-mannered”.
Attendance at MNHS
Upon graduation from MCES, CMF and JDB separated paths because of “some kind of glitz somewhere”; the former enrolling at MNHS while the latter at a private high school. JDB later joined CMF at MNHS at the start of the second year. It turned out JDB’s lack of residency at MNHS would later cost her her salutatorian slot only to graduate as 1st honorable mention.
CMF’s four-year stay at MHS saw her excelling not only in academics but in other areas as well. Her favorite teacher was Ms Juana Acosta-Orines and subjects English and Math. She was made in-charge of attendance check and held the positions of “PE Commander, Editor of the school organ The Mango”, and other school organization which she could barely recall now. She was also a declaimer, liked reading and got actively involved in ”planning social activities to raise funds for the school”. In high school, she expanded her list of friends to include another classmate, Nenita Pascua, in addition to JDB.
College Years
CMF’s and JDB’s course paths parted on graduation from MNHS: CMF enrolled at Adamson University (AU) in Manila to take up B. S. in Chemical Engineering (BSChE) while JDB entered Philippine Normal School (PNS), also in Manila, to pursue a B.S. degree in Education.
At the end of her 1st year, CMF got an invitation to join AU’s honor sorority. Knowing she was a green horn on college sororities and strongly disciplined in the practicality of doing things (“Look before you leap”), she spent considerable time reading “all the flyers available that were furnished me”. She eventually decided to join the sorority, went through the “tough initiation, passed all the requirements and officially taken in after a month of grueling trials”.
A big problem ensued when the sorority ball was eventually scheduled for the induction: No inductee was allowed to bring along a male escort. To comply with the strict protocol, CMF tugged along her eldest sister with a male cousin who were both professionals and they all had fun. CMF considered her membership to AU’s Honor Society as a great privilege even though it entailed great responsibility. As member, she felt her “ whole person is being watched and monitored by almost everybody”.
If CMF’s leadership potential has come to the fore at MNHS when she was appointed PE commander, it was further honed to a sharper point at AU when she was assigned as laboratory assistant. In both circumstances, she demonstrated that she was not the type of person who would balk at taking responsibilities, no matter how great they are, that are being entrusted to her. As laboratory assistant, she dispensed chemicals to the exact strength and amount to co-students for use in their laboratory experiments.
“Another challenging item in my Engineering pursuit is the subject 'Engineering drawing' wherein we had to use T-squares, drawing board, etc. Inking was tough as you have to use ink to finalize your design and I was the only female in the class --- but with tenacity and determination --- I kind of tackled all these: not easy, but I was really challenged”.
First Job After College
CMF may have traveled a straight educational path through elementary, high school and college but the road she took in search of a self-fulfilling career was much more winding. Shortly after graduation from AU in 1962, CMF landed a job at the Electroplating Dept. of Squires Bingham Company, an American company that manufactured rifles and ammunitions. The company had its factory in Parang, Markina, Rizal. She worked for the company only for a year because in the following year, her imagination was fired up by a vocation that has glamor.
Entry into “PI Service”
In June 1963, President Marcos signed into law Republic Act 3835 establishing the Women’s Auxiliary Corps (WAC) in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). AFP at the time consisted of the Army, Navy, Philippine Constabulary and Air Force. The combined group was then conveniently referred to as “PI Service”, the abbreviation “PI” meaning “Philippine Islands”, a throwback to the American occupation.
As envisioned by R.A. 3835, WAC Officers “shall perform non-combat/administrative duties. . . . . be commissioned in the Regular and Reserve Forces of the AFP . . . . . be unmarried female native-born citizens of the Philippines between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-six years who are holders of Bachelor’s degree from any school, college or university recognized by the government. . . . . be commissioned in the Regular and Reserve Forces of the AFP. . . . . (with) all initial commissions in the Regular Force shall be in the rank of Second Lieutenant. . . . .”.
Soon after the promulgation of the law, the WAC infrastructure was set up by recruiting 50 female degree holders who would become the pioneers of the Corps. Lured by the “glamour” of the military organization, CMF resigned her job at Squires Bingham Company in 1964 and joined WAC. She and the other recruits had to undergo a four-month rigid military training under tactical officer-graduates of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA). They found their “transition from civilian life to military was hard on all of us and we all cried a lot and persevered”. Their reward came when, after their training, they were commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants in the AFP.
For a while after her WAC training, CMF served as statistician at Command General Staff College (CGSC) while simultaneously teaching at Arellano University. CGSC is a training school in the AFP for service officers from the rank of Majors up to full Colonels.
CMF may have hurdled the WAC challenge in a short span of time but little did she know that another big challenge was looming in the horizon for her.
CMF in the Vietnam War
The year 1965 saw the escalation of the Vietnam War with U.S. Pres. Johnson approving the start of air strikes on North Vietnam and committing ground forces which reached 536,000 in 1968. It was the longest war in American history which resulted in nearly 60,000 American deaths and an estimated 2 million Vietnamese deaths.
Being a member of South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), a military alliance formed to prevent the spread of communism, the Philippines felt duty-bound to help American war efforts in South Vietnam. It started with the arrival in Tay Ninh of the AFP’s 196th Light Infantry Brigade in July 1966 and, within weeks, to be joined by the 1st Philippine Civic Action Group Vietnam (Philcagv). The mission of Philcag V “would be to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people through civic action responses. . . . . would work with the Vietnamese people building roads, schools, hospitals, and set up stations to medically treat Vietnamese civilians”. In short, they went to Vietnam on a non- combatant role.
When membership to Philcag V was opened in the first quarter of 1966, many of CMF WAC sisters were lured to apply by the promise of a better pay. With that plus the ambition to “set aside funds for my graduate plans”, CMF decided to join her sisters with Philcagv in Vietnam.
In Vietnam, CMF worked for/with American companies on the rebuilding of the country while at the same time fighting the enemy. “You never knew who the enemy was as the Viet Congs (VC) are local nationals and always mix with the community”. She witnessed “a lot of Buddhist monks burning themselves along the street of Saigon”. There was chaos everywhere. The surrounding horror was more than enough to break the resolve of any ordinary mortal to scare him/her from moving on. But not to CMF. On the contrary, the horrifying sights around steeled her all the more to be stronger in facing the more daunting trials of her adult life.
As a person who likes challenges when she encounters them, CMF ventured to learn the French language (very similar to Vietnamese). However, after finding out that the “pronunciation is so different from the way words are written. . . (she) gave up. Not my cup of tea”, she said.
Flight to the U.S.
Surviving a vicious war like Vietnam for seven years with all faculties intact bespeaks not only of one’s psychological strength but mettle and resolve as well. By exactly doing that herself, CMF’s proved she has all those qualities. The next arena (Alaskan frontier) of her life, however, would draw on yet another sterling quality of CMF (physical constitution) to be able to work and live in a harsh environment. Bent on finding an engineering job that was suited to her discipline, she flew to the U.S. in October, 1972.
Upon the invitation of a girl friend who lived there, CMF made a side trip to Anchorage, Alaska for a visit which she combined it with a job survey. The cons- truction of the pipeline had not been started yet at this time and she was dismayed to find out there was no need for engineers from her field of study (Chemical Engineering). But something of Alaska, considered to be the “last frontier”, has beckoned her to stay. Its inhospitable environment suited her love for struggle and its industry her passion to excel.
1973: A Year of “Firsts”
1973 was a year of “firsts” in rapid succession in the life of CMF while on her second year on a U.S. soil. In January, she got hit by Cupid’s arrow and momentarily put aside her plan to look for a job in order to attend to the needs of her heart. She tied knot with Curtis James Freeman, her first husband, whose surname she carries to this day as per her lawyer’s advice.
The following April, while she was four months in the family way, she landed her first job in Anchorage in the Credit Dept of a bank. As bank clerk, she was entrusted with the sleuthing duty of tracing creditors who were delinquent in their loans. Having been disciplined in engineering, CMF found the business of banking an “uncharted territory”. In order to become a good sleuth, she thought of enrolling at the University of Alaska in the evening to take up banking subjects. This earned her a promotion for bank officer’s position a year later but which she didn’t take because of her move to the pipeline project.
Start of “Technical” Journey
The bold red line shows the range of the Trans-Alaskan pipeline, a 48-inch diameter, 800 mile pipeline linking Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean with the terminal at Valdez, the northernmost ice-free port in the Western hemisphere. The flow from this pipeline accounts for roughly 20 percent of U.S. oil production annually.
[http://fairbanks-alaska.com/trans-alaska-pipeline.htm]
In September, 1974, the pipeline construction began and CMF immediately applied for and eventually accepted for work. Starting as Human Resources Clerk at the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) department of the pipeline, she got “promoted every three months until I reached the Specialist category”. As Human Resources Specialist, she was required to “make travels to all the pipeline camps” to meet “with Human Resources Managers discussing with them the company’s short-comings on minority hires, implementing training, etc”.
When a vacancy came up in 1974, she immediately tendered her application to the Engineering department of the pipeline construction and was eventually hired the following year (1975). During the interview “it was stressed that the job involved a lot of seminar attendance and, of course, field work”. Nonetheless, she got the eerie feeling of being a total stranger in the job because she was clueless as to how a female engineer could fit in nicely into such a gargantuan male project as the pipeline construction. But she wasn’t fazed at all. Instead, she stubbornly and tenaciously clung on to her true calling as a “builder” (engineer) which was what exactly the pipeline construction needed.
CMF considers the period 1974 – 1981 as her journey through the technical field.
Life With the “Pipeline”
CMF’s life in Alaska may be divided into two parts: social and technical. With regards to her social life, she reflects on it vividly in the following paragraphs:
My initial arrival in AK kept me guessing whether I made the right decision. Manila is more modern than Anchorage then but it developed pretty fast with the pipeline project with the, lower 48 people rushed to the state to land a job on the project earning big bucks. Crime also ensued. Before the pipeline, we did not use to lock our doors. But with the start, every time you turn on the radio, there is always bad news like rape, assault, burglary etc. - - - all influenced with the rush of the lower 48 people. We call the other cities ‘the lower 48’ as we considered ourselves on top of the world.
Many people really loved to work the pipeline (hourly paid –union members as teamsters, 798’ers,etc.) as they are scheduled to work 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off. And always have time to travel home to cities outside of AK. Moreover, wages were above regular rates. For salaried people, we work the no. of hours required to finish a job irrespective of circumstances.
CMF’s technical life in Alaska may be considered as a virtual “romance”, with all the attending dramas, with the pipeline. It included the hardest trials (as a babysitting mother) in the harshest environment (Alaskan climate). Often, when she was not in the field, she had to drop and pick up her child from day care because her husband, who worked as a civil servant in town, couldn’t do it. While in the field, her only contact with her family was by phone. Although “I was furnished a company car with a two-way radio that I can always call for the nearest camp for help if and when I got stuck in the snow”, she endured “traveling alone for two years until I was given technicians to help out with my gigantic field work”.
From March to October, CMF’s pipeline job involved a lot of field work covering Anchorage to Valdez to Prudhoe Bay. When the winter months set it “I hibernate in the Anchorage office, go over maps and blueprints of the project and plan the job for the next season of field work”. She really had a demanding job as “I was out in the boonies 12-14 days, working 12 -14 hours (3 weeks in a row) 24/7 and resolve any problem asap on the job. Goes back to Anchorage for a day just to check on my child then back to the field again. Job was fast paced – always on the go encountering various job problems”.
CMF’s main and on-going task with the pipeline included 1) maintaining the line, pump stations and the Valdez terminal to be in top shape which means no corrosion is going on along the lines and/or tanks which could jeopardize the flow of crude oil and experience downtime in the overall operation; and 2) making a pipe-to-soil (P/S) resistance test twice yearly for early detection of any corrosion activity.
Hourly paid workers (union members) usually work two weeks ‘on’ and two weeks ‘off’. For salaried employees “we work the hours required to finish a job and before the official start of the oil flow, everything had to be checked, digging up locations of probable problems and implementing the necessary remedial actions.... that I had to be on the job 14-16 hours a day, 3 weeks in a row and dead tired”.
The Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. (APSC), the company which undertook the building of the pipeline, employed 20 exempt (salaried) employees headed by an Engineering Manager, who was an owner co-employee on loan to APSC. These technical people did all the field work in the summer and were the actual hands-on-the job. The technical department of APSC was made up of 30 exempt (salaried employ-ees) who were housed in the 2nd floor of a four-story building in Anchorage which served as the main office. The technical department is headed by an Engineering Manager, an owner company-employee assigned to the project.
The Sweet “Flow” of Success
When the oil first flowed through the pipe on June 20, 1977 without any snag, things changed dramatically for CMF as gleaned from the following paragraph:
Before the start-up (before oil started flowing through the pipeline), I worked countless hours, making sure everything is in ship shape condition and no ifs or buts – and this was in effect on July 1977 with no hitch at all (SUCCESS). Used to be out in the camps three weeks in a row – nothing to do but work, your bed is made, your food prepared, showers abound with washing machines and dryers, TV’s , pool tables at the recreation room and enough to occupy everybody during non working hours. But after working 14-16 hours per day you don’t have any time to play but rest.
CMF’s “Unica Hija”
Ada Zoe was born, raised and educated up to the high school in Alaska but decided to live and work in Portland (Oregon) since graduating from college there.
In January, 2008, both mom and daughter made a 10-day hectic trip to Mangatarem where Ada Zoe was picked to reign as Ms AMOR during the town fiesta.
CMF “incidentally met with my ‘57 classmates, bugged me about a donation to the high school and finally decided and embarked on what is the arch entry. They were really surprised to see me alive and well as everybody thought I was already gone (DEAD)”.
2nd Marriage
In 1978, CMF divorced her 1st husband, Ada Zoe’s father. Since that year until 1981, when she was medically retired from APSC, she has been working as a single mother. CMF remained single until Ada Zoe finished college in 1995. In April, 1998, she married her 2nd husband, Howard Acton, whom she met through friends in Alaska. The following July, they transferred their domicile to Kansas (Leavenworth).
CMF regards Howard, a Master Mariner for 18 years, her “true love”. Their ten years of togetherness (he passed away in July, 2008), 24/7 (“in as much as we were both retired”), had been nothing but bliss.
Howard was a member of U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) Class ’45 and has been “instrumental in developing containerized shipping to AK (Alaska) and later moved to Australia, with Columbus lines, same reason on the containerized shipments to Australia”. He had one child with 1st divorced wife, three with 2nd and three kid-adoptees of deceased wife by previous marriage.
CMF was privileged to attend with Howard two USMMA Class ’45 reunions (one in 2001 and another in 2005) in Long Island, NY. She remembers she “had a blast on those two events”.
Becoming a “Corrosion Engineer”
In 1972, CMF applied and was accepted at Kentucky State University to pursue graduate studies but eventually decided against enrolling. She realized the need to work was then more urgent than the need to study. While working for the pipeline, an opportunity had opened up for her to become a practitioner in a new discipline (Corrosion Engineering) which was closely related to the discipline she went to school for (Chemical Engineering).
In actuality, there is no established corrosion engineering curriculum, only seminars offered by the National Associa-tion of Corrosion Engineers (NACE). “Two seminars a year is aplenty (10-day duration) to speed up the learning and application of the educational endeavor. I have satisfied all the available/prescribed seminars and was preparing for the Corrosion Specialist rating, both oral and written test, but evidently, I am not meant for it – ‘79 disaster. Otherwise, disabled as I am, I can just be a Corrosion Consultant, traveling the world over – dispensing my acquired corrosion expertise”.
“Things Happen for a Reason”
CMF’s big IF in life happened on August 1, 1979 in a form of a vehicular accident. At 10:00pm on that night, she was returning to the field with a bad cold from a one day trip to her family in Anchorage. Visibility was bad due to dust and weather conditions. Being tired from working all day with a headache, she gave the car keys to one of her help and dozed off as a passenger on the front seat. The driver didn’t notice a truck stopped on the road without fuel and bumped into it.
As a result of the accident, CMF’s seat belt was ripped off from the vehicle floor and was thrown to the dash board. Sustaining a fracture on the lower back, she was medevac to the nearest city which was Fairbanks and remained in coma for two months. Four months later, she was moved to Houston, Texas for rehabilitation and discharged a month later to a sister’s house in the suburb of the city. The technician laying down at the rear seat of the vehicle suffered injuries that required three stitches on the forehead. Surprisingly, though, the driver had not had any injury at all, not even a scratch.
That accident prevented CMF from achieving two things: taking helicopter flying lessons and clinching a Corrosion Specialist rating (“5 years corrosion experience to qualify for the oral and written test, like board exam”). But being the strong woman that she is, she believes that “Things happen for a reason -- that is not completely comprehensible to the human mind”.
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Roger, job well done! I just ran across it this time, at 3:40am Sun, 04/07/13. It parallels the article published in the '59 Newsletter.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, THANKS a lot! You have surely built me up to the eyes of our townspeople; if they ever have a chance to get hold of our blogspot. CARRY ON! CMF