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Random Thoughts on HS50's Golden Jubilee |
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by Ceron Encomienda
In fifty years, the members of Ateneo High School 1950 have been caught by the four winds. Some have been thrown into far-flung shores.
Many have gone up the social and economic ladder and occupied prominent places in the public eye. Some live more retiring lives in obscure places. They adopted different political and moral persuasions. Death has visited the group. In some cases, too early.
There are those who kept their closeness and friendships. Until Eddie Romualdez died, he was with a group that for years regularly met for breakfast once a month on the average.
Planning the golden reunion started at the house of Francis Arcenas in July 1999 with a group of seven. There was another meeting after two or three weeks. This time around sixteen came. Thereafter, meetings were held about once a month. Not the same people were present each time, but there was a core that showed up faithfully.
On December 8, 2000, 29 jubilarians gathered for the missa recitata at the Loyola Heights high school complex and the dinner at the residence of Emy Ramos, Jr. There would have been 30 if Albino Arevalo did not choose to take the boat from Mindoro and get stranded somewhere. Actually, there would have been 31 if the children of Reuben Justo in Canada did not dissuade him from going due to the Erap hullaballoo. Or maybe even 32, if Tony Javellana did not become ill. He died after the new year.
At the reunion and in all the preparatory meetings, the members of HS50 were young again. Just your regular Ateneo kids.
Memories consisted of such things as the nicknames various people got: alikabok, kabayo, kabog, bossy, bulldog, sepoy and the like. The lunch pass system that provided a break from cafeteria food and allowed some to go to the Aristocrat for dinuguan and puto, or to Chinatown for Ma Mon Luk mami and siopao. Various images came back to mind. Oxie Cacho monopolizing the peacock chair in the smoking room; Ding de Jesus playing the piano; everybody doing his bit to rip up the piano keys. That sort of caused the smoking room's demise. Anyway, Padre Faura was abandoned soon after and HS50, now in college, moved to Loyola Heights in its junior year.
There were many interesting memories. Teachers who were quite funny, if not ridiculous. What's even funnier is that somehow we learned something from them. Being part of the Blue Babble Battalion. Pounding the streets and knocking on doors for the Christmas package drive.
There was a lot of story-telling too. Many were well-worn and oft-repeated. But they were the stories of our youth, depicting the concerns and bravado of the young.
So, there they were, Ateneo High School '50. Some had less on the top of their heads, others had more in the gut. There were those with plastic or porcelain teeth. And the runts had gotten tall and heavy.
The most remarkable was the spirit of camaraderie. They behaved like long-lost relatives. There was a closeness even among those who hardly associated back in the old high school days. There was talk of more regular get-togethers, like every month or two. Email had been humming among some.
There is a bond created by being survivors. The ones, who in the cliche of adventure novels, lived to tell the tale.
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