An Army family's service

My daughter recently posted on her family blog what its like to say goodbye "again" to their army trooper husband and daddy. He was able to come home for a couple weeks for the birth of their newest son, Lance, but now its time to return to his station in Iraq.

I can remember experiencing some pretty deep "goodbye feelings" as a military kid, and later on as a military member myself, and they all came rushing back while reading my girl's description of my grandson's reaction to watching his daddy have to fly away once again. It's heart rending. Damien really loves his daddy.

Barry is a Blackhawk pilot in Iraq on the good side of his current tour over there. He will be stationed stateside upon his return in five months, but probably has another tour to Afghanistan coming up after a year at home. Unfortunately, that year is going to fly by. I worry about him constantly. Every time I see a report about a helo incident I hold my breath.

You want to meet some "tough" stout hearted folk, go to an army base during this time of war and talk to the average trooper and their family members. Their attitudes are amazing. I assure you, some of our best people choose to serve; if you doubt that, go talk to people like Barry and his wife, my daughter, Marie. Oh, and Marie already did a tour of enlistment in the army, so she's a veteran too.

Can you tell I'm proud of them?

xxx

Mactan Guitar Factory, Allegre's

It was raining steadily by the time we left The Magellan LapuLapu Monument. Pete and I are sticklers when it comes to time and within a split second of each other we both came up with the fact that we had just over an hour left on the three hours on our taxi. I had remembered going to see a guitar factory during my last trip to Mactan back in 1985 and mentioned to our little group that it might be nice to check one out before heading back to the hotel. No one objected, so off we went.

The driver took us to a place called Allegre’s Guitar. It was nothing like the crude dusty so-called factory I remembered seeing before. That one had been nothing but a barn-like wooden building with a tin roof. Inside, about a dozen men squatted on the floor in a huge pile of saw dust and wood chips. It must have taken them weeks to build up so much. It was messy, but it was impressive to see.

By comparison to that place from long ago, Allegre’s is nothing if not professional. There is nice place to park on the outside of the factory wall and a greeter meets and escorts guests into the factory. A lot of work and thought has gone into the displays.

I’ve included a few shots in this post from my flickr site of our tour of Allegre’s; from them you get a good idea of what they attempt to accomplish with their museum-like exhibits. All the different components are shown before they go into final assembly. If you are a carpenter or woodworker of any kind, such as a furniture maker, you will probably take a lot of interest in all the different types of wood they have. They have everything from oak and maple from Canada to various tropical hardwoods from right here in the Philippines.

Just as I had seen 24 years ago at that less sophisticated factory, Allegre’s also puts their woodcarvers, assemblers and painters on display as they demonstrate their craft. Also, just as I recall from that earlier trip, hardly any sound is heard other than the quiet rasp of file or chisel on wood, or the almost silent shushing of sandpaper. I didn’t see a single power tool of any kind, not a jigsaw or drill press one, thus the peaceful silence, not something you’d normally expect from a factory. I doubt that they could get any more low tech, but I think that’s actually pretty cool.

The one thing that Allegre’s has that I don’t remember from my earlier visit is a glitzy show room. And the neat thing about the show room aside from all the very beautiful guitars, ukuleles, mandolins, and other stringed instruments on display are the fellows that show them off and skillfully play them for you. We spent more time looking at these exquisite instruments and listening to the showmen play them one after another than we did in the actual factory.

Watching them play so effortlessly turns out to be a very effective sales ploy. I don’t play anything, but while watching our guide, and now salesman, play a ukulele as if it was almost playing itself I developed a hankering to have one. I was surprised at the rich sound he made come from it, not all plunky like I thought.

Intently, I watched him play one made from a richly dark mahogany. Amazed I asked, “All that great sound from a ukulele; I can’t believe it. How much would something like that cost?”

Without stopping his graceful strumming of a Filipino folk song used to dance the tinikling, a traditional Filipino dance, he answered, “Only 10,000 pesos, and that includes a really nice carrying case.”

“Oh man! I don’t have that kind of cash on me. If you took credit cards I’d probably have to get one though.”

“Oh, we take credit cards; no problem!”

Divine laughed, “Ha! He got you! Now you gonna buy one?”

I grinned, “Well, I guess I have no choice now, do I?” And buy one I did. It’s a beauty!

Far be it from me to expect perfection, still...

And speaking of hyper-critical, let’s talk about the hotel we stayed in on Mactan, a pretty nice place called The Crown Regency; well, it was mostly nice.

First, some good things: The suites are spacious; they include two bedrooms, one with its own full bath; a full kitchen (not a kitchenette) with all the basic appliances that you’d expect; a good-sized living room/dining room; another separate full-sized full bathroom; and finally, a total of three verandas—all for 6000 pesos a night, or just over $125.

And here are some more good things: A beautiful big ol’ well-maintained pool (with nice landscaping), free internet access in all bedrooms, a fairly well-equipped fitness room free for guests, and on the roof (I think about the 10th or 11th floor) a fancy-schmancy spa with “reasonable” prices (reasonable being relative). Oh, and let’s not forget that breakfast is gratis as well, with eggs made to order by a pretty good chef staff.

The price per day isn’t too bad I suppose, if you consider what you get. Still…

You’d think that the person in charge of putting someone in charge of selecting the furniture for a hotel that might rate a star or two would put more thought into it, because I spent much of my time in the room scratching my head and chuckling at the obvious deficiencies (chuckling, because if you didn't laugh, you'd scream).

For instance, I’m a TV hound—the first thing I do is look for the remote upon entering any hotel room. Check out the picture of the TV cabinet in the living room. This idiotic cabinet has two doors that do not fold all the way back. Therefore, the only way to see what’s on is to sit directly in front of it. I’m sorry, but that’s just plain moronic. It’s like watching TV down a tunnel. I never once spent time in that room, seeing that silly TV with its wooden blinders overloaded my BS detector; it was more than I could bare.

Then there are the beds! They look great made up and all, regal even, but they are WAY too tall, unless you happen to be over the height of 6 feet. Well, my girl and I are veritable midgets, so we just about had to take a running leap to get up and into the darn thing. Then, to make matters worse, the springs are extra firm, so that they put a crown on the bed. In other words, you are way up off the floor as it is, and now you feel like you are going to spill out over the side. It’s like sleeping downhill on the edge of a cliff. You get too close to the edge and it’s a long way down. I’m telling you, I developed a phobia from it.

Now, as I said, the beds are tall, so naturally you’d suppose that they’d buy nightstands that are equally tall, right? Wrong! Sitting up in bed watching my beloved TV with a coke in hand, I had to lean way over and down to put my drink on the stand. Of course, if I strayed too close to the edge, off I’d fall.

On that note, both the nightstands and dressers had the same ridiculous design on their table tops. I’ve never seen anything like it—they were beveled right along their edges. Because of these dopey slanted edges, more than an inch wide, if I didn’t pay attention and put something on them too close to the slant, off it would slide. I dropped cans of coke onto the floor and other assorted objects, such as coins, my cell, my sunglasses, you name it. Just to make sure, I pushed everything to the center of all the table tops. It drove me nuts. The fact that the nightstands are also like this made them even more difficult to use while sitting in bed since they were so far down from the lofty top of the bed. Getting the point?

In choosing between rooms I noticed that the bedroom with the private bath was set up all wrong in relation to the TV. (Heaven forbid!)The bed was sideways to the TV. What? So only one person is supposed to watch TV from the double bed at a time? No way. I’d rather have the other bedroom, without the bath, but with the TV where it should be, right in front of the bed; thank you very much.

The lack of ergonomics theme continued down in the hotel restaurant dining room. Aside from the ever-present flies, I realized the problem when I first sat on one of the over padded bench seats and my chin barely reached 6 inches above the table top. Jokingly, I asked the waiter for a booster chair, but he didn’t get the joke.

As far as the flies, the dining room is about as far away from the entrance as it can get, so where are all the flies coming from? I used one hand to wave them off while eating with the other; and that’s something you get used to over here, but it shouldn’t happen in a nice hotel restaurant, should it?

I can tell you this: The windows and sliding veranda doors of the suite bedrooms are definitely NOT sound-proofed. We were on the fourth floor over-looking the main boulevard and MAN it was noisy. Some really big trucks continuously rumbled past, and since horn-honking in the Philippines is part of driving here, there was lots of that as well—every bit of that persistent sound seemed to be taking place right outside the thin panes of glass. My veranda door wouldn’t latch properly, so that it was always about 1/8th inch cracked open, which reduced its sound muffling abilities to next to nothing. Bottom line: if you stay at The Crown Regency, ask for a room facing away from the front of the building.

I put this panarama together using multiple shots from my bedroom veranda. In making the horizon level notice that the busy and noisy street below, which is straight as an arrow, became boomarang shaped when I layered the pictures together into one (Click on the pic for a full-sized flickr view of the panarama).

Ever see elevators with hair-trigger doors? Well, they got ‘em at The Mactan Crown R. There is almost no pause after they open. Slam! There they go, and up or down the elevator swoops. I developed a complex to the effect that whenever the doors opened I’d hastily reach in and hold the middle slats to keep them from slamming shut. And don’t try to be nice and step back to wait for it to empty of riders before getting close. I did this once and wasn’t able to get a hand against the door in time—SLAM! Swoop—I missed my chance to get in.

So would I stay there again? Yeah, probably; sometimes it doesn’t pay to expect perfection. Just the same, if the owner and managers happen read this, why not take some of these observations under advisement?

Magellan Beach, ...I Mean, LapuLapu Beach.

A week ago today (Sunday) we returned from an outreach to Cebu. Our entire office (the three of us) went to offer our services and advice with veteran’s affairs to the local veteran and dependent population under the auspices of our qualifications and experience as volunteers in a local VSO (veterans service organization). While there, we took the opportunity to check out a few of the sites in Cebu City and on Mactan Island.

One of the first things I noticed was all the little white sedan taxis. They are everywhere. I loved two things about these ubiquitous little “go vehicles:” the cost to get anywhere in them is cheap, and their drivers don’t seem intent on ripping you off. Even when we made a deal off the meter to have one stay with us for three or so hours at a whack, the most we had to pay for such a thing was between 15 and 20 dollars; and, being from Angeles City, (a place where taxis are pretty much only available within the confines of The Clark Economic Zone) I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it’s actually cheaper to get somewhere in the Cebu City area by a clean air-conditioned Cebu taxi using the meter than it is to get virtually anywhere here within “The City of Angels” in an uncomfortably cramped trike.

About the only downside to the Cebu taxis is also the thing kind of interesting about them. Most of them have been modified with an LPG package to run on that much cheaper kind of fuel. So, if you need to put luggage in the trunk you just might be out of luck. We didn’t discover this until the morning we needed to get to the consulate only to learn that our taxi’s trunk space was mostly filled with an LPG tank. Not wanting to wait around until a regular gas taxi happened by, my counterpart opted to hold a heavy boxed printer on his lap for the half hour it took to get there. We should have just taken two taxis, but he didn’t realize how painful that box was going to become sitting across his knees by the time we got there. Shame on me, I remember thinking, ‘Well, better him than me!’ The poor guy; good thing he’s made of sterner stuff than I am these days.

It’s been since 1985 since I’ve been to Cebu. During my short return visit there last week, I wanted to see the four things of interest that have stuck in my mind since all that time ago: 1) Magellan’s death site, which is a beachside memorial on the island of Mactan, and 2) also on Mactan, one of the guitar factories that that island is known for worldwide, and 3) Fort San Pedro over in Cebu City proper, and finally 4) also in Cebu City, the reliquary monument supposedly containing a piece of the original Magellan's Cross. This post will only be mostly about the national memorial to the chieftain LapuLapu, and the Spanish explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, killed by the former in April of 1521, with more to follow on the rest of our Cebu trip in future posts.

Unluckily, on the day we happened to go to “Lapu Lapu Beach,” or “Magellan Beach,” if you prefer, a typhoon was passing by close enough to reach out and touch us with a few of its outer windy rain bands. But that’s okay; we were still able to take it in before the really hard rain kept us trapped under the makeshift tarps at the site’s row of T-shirt and seashell shops.

Who knows if the site of the memorial is the exact spot where Magellan’s quest to circumnavigate the globe ended abruptly with his death here in the Philippines at the approximate half-way point (one of his lieutenants took over and actually made it the rest of the way around back to Spain). Chances are it’s not the exact same spot, nevertheless we do know that it took place on a beach on that part of Mactan; so it’s close enough.

I do know that it must be the traditionally accepted site since the oldest monument onsite is a stone block obelisk put up by the Spanish. I say evidently since the placard date is during the time of Spanish rule and the language on it is Spanish. One side states, “A Hernando De Magallanes,” with “Glorias Espanolas,” and “1866 Reinando Ysabel II” on the other sides. So, that particular monument is for the memory of Magellan to the Glory of Spain dedicated in 1866 during the reign of Queen Isabel the Second.

Notice that there is no mention of LapuLapu, the datu (chieftain) whose men famously killed Magellan. Based on what I know of colonial Spain I’m sure that the great notoriety and status now given to this pugnacious tribal chief was not in place until after the Spanish eviction in 1898.

On the other hand however, over in the more modern pavilion devoted to LapuLapu, with its mural of “The Battle of Mactan,”there is plenty of acclaim to this kampilan wielding killer of Magellan. I got a kick out of the inscription, the part that goes, “…Thus, LapuLapu became the first Filipino to have repelled European aggression.” Not trying to be too flippant, it should also say “and the last Filipino to do so,” since once the Spaniards got their foothold under Legaspi they were here to stay until the Americans finally did the actual repelling some 377 years later.

Interestingly, the story is told by the Italian Pigafetta, a follower of Magellan, and a survivor of the battle, that the only reason Magellan got into it against LapuLapu in the first place was at the behest of the rajah of Cebu, Humabon, who asked his new friend and supposedly militarily powerful ally, Magellan, to go over and settle the score once and for all with his old rival LapuLapu. Magellan made three classic errors: 1) getting involved in a fight that was not his, 2) underestimating his opponent, and 3) lack of good pre-battle intelligence.

There is a greater than life statue of LapuLapu facing the beach. When I showed him to the kids they all laughed at the close up shot of his backside, which seems to show him wearing an equally oversized diaper. I explained that it was actually a loincloth, but they insisted it was a diaper. Kids!

I gave LapuLapu some thought as I inspected his massive statuary physique and it occurred to me that if not for the fact that he killed a famous Portuguese explorer, chances are, no one would have ever heard of the guy. In effect, he is who he killed; something like the notoriety achieved by Mark David Chapman, the guy who killed John Lenin.

As for the memorial site itself, unless my mind plays tricks on me, it doesn’t look the same as I remember it from when I last saw it 24 years ago. Back then, I don’t believe the pavilion was up yet; all I remember is the big statue of LapuLapu and the Magellan obelisk.

I definitely like the improved garden aspect of it. There was little of that before and now it’s quite extensive. I saw three or four gardeners busily pruning, cultivating and snipping. Looking around the place though; if I’d been in charge, I would have had that crew pick up all the rubbish mucking up the place before allowing them to snip away at the grass and shrubs. Priorities dang it! For some reason the sight of trash on the ground doesn’t seem intrusive to the folks in these parts. It drives me nuts; I can’t stand the sight of litter in an otherwise beautiful place. (sigh)

Another change is that an open view of the sea is no longer possible. This is because of the presence of a line of mangrove trees parallel to the beach that prevents all sight of the Camotes Sea. I’m pretty sure I could see the open water before. Chances are, they planted the mangroves to preserve the beach from storm erosion. The problem with that is that the beach no longer resembles the battle site, and being a purist when it comes to history, of course I’m going to complain about stuff like that.

Have you noticed I tend to be critical? Can’t help it; it’s my nature.

Here are all my photos from the memorial site on my flickr site.

First Communion

Last month, my soon-to-be-eight-year-old daughter accomplished her First Communion, a landmark event in every young Catholic’s religious life. I still dimly remember mine, and just think, it occurred roughly around the same timeframe that JFK was assassinated, which I also mostly remember. Yes it's true, I really AM that old.

Alas, my girls no longer live with me. I met them and their mom on a Wednesday morning in front of their town’s large Catholic cathedral; every town in the Philippines worth its salt has one, or two or three. Most, if not all, still use the old-fashioned wooden pews with slightly cushioned kneelers.

xxxxxxxxxxxx One of my mom's First Communion Photos

My heart melted when I caught my first glimpse of my little girl in her simple white dress and veil. She ran to me and gave me a big hug. I’m trying to think of the words: cute, pretty, sweet, they all apply, but they aren’t enough. Seeing her in that white dress, white signifying purity of spirit and devotion to God, absolutely choked me up and rendered my heart.

I remember thinking, ‘If only she could stay this innocent and perfect.’ Thinking it over these few weeks later, I say, ‘Well, she’s such a sweet kid; there’s no reason why she won’t always be just like that.’ And it’s true; to Dads, their daughters are forever their sweet little girls. In fact, my oldest daughter, almost 30, now with three little ones of her own, and my second oldest girl at 27, also with her own little sweetie angel, are both still “my girls,” and always will be.
Just like many other similar "happenings" in this country the First Communion I witnessed that day was more “production” than simple ceremony. Teachers and assistants really turn such things into momentous shows, nothing at all like the mostly uncomplicated rituals that I went through as a kid. I remember my nuns using clickers to let us know when to sit, kneel and stand. We had to go from here to there and then back to the first place. We sang a few hymns and had to remember to point our praying hand fingers directly up, toward God in Heaven, as we made our way to communion and back. Indeed, I wasn’t able to see my girls the weekend before “the big communion event,” because she “needed to practice” for most of both Saturday and Sunday. I don’t think I would have done such a thing when I was 7; I probably would have revolted, or at the very least moaned and whined a lot.

Then again, I noticed that the little boy communicants were not nearly as “into” the “performance” as their little girl counterparts. I have to admit, in so many ways, little girls, and big girls too for that matter, are so much more superior to boys and especially us “big boys.” Sometimes men are just lazy punks. Sometimes?

I spent most of the two plus hours of the service with my 5 year old girl. I was proud of her. She probably squirmed less than I did on that uncomfortable wooden pew during the whole of the interminable length of time it took us to get through that holy Catholic sacrament.

xxxx

Truth be told though, I was happy to spend it with her since I get so little time with my girls anymore. I miss them terribly. Anymore, not seeing them for days at a time is like trying to hold my breath under water, and seeing them again is the same wonderful relief I get when I come out of the water and take that first big lungful of air.

What I considered to be an over lengthy service notwithstanding, I was both relieved and saddened to be at the end of it. I was happy to get off that unyielding wooden bench, but I was sad to have to leave my girls again. As for my daughter, she was proud of her new more grown-up status in The Church and was not the least put off by the length of all the pomp and circumstance that it took to attain it. I’m thinking now that the only one to feel even the slightest bit of impatience with the whole thing was cranky old me.