Teachers' Pets

 

 

Mr. Soriano's Big Stick

 

Do you Mr. Soriano from the Electrical Shop? He had a basement classroom, too.  He was the one who would give number problems with a blank for one of two of the factors and the he would assign individual members for us to use for those blanks and work on… and he would choose odd numbers so they'd be more difficult… and he would use his rattan cane, his yantok Mindoro, to point at you while giviing out your few and far between… fifty-fifty-one, fifty-fifty-three, fifty-fifty-seven and so on.  Remember him?  He looked, and probably was, a hundred years old when we were in his class.  By the time we graduated, he had retired.  He was the grandfather of one of our classmate, Wilfredo Padilla.

 

One day, Mr. Soriano conducted a review of our project on electrical models. Three of the models presented early during the class had passed the test.  Then it was Bernardo Capati's turn.

 

Mr. Soriano was tinkering with the project and saying no one, "Bacolor calling San Fernando… Bacolor calling San Fernando…"  Then, KABOOOOOMMMMM!!! A loud bang and fire! Lots of smoke, too.  Realizing he had started a fire, Mr. Soriano started hitting the project board with his yantok Mindoro.  Hw was a good shot, too.  He kept hitting the electrical junction box until it was all dented and broken.

 

Smoke filled the basement classroom.  Students panicked and stampede ensued.  I remember that my finger got caught in the door.  And Elias Mendoza, thin as he was, got crushed by the door that pinned his chest, or stomach, against the wall as the door swung inside open.  Fortunately, Elias and I were the only casualties.

 

It was Mrs. Silva who took us upstairs to the science room for first aid treatment.  Bernardo Capati had to pay Mr. Soriano for the electrical box he himself destroyed.  Later, I found out that Bernardo did not make that project himself.  Instead he asked one of their employees at the Estrella Theater to put it together for him.

 

The following week, Mr. Soriano went on to check the other projects.  But this time, he has changed his radio call.  "San Fernando calling Angeles… San Fernando calling Angeles!"

 

Mr. Fajardo's Holiday Eggcitement

 

Poultry and Swine was one of those vocational courses we had to take in Industrial Arts during the first and second years in high school.  One for each semester… the others being Horticulture, Electrical Shop and Woodworking.  The Horticulture teacher was Mr. Jose Fajardo.

I remember it was the Christmas vacation.  Mr. Fajardo asked for volunteers to watch and feed the school's chickens while school was out.  True to form, I volunteered and volunteered Avelino Manalang along with me.

 

Virgilio Malang, who lived across the school, would drop by with his slingshot- tirador- once a while.  He would give us a hand in feeding the flocks, and collecting the eggs.  That was one of our major: collecting fresh eggs.  We would give Malang some eggs to take home at the end of his visit.  However, we had to make sure there were enough eggs for Mr. Fajardo who would swing by regularly to collect the eggs and take them home.

 

One day, I was collecting the eggs as usual. Picking them up carefully from the through where they roll to from the hen's underside, holding them up the sunlight… as if I knew what was I was doing  Then out of nowhere, one of the hens attacked me from behind.  Penuctuc na cu ning alti.

 

I yelled to Avel to go find me stick.  He handed me one, not quite as big as Mr. Soriano's  yantok Mindoro, but I grabbed it from him and started beating on the hen.  I really beat the s*@# out of it.  By the time I got done, giving in to Avel's pleas for mercy for the errant creature, the poor hen was limping.  I felt bad.  But I was thinking "fried chicken!"

 

Mr. Fajardo came by the next day, and saw the hen with a limp.  I held my breath, and searched my mind for an excuse.  What was I going to say? How would I explain the limp?  The hen was under my care!  But, nonchalantly, Mr. Fajardo sauntered to the poor thing and scooped it up.  He took it home with him, along with the day's harvest of fresh eggs.  "Fried chicken," Avel and I though.

 

Before New Year's, I brought some firecrackers to our Christmas job. Avela and I had a field day lighting them up and setting them off next to the chicken coops. Chaos! Mellee!  Putakan ang mga manok dahil sa putukan!

 

The next day, we had more eggs than usual.  But when Mr. Fajardo came by, we told him we only collected 6 eggs.  We toke home the rest and the next few days, we had eggs for lunch: scrambled eggs, hard broiled eggs…

 

Mr. Garcia's Winds of War

 

Mr. Garcia, the PMT Commandant, was every inch a military man.  Short like Napoleon.  Stocky and squat.  Almost bald, but sported the military crew cut.  His head and skin bronzed by the sun.  he carried around a baton… black and sleek.  Probably made of kamagong, the dark hardwood from the inner core of the  mabolo tree. He walked with the swagger of John Wayne and talked with a boom.  Loud and authoritative.  He also sucked on a pipe… although not the corncob type, not entirely unlike Mac Arthur.

 

One hot day, he instructed us to sweep the area by the entrance to his basement classroom.  Like the good obedient soldiers he was training us to be, we started to do just that.  We were almost done with our mission when the wind started picking up.  It stirred the dust of the entrance.  As the wind got stronger, the clouds of dust got bigger and soon the dust found its way into the classroom.  The door to the basement classroom was really a gate… made of dos por dos slats.  Wind and rain and small animals could go through this door.

 

Two of the would-be military men started fighting the wind with brooms.  That created more dust.

 

Along came the commandant with his baton.  He kicked and hit both the broom-wielding

cadets, without warming.  Then he declared in his usual booming authoritative, oratorical delivery, "This is no way to fight a war."

 

I could not make out his face from the dust. The dust in the air. The dust on his face and bald pate.  He then turned to all of us and continued, "Believe me men, there will be a third world war!"

 

We all just froze. What the hell was he saying? To this day, that thought has haunted me. It stuck in my mind.  Weird, but thank goodness, not prophetic.  Not yet, anyway.    

 

 

Tony Miranda