Young LoveWe could not be there at the start, but we were there at the end. And it was the happy outcome that we had expected. With the final score of 88 – 82, our High School basketball team, the Staglets, wrested from the hapless Letran Squires the NCAA Junior Basketball Championship trophy last 26 September. With their third championship in as many years, the Buenafe-led cagers join elite San Beda, Mapua and Ateneo (when it was still with the NCAA) as the only teams to have won at least a Grand Slam. Special congratulations to the High School department, led by Mrs. Cristina Aliwalas, HS Principal.
Another triumph for San Sebastian College took place earlier that afternoon at the College of International Hospitality Management as its new offices and laboratory were blessed. Much kudos to Ma’am Cora Reyes, College Dean, her faculty and staff. The IREP faculty could not be absent, that’s why we – Sirs Cecil and Jay, Ma’am Reggie and her son, and myself – could go to the ball game only afterwards.
We arrived at Araneta Coliseum for the second half of the game. There was really no question that our boys would take the plum. When the final buzzer rang, the shouts and cheers of the yellow-shirted, largely High School Baste crowd were deafening. The glorious feeling was not dampened by the fact that, in contrast, our senior team – who in the past had won five consecutive rings, unmatched till this day – failed to even enter the Final Four.
Reveling in being a live-basketball fan once more, I decided to stay for the second game. The San Beda Red Lions were gunning for their back-to-back championship and the Letran Knights stood on the way. Would Letran succeed in the senior division where it had failed in the junior level?
A sea of red was slowly filling up the Coliseum. San Beda students and alumni soon occupied more than three-fourths of the place, the noise from their drums and throats overwhelming those of the smaller Letranite crowd. I found myself engulfed by red shirts, too. Just to make sure, I told them I was rooting for San Beda. We are neighbors, and besides,
he he he, I was giving a recollection to San Beda monks Saturday of the following week, so I was no enemy. They assured me they had cheered for San Sebastian too.
The atmosphere was electric and I was going to enjoy it as much as the game itself. The crowd was young, most of them, with older Bedans feeling rejuvenated as they chanted:
BEDA, BEDA FIGHT FIGHT, HEY UM HIM KUM KAWA, HAYA AH KALMA, KALMA POLY WANA, OH, OH, SHAIRAK MISERAVIGABLE, RAH RAH, OH OH. (Truth be said, I had to ask a Benedictine brother for these lyrics, as the only version I knew is that which describes Bedans’ salivary glands).
“AMEN”, Bedans of all ages roared in response to their school president Fr. Matthew de Jesus’ rousing pre-toss-up pep talk. Then the game began. Red and white sausage balloons swayed in the “wave” that cruised from one side to the other. Placards urging GO, BEDA FIGHT appeared all over the place as the red shirts seemed to have suddenly grown extra hands.
By the end of the first quarter, the crowd was already on its feet. Coeds were shrillest when hearthrob Escobal marshaled the game. Letran defenders were most harried when Menor, he of the Mohican crest (I mused that our school guards, on strict instructions from Sir Dindo, would never allow such hairdo to be seen in our school premises, even if its owner would turn out to be the finals MVP), spliced the air en route to an acrobatic lay-up. Letran scorers were patently intimidated by the height and heft of Ekwe, the Nigerian swatter. Aljamal was relentless in his offense. Five minutes before the end of the game, with a Bedan lead of 14 points, new placards were being distributed, cockily predicting the outcome: SAN BEDA CHAMPIONS!!!
Tough luck for Letran.
But win or lose, sports are a celebration of youth. How glorious it is to be young, and to be in love, be it with this game called basketball! For what could be more beautiful than young love?
“Young love, first love filled with true devotion. Young love, our love we share with deep emotion”, went a song popular in my young years.
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Old LoveAs beautiful as young love is, there is something more beautiful, and that is old love.
That weekend I witnessed the celebration of the old love of my aunt and uncle who were feted on their 50th wedding anniversary in Calatrava, Negros Occidental. They were joined by their abundant offspring: 10 children, 22 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren.
It was the children who insisted that they make a special celebration, as the celebrants themselves, because of lack of wherewithal, would have made do with simple renewal rites. Fifty years of married life deserves that and much more.
During the after-dinner program, two of my cousins revealed the secret of their parents’ staying power. It’s not a formula that would apply to everyone, and perhaps not a few would raise a snicker, but for them, it worked out. My aunt Damasa was the only one with a stable job – she was a public school teacher – but uncle Ernesto kept the house, cooked the food, did the laundry. Had it been the other way around, my cousin was sure, my uncle would have gone astray for, she quipped, he was not bad looking at all.
When they quarreled, which was so seldom that their children could remember but few instances, the wife would keep silent when it was the husband who raged, and, in turn, the man would keep cool or stay away, when the woman was furious.
My aunt’s religiosity is the third ingredient of their successful marriage. Nurtured in the morals and pious practices of her mother and the spirituality of that Recollect missionary, Fr. Facundo Valgañon, who was parish priest of Calatrava for a good number of years and – even if he died more than three decades ago – still impacts the older townsfolk, my aunt could be said to have carried the family on the wings of her prayers. Up to recent years, she regularly joined the daily dawn rosary and procession until arthritis forced her to stay home. I could only gape in admiration to learn that she still abstains from meat all Wednesdays and Fridays of the year; in communities of friars that observance has been merrily banished in favor of more “relevant” practices, whichever those are. It is the strength of her faith that has kept the family intact in spite of enormous problems, which hounded, and still hound, the family.
It was touching to see them give each other a piece of the jubilee cake, the fork on their gnarled trembling hands searching each other’s mouth, while someone jokingly suggested in Cebuano:
“I-timing lang sa pagkurog”. It was greatly inspiring for me to see
Tiya Masa, after the guests had left, join the others in clearing the tables, in a manner so natural that she never even thinks that on her 50th wedding anniversary she might be entitled to some reprieve.
That is how young love lasts and becomes old love.
