levi's 503s and crispa white tees

This line from the song “Last Year’s Man” kept ringing in my ears:  “And though I wear a uniform I was not born to fight”.  The song was by Canadian poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, a favourite.  Truth to tell, I still don’t know what the song is all about.  I’d read somewhere in the net that it was one of his most profound songs and his fans can’t seem to agree on a common meaning.  It has passages about Jesus and Cain as well as on Joan of Arc and wounded soldiers and, Babylon and Bethlehem.  It’s the manner of how Cohen sang it that attracted me most to it—the same attribute that made me to like and repeatedly listen to his albums, especially his early recordings.  It was mainly that single line though that prompted me to write this post.

Cohen's 1971 LP

It was the late rock icon radio disc jockey Howlin’ Dave (aka Dante David) that introduced me to Cohen.  Day in day out my battery-operated transistor radio was tuned in to DZRJ, the Rock of Manila, when I was an aggie student in UP Los Baňos from 1976 to 1983.  It would play on as soon as I entered my dormitory room from my classes until the station signed off.  Sometimes, it would automatically play in the morning to wake me up if I failed to turn it off the previous night.  I think I’d spent more time listening to this radio station’s disc jockeys than my professors in the university; maybe that’s one of the reasons why I failed to earn my degree in spite of my seven-year stay.

Parading North Korean soldiers

What’s so significant about that line?  You see, one of the things I hated most about my college life was the compulsory military training, the Reserved Officers Training Course (ROTC), which every able-bodied male student had to attend for four semesters before he could graduate.   This did not only made me to stay long hours under the scorching heat of the sun obeying, mostly stupid, orders from the cadet officers but it also prevented me from growing my hair long—really long, which was an obsession at that time to look like a rock star.  The more underlying reason was my then growing resentment over military abuses and its role to prop up the brutal administration of then dictator Ferdinand Marcos.  The army fatigue-coloured uniform that we have to wear every training day (Saturday) came to represent some sort of a shackle that prevented me from doing and pursuing things I always wanted to do during what Bob Dylan sang as “times they are a-changin”.  This may sound trivial and senseless, even selfish, today, but for a restless and rebellious young man it’s all that counts. 

Mingo tired after playing with my flip flops

I only started hating being in uniforms on my first semester in UPLB.  Suddenly, I can attend my classes in whatever outfits I chose.  Some male students came to their classes in shorts, either athletic or cut-off denim, and wearing ordinary rubber slippers, very much unlike the pricey Brazilian flip flops of today’s youth.  I now can’t help but remember my bearded and hairy Spanish-looking mate—that’s how we call each other in our dorm organization, the Calma Bulls, instead of the usual brod—who loved to wear Adidas football shorts and would most likely elicit giggles from girls when he’s seating on the steps of stairs of buildings while waiting for his classes.  Football shorts from the late 70s were really, really short compared to the ones worn by players today and this was the cause why one of his testicles would dangle out to the full view of the incoming girls—thus, the impish giggles.  I don’t know if this contributed to why he was able to hook up with one of the most fantasized girls in the campus, which my juvenile mates had good-humouredly but politically incorrectly described as teeming with lady loggers and farm hands.

Some things remain unchanged

In high school at Don Bosco (Pampanga), it was well-pressed navy blue pants and white polo shirts and black leather shoes, except when we’re allowed to wear “civilian” clothes during very special occasions.  Denim jeans, no matter how blue and “unfaded”, were a no-no.  But even during these special occasions, I dreaded wearing “civilian” clothes because of an earlier incident.  I was attending a meeting of the Boy Scouts on a Saturday and I came beaming with pride wearing for the first time a printed polo shirt.  The feeling of pride was short-lived though.  As soon as I had taken a seat, a classmate deridingly commented, “hey classmate, nice shirt! It looks like it’s made from chicken feed sack!”  I was taken aback and shame overcame me and could not retort a reply.

Improvised flour sack blanket

At that time, of course, chicken feeds were bagged in printed cloths instead of the usual jute or plastic sacks so common today.  We may not be rich just like most students of Don Bosco but my mom would never buy empty chicken feeds cloth sacks and have these sewn into our—my father, younger brother and I— polo shirts.  More than a couple years later, though, wearing collarless shirts made from flour white sacks, with the name of the company prominently displayed, became fashionable.  These were the same flour sacks popular among poor families as baby diaper materials and sewn together into blankets.

Prettified shirt from flour sack 

I kept that incident at the back of my mind and had greatly influenced my choice of clothes to wear during my seven-year stay in UPLB.  I initially settled with wearing my “civilian” clothes of my high school years during my first semester.  Realizing these were so “baduy”, a slang during my teen years that’s associated with “low class” fashion, I started building my wardrobe of denim jeans and t-shirts—mainly Levi’s and Crispa.

My last pair of Levis, a 501

I would have loved to have Levi’s 501s but they were expensive, so, I opted for the cheaper 503s, whose fit I really loved, and bought these in the only authorized Levi’s outlet in Pampanga—Laus Men’s World in San Fernando.  The first ones that I bought in 1976 were less than, if not a little over, one hundred pesos!  I also did not want to unnecessarily financially burden my parents and requested my mom to just buy me Crispa white t-shirts—it’s not that I was a Crispa Redmanizers fan, it’s just that I found them simple, was comfortable wearing them and no one would mistake them for chicken feed sacks.  More importantly, this get-up helped me to blend with the crowd, so to speak.  A Sigma Betan seatmate in my Spanish language course once asked me: "Are you really a Kapampangan?"  Realizing my puzzlement, "you don't dress like one," she continued.  

Available after all these years

For seven years, I roamed the vast campus of UPLB in my Levi's 503s and white Crispa t-shirts.  Every Sunday afternoon or early Monday morning, you’ll find my backpack crammed with my clean change of clothes for the week—at least five white tees, five white under wears and at least a couple of denim jeans—as I travel back to UPLB and the same number of clothes, but this time dirty, as I go home to Bacolor, Pampanga for the weekend.  Isn’t it ironic, I was supposed to hate uniforms but I was practically wearing them for seven years in UPLB and for another three years when I transferred in GAUF? 

The truth was I did not see my outfits as uniforms.  They were neither prescribed by the university nor any person in authority but were my practical preference.  I was happy wearing them and, sincerely, I did not pine for any other clothes.  I was absolutely, and is still, happy with them.

My oldest Lee jeans

I’ve actually come full circle.  Lately, I’ve been wearing mostly white tees, although none of them was a Crispa.  Maybe, one of these days, I’ll ask my wife to buy me a couple. Levi’s 503s are now out of production.  But even before they did, I’d already switched to Lee’s when I started working.  Because of the really low pay in NGOs—which I really don’t regret as it was the most rational choice to continue my advocacies as a social activist—and one who’s starting a family, I realized I had to give up wearing 503s and searched for cheaper jeans that were equally, if not more, tough and durable.  With Lee’s, I could have button flys and still have a few change for a t-shirt.  And so, it was Lee button flys and mostly coloured tees when I roamed rural villages of Luzon while reporting in various Quezon City-based offices during my employed years. The same outfits I brought to my failed 5-month stint as a development volunteer in Mombasa, Kenya.

My fave Lee cargo

Up to now, my wardrobe is still dominated by my Lee denim jeans—not necessarily button flys—and cargo shorts and various white tees.  But this time, I don’t go places; I don’t work.  I’m just a stay-at-home aging man; a househusband trying hard to be blogger. (30)

passing on at sixty

“Doing the garden, digging the weeds,

Who could ask for more?

Will you still love me, will you still feed me,

When I’m sixty-four?”

            ─ The Beatles

              “When I’m Sixty-Four”

I’m back to my early morning and late afternoon ritual of sitting in our garden set, leisurely sipping my favourite local brew, and toying with my hand-me-down netbook hoping I could hook up with the Muse.  Well, there’s no reason why I can’t revive (again) this blog—from its hiatus after I posted my last article on 7 December—and help me put some diversity in my rather uneventful life now that my youngest daughter had handed me down anew her netbook.  Since I’m through with my caregiving chores to my parents and went on to live with my ex-girlfriend (who’s now my wife J and mother to my two daughters) in our Playpen, my life practically revolves around the new member of the household, Mingo, my youngest daughter’s dog left to my care while she’s earning her keeps.

Actually, my life’s circumstance has hardly changed.  This time around I’m looking after a playful dog, whose energy appears without expiration in contrast to the lethargic existence of my then nonagenarian parents, especially my wheelchair-bound mom.  Coming out with my blog with a semblance of regularity is the major lack in my life’s previous formula; and this, I believe, is a vital element to meaningfully embark on another phase of my life and meet head on my twilight years.  I’m now striving to get into the groove and gain the momentum to resume my blog writing.  Unlike the pros, I just can’t sit in front of a computer and start writing.

  The bigger challenge I’m putting myself in  is up my output, which were two articles per month after I recovered from the unexpected death of my mother in April until the equally unexpected demise of my father in early December last year.  Since his passing on, I was only able to come out with just one post, which was actually up for final editing when he succumbed from haemorrhagic stroke two weeks after it struck him.  This is my first for 2014.

Looking after Mingo is very much unlike caring after my parents.  It’s more laidback and fun; in fact, it makes me forget all the cares in the world.  This was unlike the latter where the act itself is already a major worry.  Moreover, I now have time to attend some personal concerns after making sure that Mingo has access to his needs when I'm out.  In fact, I recently touched base with my alma mater, Gregorio Araneta University Foundation, or, to be more precise, its bastardized metamorphosis, De La Salle Araneta University.  (See my related blog, http://raulgalangsarmiento.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-noble-bastard-son_30.html, why this claim.)  This was practically impossible before.  On the other hand, with Mingo around, staying at home all day has become more fun.

As I see it, there is no reason why I can’t increase my blog output.  When I was just toying with the idea to come out with this, I assumed I could easily finish an article a week.  I thought I was still the 32-year old committed and gung-ho development worker that can finish a project proposal in a week’s time or less when some colleagues and I tried to nurture a NGO that embodies our nationalist and development ideals.  But I found out blog writing was different and my personal circumstance was different, too; there was simply a plethora of distraction that kept on upsetting my efforts to meet that target.

Before thinking of increasing my output, though, I have to get into the groove first and establish a momentum.  More than other things, that’s my biggest concern right now.   I won’t be lacking in topics to write on even if I’ll just limit myself to writing follow ups on the two most read topics I’d came out with—GAUF/DLSAU and Potrero, the barrio of my birth.  I sincerely believed it’s high time to make an update on “the noble bastard son” in the light of new developments at the DLSAU and after reading a book on Dr. Salvador Z. Araneta—“Glimpses on the Life, Philosophy and Advocacies of Dr. Salvador Z. Araneta” (Tadena, Callangan and Blancaflor, 2005)—given to me by the outgoing DLSAU Supreme Student Council President Robert Gatbonton after I gave a brief talk on “The Lasalyanetan Identity Forum” last January 2014.

There’s also no more opportune time, I believe, to take an in-depth look into the reasons and events that led to my barrio’s sluggish rise from the ashes of Mount Pinatubo eruption nearly a quarter of a century after that cataclysmic, life-changing event.  This too is the most apt juncture to examine and investigate how the padding of the list of voters that came to the fore in the last barrio (barangay) elections was perpetrated.  This may be amateurishly undertaken but the thing is something is being done on this shameful, deceitful and immoral act. 

A look into the fiscal management, how the finances of the barrio were disbursed in the past eleven years is also in order.  The financial resources may be meagre but I sincerely believed more projects, even if small, could have been undertaken to uplift the social well-being of the most vulnerable residents especially in the light of dearth in physical projects that the previous barrio council could brag. Traditional politicians usually undertake physical projects to easily rationalize their SOPs or tongpats and the people hardly complained because they could see where their money goes, even if, sometimes, these projects would crumble easily like the savoury puto sekos of Cabalantian.

This is the more rational and inevitable thing to do in the absence of barangay assemblies where the barangay council could have presented financial reports on how the barangay funds were disbursed. 

At the rate the situation evolves, there are more and more issues of national importance that every Johnny, Bong and Jinggoy could sink their teeth on.  But I’ll leave these to the more seasoned and more competent commentators and political analysts to explore and elucidate.  I would rather delve on parochial concerns and try to link these with the broader and encompassing national issues.  In this same vein that this angry old man believes that national social and political maladies should be treated at the grassroots.  All acts geared toward reforming and redressing the status quo will all go to naught unless independent and strong constituencies are nurtured in every nook and cranny in the country.

But is this all that there is to the life of a prematurely retired old man who opted to pursue an unconventional career as a young lad?  For someone who retired without any retirement plan and has to rely—literally and figuratively—on his better half for his sustenance?  Surely my blog writing and looking after Mingo and, may be, my grandchildren later, are beautiful distractions of my twilight existence, together with the usual old age maladies I’d witnessed in my parents.   I’m also certain the love of my life would still feed me and would continuously shower me with the simple luxuries I’ve enjoyed since I retired.      

Actually, this old man is not whining.  It’s just that I feel I have to say (write) something.  The truth is I have accepted this fate.  In fact, I didn’t even bother to look for a job after both my parents were gone and resume my development career.  My wife was right; the few pesos I’ll earn would not be enough to recompense for all the stresses I’ll have to endure working either in the public or private sector, or even in NGOs.  I mistakenly believed that NGO workers are a breed apart, to borrow a Merrill Lynch tag, only to hear from the human relations manager of an international NGO if I’m not bothered working with and reporting to younger people before I opted to prematurely retire and take care of my parents after my aborted “adventure” as a development volunteer in Kenya in 2007.  

Surely I had previous misgivings and unpleasant experiences with my previous NGO employers but that question was the most stupid I’d heard and could not believe it came from an institution that openly declared, even boasted in its website, its non-discriminatory and equal opportunity hiring policy.  Working with people like that HR manager, irrespective of age, gender and religion, would surely not be fun in a supposedly progressive development institution that advocates humane reforms and changes in social structures.

In a macho society like ours, it's not the norm for the husband to be the stay-at-home guy; he's supposed to earn the upkeep of the family.  Though there are now more and more men, younger, healthier and more productive than I, forced into this situation because our economy, aside from being non-inclusive, fails to generate the number and kind of jobs to keep our ever growing work force gainfully employed.  But I've long shed my machismo, at least that's what I thought, and would be contented with this situation until I pass on, hopefully, when I'm still strong and not ravaged by the usual old age disorders whose symptoms I'm now beginning to experience.  I've repeatedly told my wife and daughters that I would be happy passing on at sixty.  In the meantime, I'll relish blog writing on selected social and personal issues, looking after Mingo, housekeeping for my family and the simple luxuries I'm accorded.  (30)