WE WERE kids of the farmlands. On the year just before I entered formal school (kindergarten at Ateneo), the family moved to our own house in Lower Rapnaga after occupying apartments in Juna Subdivision of which I only remember the Robillo Apartments in Juna Avenue because I wasn't born yet in that other apartment with the Moradas.
Lower Rapnaga is where Apo Golf and Country Club is, in Barangay Bago Aplaya. At that time, it was the farmlands. Except for that tiny patch of "subdivision development" made up of a few chunks of land called Castro Village, it was farmlands all around owned by one Don Joaquin Pineda. I never really met nor caught a glimpse of Don Joaquin, but my friends, the tenants' children, spoke of their land as Don Joaquin's.
Across the highway was the Steam Laundry, because once upon a time, there was indeed a steam laundry there, an industrial size laundry service that catered to the city's hotels. I know because Nene, my best friend Abet's elder sister worked there. The corner of the steam laundry is now the corner of Gulfview Subdivision, and that road leading to Gulfview was what we would walk on during weekends to go to Baybay, the seashore. Gulfview was the Baybay, across the house where Adonis, another childhood barkada of the different breed, resided. Different breed, because unlike Abet and that family farther up the Apo Gold road that also served as tenants of Don Joaquin's land, Adonis was the son of a fisherman.
Adonis introduced us to the sea. He'd get a motorized banca, we'd paddle out before he's start the motor, and head off where the water is already blue and we'd jump in and splash around. That was before I learned how to fear the depths, after being reminded and scolded that I must learn to swim first. (I eventually learned how in college, but just as quickly forgot, the fear of the waters having overpowered any puny attempt to learn how to swim).
At the corner of Apo Golf was the house of the Pinedas, said to be a progeny of Don Joaquin. To my memory, it was a huge house. But who knows? Everything was HUGE when you were very young. I remember the birthday parties we were invited to in that house... it was on a sloping ground and the playground with Bermuda grass rolled down to highway level. We would roll our bodies down in glee. I always associated the Pinedas with the aroma of spaghetti and hotdogs. Maybe because we would only gain access to the place when there's a birthday party. And no, Don Joaquin never showed up during those parties.
The Pinedas left when I was maybe in second grade, never to return again, and the house was never inhabited again until it was demolished sometime in the 1980s. I felt sad for the youngest girl who I think was named Carolyn but I can't be sure because I was still between kinder to grade one then. It would be difficult to remember the name of a person whom you only played with every time there was a birthday party. (to be continued)
