The Big Red House in Granvia Street

decorative graphics mixed roses

The last time I saw my lola's old ancestral home in San Narciso was back in June 1998. Part of the roof had collapsed due to the ashfall it sustained during Mt. Pinatubo's eruption in 1991. The house had been abandoned since then after my grand aunt's death of heart failure during the height of the volcanic eruption.

But that house had so many memories of my summers spent there from 1975-1982 with some of my cousins from Olongapo and Manila. We usually arrive a few weeks after the end of school and spend about a month there. With my lola Aurea was another grand aunt, lola Carmeling, and their house help, Nana Purit.

I still remember every six o'clock in the evening we would gather around to pray the Angelus as it was recited over the radio. We usually have an early supper then we would huddle in the sala to listen to one another's stories and sometimes we would hear also from our lola about her life when she was still the nurse of President Manuel Luis Quezon's children. It was in one of these nights that I heard about the story on Maria Karamot. We would go to bed early, too since there's no television in the house. Then we would wake early in the morning. There's a lot of events we go to especially during holy week like prosisyon, pabasa, santacruzan, etc.

I could still hear the old phonograph churning out our favorite songs back then like "Where is it I belong" by the Supremes, "I got caught dancing again" by The Hues Corporation, "City of Angels" by The Miracles, and "The way we planned it" by Friends of Distinction. Do any of you remember some of these songs? Do you also remember how we used benting (twenty five cents) and salapi (fifty cents) but they're no longer used.

Edgar Millan

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