American GI's

Recalling memories of childhood is like viewing another person's picture albums. You open the page to a new set of pictures but see no connections.

One day I woke up to find that we were no longer living near the ice plant. The family had moved to a house in Kalubihan, back of the Aglipayan church. Years afterward I could return there and point out the house we stayed but couldn't figure out why we were there. My father had friends here. Emperatriz Denila my godmother also lived here. She was a beauty queen, and later in life became a born again Christians. We saw each other before she died in the 1990's.

Afterwards we moved to a house along Gustilo St, at the back of the ice plant. It was a solidly built house made of hardwood. There were no rooms, just one long hall at the upper floor. We occupied one end of the hall. One day I fell down the kitchen stairs. The main stair case was at the middle of the house.

There was one older boy with a unique name -- Powell, and he had a special toy, a boat with a small steam engine. An alcohol lamp served as its burner but it had all the elements of an external combustion steam engine. There was a bomb crater at the back of the house and it served many purposes but the most thrilling one was seeing that boat glide with its sharp put put put putting sound. I have never seen anything like it ever since.

I never had any recollection of the shape of the house we lived in during the war. I could remember its bamboo interior, the Japanese soldier singing to my brother, and my father sharpening the Japanese officer's sword but how the house looked I have no recollection whatsoever. Later my brother Delfin and I would visit the place, now overcome with wild grasses and vines. Where the house was there was only a hole filled with water and the small but tasty fresh water fish called puyo. My brother had a fishing stick and could wait hours waiting for the fish to bite. I was too impatient and couldn't stand waiting for the fish to make up its mind. I knew that that was the place of the old house because my aunt Ramona would go back there and dig for the bottle where she hid the genuine (not emergency nor the worthless Japanes paper money) Philippine currency of "peace time" that the Japanese didn't want anybody to keep.

i had no idea that cataclysmic events had forced the Japanese away from the ice plant. Liberation had come at last.

My father taught me to shout "Chocolate Joe!" every time we meet an American GI. Unlike the Japanese the Americans always smiled. I never saw any Americans in troop formation, only individuals briskly walking or stopping to appreciate a toy my father made for me, a piece of wood with evaporated cans for wheels. A tank sat on one side of the yard of the ice plant. But it soon was gone and so were the Americans.

Their jeeps remained however, and became the first mode of transportation between La Paz and Iloilo. I remember two in particular. One was named Lorna Doone, after a movie, and another just simple Ha Ha! the triumphant laughter of liberation.

There were mementoes too of the American presence at the ice plant. One was a metal cup with a hinged handle that tucks under it when stored. One American GI left his booksc to my father: a black leatherette bound handy Merriam Webster Dictionary; and two pocketbooks: King Solomon's Mines, and a biography of Cole Porter. There were two other books but I don't know if they belonged to the GI or was thrown away because they both had no first and last pages, The Reign of Greed, Charles Derbyshire's translation of Rizal's El Filibusterismo, and a primary school reader where I first met Bluebeard, the tailor who killed seven with one stroke, and the 12 dancing maidens. These were the books that whetted my appetite for reading.