some recollections, by ernie

a.  dad built our home with whatever savings he had.  dad and mom took out an sss loan to finance the balance.  every month, dad would walk to the sss office on jones avenue, to pay the amortization.  yes, walked.  saved jeepney fare

b.  every morning, dad would bring his old empty paint can and with a small "sundang" he would dig into the canal beside our house, along the road, just below the uphill road to avila's hill.  he would fill his paint can with dirt that had washed down from the hill and accumulated in our canal.  he would then bring that dirt and dump it beside what was then our very narrow driveway.  over the years, he managed to "reclaim"  about 30 square meters of land.  he then built a retaining wall close to pilapil's wall and we had our extended garden

c.  dad could never say no to friends who would bring their young sons or daughters to the house for dad to audition them and check them out for whatever talent(s) they had.  it took great effort to sit through these sessions and more effort to accomodate requests for dad to make arrangements for their songs.  they would bring a record, usually a small 33 1/3 rpm one, and dad would sit down beside his aged but trustworthy bogen amplifier/record player and play back the song
        so many times until he had the song in notes on his music pad.  he would then make a piano arrangement, play the song on his piano and then make arrangements for the other instruments... as many as 30+ instruments for special occassions

d.  dad also played the accordion and he would be invited to parties to play songs on his accordion for young and old folk alike. he became a friend of prominent families then like the eggelings because of his music playing abilities.  

e.  if i remember correctly, dad was always on music scholarships and always was the head of the school bands. when he was in highschool, he was also the bandleader of the university of san carlos college band

f.  "patik" ... dad's favorite expression to signify that all his band members already memorized the songs they were practicing.  mandoy the drummer. bilok the bass guitarist. singers were gerry rollison,  stacs huguete.

g.  the old cebu broadcasting corporation (cbc) was in downtown cebu, very near to where colegio de san jose recoletos was.  later they moved to juana osmena and a popular feature was their outside stage where dad would play for popular programs and the whole open area along juana osmena would be full of people.  the most popular radio shows then were at cbc.  shows like "sundowners" hosted by inday nita daluz, were always full

h.  dad was very respected in cbc.  he was an old hand and everybody deferred to him.  he even had his own desk in the main office.  mr. esplanada was like the head technician.  ma'm genie vamenta was like the head announcer/broadcaster.  personalities like congressman jalosjos and former ombudsman danny desierto cut their teeth with dad in cbc.