Parenting memories

My Pen Mates,

My first memory of my father was waking up to see him busy on the driveway servicing passenger jeepneys. He'll see me coming out to the veranda from inside the house and ask to tell my Mom to bring him coffee or water. It will be early morning and the street is just beginning to come alive. Merchants are headed to the town, teachers are making their ways to school, karetelas and the occasional tricycles are coming from the town's outskirts to do their business at the Poblacion.

I can smell gasoline which my father uses to wash grease off engine parts as well as his hands. This early, he would already be grimy from engine dirt and grease. He can emerge from underneath the hood or the under chassis depending on what needs to be fixed. I'll learn later on that these are jeepneys he owned and leased out daily for public transport. He does maintenance as he is a mechanical engineer, and he does it early to get it done before the drivers take the keys for the day's lease.

Sometimes he'll take a break to eat right there on the driveway. He'll patiently answer my questions about what he's trying to fix, and tell me stories about how he learned to fix vehicles in answer to my queries. I remember a particular anecdote about an American co-worker of his at the Motorpol (he worked as a mechanic at the Provincial capital) who worked so fast that if anyone handed him the wrong tool, he'll come out from under the vehicle and throw the errant tool to the bushes for the hapless assistant to fetch. Another of his memorable work tales was about a skilled truck driver who can back up an eighteen wheeler on a slippery ramp and stop inches from the edge.

I remember he used to smoke. We'll go to Dagupan on some other business and he'll hold my hand as we walk down main street to this smoke shop where he'll buy two cartons of his brand Imperial. He struggled to stop smoking but I know he committed to doing it after my youngest brother was born. I was five years old. I'll join him on the veranda in front of the house where he sits at dusk to unwind. He'll have a tray of menthol candy which he doesn't want me to have because it will kill my appetite for dinner. I'm sure I asked him why he smoked but the answer never stuck in my head. Sometimes my mother will join us as the night deepens; she'll have a lit Lion's katol on its prop to keep the bugs away. Whatever small talk we shared was held in hushed tones, sometimes interrupted by expressed greetings to or from someone passing on the street front.

My parents used to count lightning bugs in the small garden below the veranda. I always said I'll catch a bunch in a jar to see how much illumination they can collectively give out, but I was never encouraged to pursue the project. During the rainy season, frogs will be cackling like a murder of crows and people will be scuttling in the dark with flashlights to trap them. Farm frogs as they are considered (our house was two streets across from a rice paddy), were truly tasty and I enjoyed them cooked in broth. It fascinated me how they are caught in cloth sacks and how children not much older than I was can catch them when I can't even hold one in my hands without it slipping away. Perhaps I should have been bold enough to ask if I could join the trappers; it's an experience I never gained because of lack of initiative.

I now wonder how he did it, but even with his morning routine, my father was still able to raise and breed farm animals. Whereas the front of the house was where he repaired cars and hung-out, the opposite end of the house was where we had livestock. There was a bamboo ladder descending from the dirty kitchen with about a square yard of concrete landing at the bottom to hold it in place. The entire backyard was corralled by a makeshift fence consisting of patchwork assemblies of mesh wire, bamboo twigs, metal gates, and stacked hollow blocks. I still hear the ruckus from the ducks and geese during feeding time. They nip at your hand even as you grab a fistful of corn grain to cast onto the soil and you see the occasional tussle and wing bashing to get to the food. There were turkeys, native chickens (kal), and a family of pigeons who seem to show up only at feeding time. My dad used to remind me to watch my step as bird droppings litter the backyard, but I never noticed him complaining about the distinctive smell of their waste which really bothered me. Further towards the back of the property was a pigpen which over the years have expanded. There was a time when it grew so big that some of the neighbors asked to keep their pigs there instead of building their own pens.

Now, pigs were a revenue generator in my household. I know money changed hands from buying or selling of these animals. There was some sort of an anteroom in front of the multi-partitioned pigpen where we stored feeds, grain, and other food mix for the pigs. A constant sight in this room is a banana trunk reclining against a makeshift tripod. This is shaved into thin slivers with a double-handled blade much like an over sized cheese cutter. The mulch is then mixed with the feed and dumped into the feeding chute. The squeaking and snorting during feeding time comes from a combination of frantic hunger and convulsive greed. It was one of the most gratifying sight for me to see sated pigs ready to be hosed down at the end of a meal.

Unlike me, my father is a quiet man. I had to engage him in conversation by asking tons of questions for him to get started. But because he gave good answers, I learned a lot. The confidence that comes with knowing a lot reduces self-doubt, and with that a proclivity for self-expression. Because of how his style of fatherhood shaped me, I cannot be the same father to my children. He was quiet, I am talkative. While in our own ways my dad and I are good fathers, the unique dynamic we have with our kids will raise characters unique on their own. Flashes of similarities show between me and my children; the inquisitiveness and insight, the curiosity and open-mindedness, the almost clinical thought process that goes into framing a question, and the hints of youthful doubt. These often show and I stop to wonder about where it came from. It's not a complete transfer of traits; I realize they came from me, but I know that my children will grow up to be their own persons because of the dad I have become.

My dad made me the person I am. I cannot raise my children in the atmosphere I was raised, but I'll try to reward him by passing on his parenting legacy in my own unique way...

Mon