DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Emerson
Sunday, 06 15, 2003
He should be 88 by now, but God had other plans for him as soon as he turned 67. And what he left was a progeny of eight children, all of whom were much ahead of him in educational achievement, all of them having graduated from college and now working as professionals. But that is going abruptly too far in the story of Emerson.
When he was a young man, poverty stopped him one year short of finishing high school. But he realized that which his mind could not accomplish through higher education he could accomplish with his hands. He then proceeded to take a vocational course in auto-mechanics in Manila. He returned to put up the first vehicle repair shop in San Nicolas. There was not one single vehicle south of Laoag that did not pass through his hands, and every vehicle owner trusted him. He was so good as an auto repairman that soon his apprentices put up their own shops. But not to worry; business was good. He was also a locksmith. There was not one lockset in San Nicolas whose tumblers he could not unlock and proceed to make a key of.
The same pair of calloused hands that clawed at the innards of motor vehicle was equally adept at turning rough blocks of wood into intricate pieces of art, now treasured by many who were lucky to be the objects of his gratuitous generosity. He never sold one of his woodcarvings. He made his own carving tools, principally from the spokes of worn-out umbrellas.
It seemed there was nothing he could not do with his hands, whether it be eking out a living or celebrating the joys of living. He could play the harmonica, the marimba, the piano, the flute and the saxophone. He sang a lot, danced so well, and was never known to refuse the occasional drink.
He was a farmer, tilling the few hectares in Gabu his father had bequeathed to him. He operated a cono, which everyone patronized, including the 21-year old lady who was to become his wife after a determined courtship of two years.
He was a hometown hero. He once braved the raging floodwaters in San Nicolas in 1953, and saved a family of five who had been marooned in the middle of what could have proved to be their certain death.
He was an accomplished man, his lack of higher education notwithstanding. He read a lot, and acquired a lot of books for his family to read. His personal library, augmented by the collection of his father who was a superintendent of schools in Northern Luzon, was a rich source of information of knowledge for his kailians from the town of San Nicolas.
During the war, as heroes are expected to, he survived the Death March, and endured the incarceration at Capas. He had been given up for dead, having been sick of malaria and dysentery, ready to be thrown into the pit of the dead and the dying, when he was recognized by his dog tag by a relative, who then nursed him back to good health. He recuperated at San Lazaro, and thereby hung a tale of boundless machismo. Who would ever think that with the Death March and Capas having already sucked out of the vitality of his being, he could, within 11 years after the Liberation, still manage to beget three more daughters, and three sons.
The war, too, left some permanent scars on his psyche. Three of his brothers in the Army were killed by the Japanese; his sisters and his mother were liquidated by the collaborators. He survived to tell his children of the gruesomeness of the war.
But personal tragedies would not deaden the exuberance of the man.
At the kitchen, he was a good cook, specially when it came to adobo of the canine kind. And everyone loved his isaw, that anyone who ate it would forget that it came from an uncivilized pig. Even the wild banyas could not escape his culinary expertise.
Although he was a hail-fellow-well-met, he abhorred politics, and he never had the stomach for the insincere handshake or the hypocritical smile. But everyone in San Nicolas remembers him festooning the façade of his house with a big streamer for his hero, Marcos, every election time. He told everyone Marcos was an authentic war hero; he should know – they fought together which is why it pained him a lot when the fakery of Marcos’ medals became a national scandal.
Unlike most husbands, his father-in-law doted on him. The former operated the first Esso gasoline station in town, when everything was pumped out manually, and the auto-mechanic shop brought business to the gasoline station. Their closeness was strengthened by their mutual love of the outdoors, and they would go out together on many a hunting trip.
While he taught his sons the many skills only he could impart, bringing them to the wilds of Pagong at the foot of the Cordilleras or Balatong in Laoag, or swimming in Padsan, he was quick to frown on his daughters who failed to be back at home well before the oracion at six o’clock in the evening.
He was obsessed with the desire to provide only the best for his family, which meant a comfortable house with the modest standards but the best schools for his children that he could afford.
He died when his youngest son was already well established as a lawyer. By then, he said he could not wish for more.
When he died, he was brought to the municipio, where most everyone extolled him for his virtues and some for all his all too human frailties. But nobody said it all than his brother-in-law, a general in the Army and who fought alongside him during the war, who said in his eulogy: “Nalaing ni Eming nga ama. Nasayaat ti pamilya na. Napintas ti nagbanagan daguiti amin nga annakna.” (Eming was a good family man. All his children have turned out successful and accomplished).
Thus lived and died a great man. He was my father Emerson.
Happy Fathers’ Day!
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