Rizal Boys in the Times of Pre-puberty

A moment in Camudmud beach, Samal island. Recalling our mischievous past.

Those where the days when Rizal St. was Rizal ext., was not a through street but closed at one end. The place was a playground to us.

In those days we say taga Rizal kami. Then people could easily associate where we came from and the circumstances. In my primary school days there a sawmill there called Apo Lumber. Our common play yard was filled with sawdust, dumped from time-to-time. In that time houses were made of wood. No houses were made of hollow-blocks or concrete. The houses were erected without plan. Many houses were actually build in the middle on the proposed extension of Rizal st.

There no fences then and so there were many back-alleys. From the original house, one can go to PC barracks passing through manggahan at the back of the house. From PC barracks we can proceed to Washington.

If one wants to go to Boulevard or the river, we just walk through the end of the street. And proceed further to the so-called kanipaan, which at that time was actually a nipa swamp. We walked upon a long board walk made of discarded lumber slabs. We then could finally reach Quezon boulevard. As we cross the street, tens of meters ahead we find ourselves on the banks of Davao River, in a place called "Triding". I suppose this was a corruption of the word trading. For this place was supposed to be a sort of berth for small trading boats to trade their wares.

In the nipa swamp, one can see gobi fishes (isdang tambasakan) jumping. Sometimes, people used nets to catch shrimps. When high tide comes, the water in the river and the nipa swamp becomes deeper. The swamp at high tide was not so deep. It had a muddy bottom. When we were learning how to swim, I used to dive to the bottom and get myself a sort of muddied moustache.


In time the boys became men and mostly left the place. But our bond remained strong through the years. Here we were reliving those boyish days. Reminiscing and laughing at our monkey business and the like.
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We were only about 300 meters from Davao River. Always almost everyday when we learned to swim, we went there to take a dip. The river was then not polluted. Now? Think of the piggery farms upriver.

The Apo Lumber sawmill was owned by the Goseco-Valencia family. Logs were dumped in the yard. Outside workhours, these became our playthings. There was also a sawmill called Gaston Lumber, some 200 meters going towards Bonifacio st. then called Cortes st.

As kids we played war-games. As pirates. As cowboy and indians. Of course, pintikay. We used balagon-kahoy. These are vines that grow wild in the swamp. We cut them into pieces, and used them as shots in our rubber slingshots. Then we group ourselves as Apo Lumber guys and fought against Gaston Lumber boys.

Of course, after school and during weekends we played tigso, siatong, patintero, beisbal, basketball, tumba-lata, takyan, trumpo, yoyo, dyolen, rubberbands, marbles with each other. Often we end up bulingon. And we get thrashing from mothers from being so dirty-looking.

The lumber yard, the logs, back alleys, Claveria st (Claro M. Recto st. now), the nipa swamp, the board walks over the nipa swamp, the river were our playground and playthings. We knew the shortcuts. Our curiousity as boys were fed by our surroundings. In Rizal st proper, on both side, was open drainage canals. Sometimes one can catch mudfish by draining a part of a canal. I have seen this method several times.

We were free to move so long as it was not yet lunch or dinner time. Then comes lunch or dinner, mothers would be calling the children to eat. Often calling the names of their sons, shouting, in order to be heard. As usual when we were late, we get the usual thrashing from harassed mothers.

Now fast forward to some 50 years and more later, we see this picture:
Well this is a reunion picture of Rizal boys in the time of pre-puberty. Taken in the year 2001, 30 December. Smart these guys to hold their reunion on Rizal Day. So the bulingon boys became grown-ups, became fathers and I suspect some of them became grandfathers as well. Some may have become well-off in life, some have not, or may even have retrogressed. But the feeling is there of boyhood memories.