Hey, Mr. Marvin Wilson: Are you talking to me?

Truth be told, I used to write like that. And looking back, I could only laugh at myself for not knowing better. But guess that happens to the best of us. Especially when we're just starting.

My acceptance to two of the country’s most prestigious writing workshops helped a lot in exorcising my writing with superfluous adverbs and adjectives. Adverbs, most especially. And I’m glad I’ve heeded the advice of Strunk and White (“The Elements of Style”) to write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs.

But it wasn’t easy.

Adjective as part of speech is a word which describes or gives more information about a noun or pronoun. By that definition, I had this mistaken notion before that the only way one can describe a person or thing is through adjectives. Same with adverb. I thought it’s the only tool to modify a verb.

But like I said, it wasn’t easy ridding my writing with adverbs and adjectives. Okay, most.

Then I discovered Mark Twain. In 1878 he wrote Orion Clemens a letter, thus: God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.

In "Pudd’nhead Wilson", Twain again said that when in doubt, strike adjectives out.

I, too, used to overwrite. I was wordy and had the tendency to over-explain as though my readers (all three of them!) were barely out of kindergarten. But then again, I discovered Mark Twain. In 1880 he wrote D. W. Bowser a letter, thus: I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English--it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them--then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.

In my case, I'd like to think that I had tamed the beast within. Thanks to Strunk and White who told me to omit needless words.

But like they say, old habits are hard to break and I have my lapses. But only on occasion. See? I didn’t say occasionally.

tinuy-an falls: its etymology

A certain Mr. Loel Lamela is submitting Tinuy-an Falls to a contest sponsored by the Department of Tourism. In the accompanying description of his photo, Lamela related the etymology of "Tinuy-an". Though am sure he had a reliable source, I wanted to validate it because I myself don't know where did the word "Tinuy-an" come from. And so I sent a text message to Ms. Lorie Lim, the Tourism Officer of Bislig City. She texted back in Visayan with two versions.

The first version according to Ms. Lim is that the environs of Tinuy-an Falls were once inhabited by datus who pysically and sexually abused the natives. Wanting to exact revenge, the natives one day first planted impaled bamboo poles (locally known as suyak) underwater before going up the next tier to lie in wait.

Days passed; still they waited. When their chance finally came, the natives commandeered the boat that carried the datus and pushed it toward the edge---into the deadly abyss. Fearing retribution from the datus' family, the natives then jumped to their death en masse.

The verb "tuyo" (stress on the second syllable) is the Visayan root word for "suicide". As noun, "Tinuy-an" therefore means the site of the tragic mass suicide.

The second version states that during the olden days, there was no beaten track leading to Tinuy-an Falls. To go there, one had to "make time and find a way" which, in Visayan, translates to "tuyuon" which is both a verb (no stress) and an adjective (stress on the 3rd syllable).

Just a side note: The second version sounds forced because if one exercises logical thinking, the falls should have been named "Tuyuon".

Whatever!

Tourists flocking to Tinuy-an Falls have a choice: if they want blood and gore, then it's version 1 for them. If they want something that strains credulity, then it's version 2 for them.


(Note: I stole the photo from 365 Great Pinoy Stuff.)

posthumous parental citation

Two sleeps ago, I received a white envelope addressed to the “Family of Late Judge Benjamin A. Oribe Sr.”. It was an invite from the Local Government Unit of Bayabas to attend the Gala Night on 19 November 2011 at 7:00 PM at the Gym to receive the posthumous award for our father as former judge of Bayabas and for our mother as pioneer teacher. This is in connection with Bayabas celebrating its 50th year as town.

A fusion of nostalgia and sadness. That’s what I felt after reading the citation.

I was in elementary when Papa wielded a gavel at his sala in Bayabas. During vacation, he would tag Gly and I along. We looked forward to this summer episode as it meant riding a pump boat and dropping by Lapaz to see friends and relatives.

Two things I loved most about our Bayabas sojourn: the sumptuous dinner given by Papa’s closest friend, Carlos Yu, who had a big house next to where Papa lived, at the house of Tio Julio Quijada; and the boating and swimming adventure to this rocky paradise whose waters were sparkling and clean and whose tiny caverns held lato ready for the picking.

When swimming, Gly and I were assigned a lifeguard each. I don’t know if they were priso cavallero, all they said was that they were Papa’s bodyguards. Sadly I have forgotten their names and all that my memory has retained is the surname “Palacio”.

Tio Julio, his wife, and children were nice. We were closest to Lalay though because she was our contemporary. One time, during high school, Lalay and I belonged to the same contest category in a competition held in Tandag.

Because Papa would go home to Tago on Fridays, we’d stay in Bayabas for a full week. And if he saw boredom on our face before TGIF came, he’d make Palacio whisk us off to Lapaz. And there, in the company of friends and relatives, we would wait for Papa to lead us home.

I loved Lapaz then. Still do, actually!

The birthplace of our mother, Lapaz holds beautiful memories for us that until the day we die, it will have a special place in our hearts.

In Lapaz we were pampered, doted on, and given special attention not because we had a judge for a father, but because we were family. Nanay Can(dida), our yaya and Mama’s first cousin, was a perfect surrogate mother who indulged and loved us to pieces.

We enjoyed Lapaz so much that there were Fridays only Papa would go home to Tago. And Mama would not bother to check on us because she knew we were having fun and were in good hands.

Last May, during the 1st Morse Reunion that I had organized in Lapaz, a cousin showed me the site of the school where Mama studied. I was near tears even if a new school—Tabing Dagat Elementary School---has been erected.

Mama and her sisters, all eight of them, were teachers. For the record, Tia Mameng (the late Maxima L. Morse-Cesar), their eldest, was the first teacher that Lapaz---and probably Bayabas----had ever produced.

Papa and Mama’s citation on the occasion of the Golden Anniversary of Bayabas may have come a bit late, but we are happy that the legacy they had left behind has endured and is now being acknowledged.

We’re grateful and honored.

christmas cards

If there’s one thing I miss about Christmas of old, it’s sending closest friends Christmas cards. For the longest time I’ve been wanting to but never got around to doing it. Hopefully this year could be it.

As a UCCP kid in Tago, I used to look forward to seeing beautiful Christmas cards arrive from USA even before the start of the Season of Advent. In sizes like bond papers folded in quarters and in halves, these “stateside” charmers came in good quality card stock and embossed with Yuletide images in colors that glowed and glittered, making them totally superior to those sold locally that came with dull images stamped on cheap paper.

But these cards were pre-owned.

And so I held a card in midnight blue with nothing but the golden silhouettes of three magi and their camels following a star distant and solitary. Velvety to the touch, the card was visually powerful it would transform me into one of my favorite Bible story characters: a shepherd awaiting the birth of the Messiah. But then I would flip the card and get teleported back to the present with these words: “To Scott” and “Mr. and Mrs. Leivobitz”.

Looking back, it seemed Americans were lazy to write words on the card other than their names and the recipient's. Or it could be that they knew these cards would find their way to Tago for reuse of Protestant families that they made sure not to do so much scribbling. Either way it was a good thing because all we had to do was cut strips of colored paper and superimposed them on “Scott” and “Mr. and Mrs. Leivobitz” before giving the cards to our elementary teachers and some really special friends.

While technology makes it easy for people to send e-cards now, there’s nothing like receiving something that you can read over and over again without having to push a button and click a mouse. For a tactile person like me, I need to touch and smell the card.

Being the world’s greatest procrastinator, I’m really hoping I could send beautiful cards with equally beautiful messages of gratitude and appreciation to special friends before 2011 bids adieu. And knowing I only have few special friends, that won’t be too hard to do. Still, wish me luck. And you don't have to be a special friend to do that.

DREAMS

I used not to believe in dreams especially if they're about dead people.

We were brought up to believe that dead persons communicate with us through our dreams, that it's their way of asking us to pray for them. I've listened to countless variations of this theme, the most vivid of which came from Mother Honey Patrimonio. In her dream, her Nanay Pacing told her she felt cold, so cold her teeth chattered. Mother Honey woke up crying; Pacing had been dead for years and it was her first time to dream of her.

It was raining when she went to Tago cemetery later that day and there she discovered that the roof above the tomb of her Nanay Pacing had been toppled, and the rainwater coming from the roof of the adjacent tomb flowed directly to her grave.

While I respected these tales for whatever they were worth, I was not inclined to believe them. Is this because I don’t like talking about dead people? Maybe. Here’s a secret: the easiest way to ruin my day is to ask me or talk about dead members of my family. Dead friends okay, but not my family! Do that and you cease to be my FB friend in two seconds flat!

Nobody saw me visit the graves of my parents during All Souls Day of 2010. It had something to do with my siblings not telling me that the structure over our parents’ graves was in such state of disrepair that it had to be demolished. I got wind of the situation two days before the annual celebration of the dead. There was no way I could construct a new one without turning into my greatest pet peeve---people cleaning and painting graves on November 1!

And so I passed. That year I also didn’t make unique flowers for the dead, to the dismay of Elaine Pareja and Nita Manzano who have this habit of eagerly awaiting the floral magic I whip up every single year.

Tanie, my brother, went home to Sagbayan after I had decided to do the construction early next year as it was already rainy season. But three days later, I dreamed of my father.

In my dream, Papa put his hand over my shoulder and walked me through an area where four posts stood at certain corners. He pointed from one corner to another and told me numbers I realized to be dimensions. When I woke up, I wrote the numbers on a piece of paper. Then I sent Tanie a text message, telling him to come back to construct the structure that would house our parents’ graves.

When I told ‘Yo David and Tito Vols about this, Marites quickly applied mathematical operations to the numbers, came up with last-two combinations, and placed a bet on them. She lost!

Last October, Emily told me that Heledeza Elizalde-Rubio of New York had sent her money for the upkeep of her parents’ graves because she had dreamed of them. I smiled. But this time not the mocking smile of a non-believer, but the smile of someone who knows there are things he just has to believe in.