USC, my USC

I hied-off to Cebu solo over the weekend with no agenda except to cross-out an entry in my 2012 Bucket List. I stayed in a nice pension house located at corner R. Landon and Pedro Cui streets, just a 5-minute brisk walk from USC and my former boarding house at Junquera Extension.

Early Sunday morning saw me walking to my alma mater. I took the Cebu Christian School route, the same route I took on foot in college every time my allowance ran low.

The main gate of USC was closed, it was Sunday after all. The adjacent door for visitors, however, was open and I saw two guards resting their heads on the table, sleeping.

On the wall was a marker: USC’s history in a capsule. Because it wasn’t there during our time, I read the scribbling and held my tongue. I would be too much of an ingrate if I lashed out at my alma mater on slips in grammar and punctuation.

I knocked. The guards, as if on cue, looked at me.

“Do you accept visitors?” I asked.

“No, Sir, we don’t. You may come back tomorrow,” said one in the vernacular.

“What if I buy you breakfast?” I said, smiling.

“Thanks, but no.”

“Okay. What if I give you a land title for a hectare in the hinterlands of Mindanao?”

“It’s still a no, Sir.”

“You know what?” I said, “I graduated from this school and it’s my first time to come here after 26 years. All I want is a go-see if things have changed and maybe take a photo or two.”

He looked at his companion who said, “But you can come back tomorrow, Sir.”

“You see, I’m having my raft done and tomorrow morning I’ll be sailing the rough seas to Surigao. Is that too hard a request from an old man to grant? ”

Wait, did I say “old?”

But that must’ve done it because the guard said, Okay, three shots tops!

I posed. He flashed. All at the lobby.

After thanking the guards, I walked to the corner where the old Catholic Trade once stood and had my breakfast of corned beef and caked yolk on an egg-shaped plate that rotated when I raked in my food.

(Note: I requested a pedestrian to take this photo.)