Tears and Joy Memoirs

Chapter 1 + + +Prelude : + +We grew up in a needy family of twelve (12), 10 boys and 2 girls, with me as the oldest. I came out in this world when my late mother was just thirteen (13) years old. My late father, a rank and file worker of Victorias Milling Company in Negros, a minimum wage earner but with a gambling vice, had to resort to loans & borrowings to sustain the existence of our growing family. We could hardly meet the 3 times a day meals, let alone buying the barest necessities. Being the oldest, at a pre puberty age, I was thrust into assisting my parents of finding means to augment the needed financial survival of our family. Unlike my playmates and schoolmates, I grew up in an abnormal childhood of work first and LESS play. + + +Chapter 1 + + +At 8 years old, I had to woke up at dawn (4 AM) to secure a share of puto "steamed rice pudding" or pandesal bread for roaming sale at our village & surrounding barrios. The percentage share of 20 centavos 'sometimes less' will also be bought with kinihad (sliced hard bread) for me & my five siblings' breakfast "along with sara sara (dried rice tea)", before going to school. At 9 to 11 years old, the roaming sale of puto / pandesal was supplemented with roaming sale of Liwayway & Hiligaynon weekly magazines - every Friday. And joining boxing matches at the mill site plaza held every two weeks, with the winning prize money of P3.00 and P1.50 "if lost". Unfortunately, I had more losses than winnings.(more inside)