California Trip - April 2008

Yes, I am in California writing this post. As you can gather from my previous post - visit to Merlyn's clinic, I arrived here last April 14 to take care of a couple of things. Donna didn't come because it would not be economically practical. She instead sent me a really long list of stuff to get: various grocery stuff from Costco, food for Indo from Target, perfume from Victoria's Secret, etc. Today, I barely finished buying everything and ordering those items that are not available in the stores. My problem now is how to fit everything into two Balikbayan boxes and one door to door box!

I only have a couple of days to do my packing. Sunday evening, I fly back to the Philippines. Yay! I miss my honey so much!

The day I arrived Cong Paing and Atching Let treated me and Dan to dinner and the day after, Cong Mansing and Atching Mariette took me to lunch (or was that dinner?) along with my nephew Roland's wife Jeanette and their son Calvin - a miniature Roland, if you ask me!


I've been having Dan or Eph (whoever's available) drive me around, zipping here and there. And of course when we go out they take me to my favorite place to go - wherever Japanese food is served! Dan and I went for lunch at the Samurai the other day. My apologies to readers who don't care for Japanese food but I just have to post these pictures. Don't you think it looks delicious? And pretty, too!!


Usually when we go there, the chefs give us like bits and pieces of fish here and there, like appetizers - on the house. But this time they gave us a huge piece of baked salmon. It was great.


Emy went to Texas last Friday to visit an ailing relative. She didn't come back until Monday, plenty of time for her to rebond their relationship. Nido and I dropped her off and here she was on her way to airport.


Last Sunday, April 20 I had a meeting with my JASHS Class '70 group here. I presented them the award given to us by PHS during the Sentenaryu celebration last February. It was given to us due (among other things) to all the help we've given them and especially for funding the raising of two classrooms made almost unusable when said classrooms got inundated by lahar. I also updated them on our reunion in the Philippines last Dec 30 and the huge PHS Sentenaryu celebration not to mention the twin guest speaking gigs of batch mates Lita Manalastas-Watanabe and Rey Vergara in the PHS Commencement ceremonies for 2008.


Tomorrow I'll visit Mon and his family in their new home in Tarzana. I called Ed and told him I'll drop by his place in LA and then the both of us will go to Mon's since Ed has been there before so I won't have a hard time looking for the place.

Flashbacks - JASHS Class '70 Annual Get-Together

Our high alumni association, JASHS Class ’70, holds its annual get together/reunion every December 30 no matter what day it falls on.

Streamers flew all over the place announcing the annual JASHS Class ’70 Christmas Party for 2007. I even saw a short notice at the end of one of Ric Sapnu’s article in Sun Star Pampanga. Of course text messages were bouncing back and forth as well. And so on the morning of December 30, 2007 Donna and I went to STK Grill off of Lazatin Blvd. by Villa Victoria to join the festivities. There were already a lot of people there when we arrived. Ned’s wife Imelda (Baby for short), among others, was taking names for registration and distributing T-shirts.

We sat around and started talking with friends. Donna stayed mostly with old friend Nits Tiomico (don’t know her married name) at her table. A few more minutes and here comes Alice, who came from London just the day before I believe. Aqui, who we haven’t seen in previous reunions also came. I tried my damnedest to convince him. He left a bit early and wasn’t able to claim his gift ham. Another new face to the reunion is old batch mate Romeo Rodriguez from Barangay Del Carmen, whom I haven’t seen since 1970! It’s cool to see him again after all those years. Donna noticed another guy who she said was in her section in senior year. I think he’s a Balikbayan from San Jose, California.


It was a typical reunion, lots of talking, a bunch of games (mostly hosted by Alma Pineda) and a lot of food. The group has a lot of funds from the last fund raising campaign so they have quite a bit of door prizes to give away. The present officers led by Ned Canlas, the president and his vice, Willy Sapnu presented their report. We also talked about the upcoming Sentenaryu Celebration, our school’s 100 years! It’s coming up in February ’08.


After lunch it’s time to nominate and vote for 15 board of directors. Someone nominated me so I figured, I can be a member of the board, fine. I didn’t realize at the time though that out of these 15 will be the new set of officers. Someone nominated me to be the president. I declined because I’m already the president of the US chapter. I think it was Alma Pineda who said that’s even better so I’ll be able to ‘unite’ the group into just one international alumni association. Thank goodness Alan Sanchez went on my side and argued against that idea. So they said I can be the ‘external’ vice president istead, whatever that means.

Here’s the new set of officers for the years 2008 and 2009:

President - Willy Sapnu
Vice President (internal) - Rommel Pineda
Vice Presiden (external) – Rey Maniago
Secretary – Alma Pineda Legaspi
Assistant Secretary – Iris Valencia Biliwang
Treasurer – Raquel Manalese (her husband is another batchmate)
Auditor – Elmor Dizon
PROs – Anthony Chin and Arleen Galang (this is a he)

Board of Directors:
Ronnie Sablaya
Allan Sanchez
Beth David Gonzales
Imelda Canlas
Romeo Rodriguez
Elena Tesoro

We’ve had a couple of meetings, the first of which was the new set of officers’ induction at the Fortune Restaurant on Olongapo-Gapan Road. Lita was in town around the time so I invited her to come, along with Tonette and Alicia.



It was further agreed that we’ll make STK Grill our headquarters and that we’ll have a monthly meeting every last Sunday of the month at 2 pm. Each person attending the meeting will contribute P100 for meryenda.

The meeting for March was postponed per Alma’s text message because quite a few people can’t make it.

Merlyn Dizon Franco

Sometime in February I fractured one of my left top molars twice and a couple of pieces from the tooth broke off each time. I expected it to start hurting soon because I assumed the nerves will be exposed.

It didn't.

Two days before I left the Philippines another molar on the other side, top right this time, started hurting, somewhat tolerable pain so I figured perhaps it'll go away.

Well, it didn't.

I arrived in California Monday the 14th. Wednesday evening after dinner it started hurting, on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst, this is like 12! This is the first time I've had a toothache. I'll be 55 soon and trust me when I say, a toothache is no fun, I wouldn't wish it on my enemy. Well, perhaps on a really bad enemy. Anyway, the pain lasted for about less than 10 minutes and it was fine after that, a dull pain but tolerable. It's time to go to bed and I had to brush my teeth. After brushing, here it comes again. Son of a gun! Fortunately, this lasted for only about 5 minutes or so. It's decision time. I have to see a dentist. In my situation, seeing our family dentist is sort of out of the question.

Batchmate Bert Franco is married to Merlyn, a dentist, and they live all the way in Palmdale, one to two hours drive from here depending on the fraffic. I figured she's my best bet.

Here she is with Donna and Bert when they visited our house under construction back in 2006.

So Thursday I made the call. I told her my story, the fractured tooth, the hurting tooth, etc. Long story short I needed a root canal. Woo Hoo!! Dan and I went there Thursday evening and she worked on my tooth for almost two hours! She had to give me three shots to numb it. Of course that was only the first phase. And of course they took us to dinner afterwards. Today almost a week later, Dan and I went back to see her after we finished our shopping in Chinatown in downtown LA. And this time it's a little over two hours. The difference though, she has her assistant, Rowena, Bert's niece. When she finished my root canal, she filled up the cracked one saying there's no time to put a crown on it. She may just do it the next time we're here. I lost count of the X-rays they took. While they were working, my mind was mostly in Egypt climbing the pyramids or enjoying the view off the Eiffel Tower or frolicking by the great waterfalls of the Amazon jungle. Well, you get my drift.

And they wanted to take us to their home afterwards so we can have dinner there. Dang, I don't know what I did to deserve all this kindness. Bert and Merlyn are too much. I had to turn them down because another classmate Boy Dizon (Donna's cousin) and wife Remy were inviting us for dinner.

Thanks Merlyn, I owe you a whole bunch. I don't think I'll ever be able to repay you. That tooth ache was unbearable. You saved my life! Have you heard of the guy who jumped off the Golden Gate bridge because of a tooth ache? Hey, it could happen!