The Yaps of New Orleans

One of the good memories of my stint in the service is friendships that developed during all those years, mid 70's to the early 80's. I was transferred from the USS White Plains in Yokosuka, Japan to Naval Air Station, New Orleans in May of 79. At that time Art Yap was already with the US Navy stationed at the West Bank. His relatives started coming in from the Philippines during those times. Imagine our excitement when we got to meet them, fellow Capampangans, his brother Bong and sisters Belinda and Dotty. Donna even worked with Belinda at the West Jefferson Hospital. She became one of Dan's Ninangs later on when I got out of the service and she and Pareng Jun got married and bought a home in Cerritos, California. They've each started their own families and moved where opportunity called. Art and Mila however stayed behind in New Orleans.

Another Navy buddy Jess (James) Mamangun also got stationed in New Orleans, so we have this circle of friends in our small Filipino community. I got to be the Ninong of Pareng James son Jeremy. He got stationed in Hawaii, retired from the Navy and decided to live there.

A few weeks ago, I received this eMail from Art saying he and Mila will be on vacation in the Philippines and would like to visit us. All kinds of fun memories started flooding back from our stay in New Orleans. His brother Bong also came a few days later. Bong had built a house in a remote barangay of Porac. Art and Mila stayed with her Mom and sister in Lubao. We got to visit them over there when her Mom celebrated her birthday. They visited us at our place and we went out to eat twice.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of reminiscing the good old days, the good old days...