Memories

I read this wonderful memories of being a kids or thinking a beautiful past.

Sunday was church day. My earliest memories are of the old San Pedro Church. We would crowd in through the back pews most of the time because we would always be late. Being late meant that the sermon would already be over. It was not an easy task having to make sure all six of us children be dressed up and ready in time for the ten o’clock mass. And yes, those days, going to church meant we had to be dressed up, like we were going to a party, which we actually did sometimes. Later, we would go to the Redemptorist Church in Bajada (when it was still a small wooden building), and then when we transferred to our new house in Marfori Heights, to the Assumption Church along Torres Street. All these churches, in my mind were cooler and less crowded at the time. Then, after church, more times than not, we would all drive to the Beach Club or the Insular Hotel that was still managed by the Mascuñanas, for lunch and, in my case, a walk along the seashore to pick shells if it happened to be low-tide.

I always thought it sometimes boring how the same people would be at the Club every Sunday. My mother would congregate towards the same wives while my father towards the same husbands. “Children were meant to be seen and not heard,” so we were expected to go play with the children of the wives and husbands my parents knew. It was sometimes difficult being with the girls because I thought they really didn’t do much except sit around a table and talk about things I didn’t understand. I was too shy to join my brothers and their friends. That’s how I developed my shell-picking forays. It wasn’t long before I had a collection of shells I didn’t know what to do with, unless there was a sunka tournament in the city maybe.