When I was your age...

Great Grandparents

2007-04-23T14:05:00.000-04:00

Antonia & Juan Bongog were the parents of Ireneo Bongog, our grandfather. They lived in Sagunto, Sison, Pangasinan and had three children: Ricardo, Ireneo, and Juana. Everyone called them Ba-e and Lak-e which stands for great-grandmother and great-grandfather.

In this photo, they are with their grandchildren and their first great-granddaughter, me. Between them, is Uncle Boy, Auntie Vita, and in front of Lak-e with his head down, Uncle Mando.

The Pasibes

2006-03-22T13:09:00.000-05:00

This is my father's family; his brothers and sisters.
Sitting: Jose Rulla Pasibe (my dad), Glenn "namnama" (his nephew, son of Demetrio), Romeo Pasibe
Standing: Demetrio Pasibe, Gloria Pasibe Halabasso, Cherry Pasibe (daughter of Demetrio), Inocencia Pasibe Gatchallian, Remedios Pasibe (wife of Demetrio), Remy Pasibe

I wish I knew the year this photo was taken. By the looks of my dad, it may be in the early 60's, maybe 1960 or 1961. I am guessing that since I was born in 1963 and he looks awfully young in this photo, that it has to be at least a couple of years prior.

My father's family is from the province of La Union, Philippines. Although their father, ~~Eutiquio~~Remigio ~~Rulla~~Pasibe, Sr. lived in Caba, La Union right next door to his son Demetrio, my father's mother hailed from Aringay, La Union where they had a family home. His mother, Josefa Rulla, Remigio's second wife, died at quite an early age though and so he was raised primarily by Lola Fausta in Aringay.

Back to the Old Photo Archives

2006-03-22T13:00:00.000-05:00

Gosh, it's been a year since I updated this site. I guess real life again has interferred with my blogging. I don't want to let this project go by the wayside though. I feel this is important to maintain just so my daughters and the rest of the family can have something to look back on. It's a slow process, but I'm resolved to at least do a little at a time. So here we go again....

Sundays in the Park with...Lola

2005-02-07T00:57:00.000-05:00

Swinging in the Park with Lola Dora

Sundays in the park or at any time is always a special time for a child. I was no different. My sisters and I cherished the times we went to the park; this specific one was Burnham Park. Most of the times we just played on the swings, but there are many other things to do when you got tired of the swings. There were boats to ride, bikes, or the train. You can see the train in the background. Best of all, there were always the snacks. We would either get ice cream, kamote-que, peanuts with garlic, sliced mangoes, or if we were really good (or lucky), an actual sit-down merienda at one of the nearby restaurants, and we would religiously order the same thing, pancit loglog and halo-halo.

Session Road

2005-01-22T13:06:00.000-05:00

Session Road, Baguio City

While going through our old photos the other day, I came across this old post card. Session Road is the main thoroughfare in the previously small city of Baguio. This photo is of the area where at least three of the major streets converge, and it was literally the center of town. It was, and still is, where most of the commerce is located. The large building in the forefront looks like it was being used as a market place. The purpose to a large extent, remains the same to this day, but a shopping mall is now in its place. I am sure fellow blogger TingAling will have a better memory than I, she is a veritable walking history book of Baguio :) Her posts on her memories about growing up in Baguio brings back a lot memories to this old addled brain of mine.
When I was growing up, Baguio was still a small town where everyone knows who you are. When my sisters and I decided to run away from home, we couldn't get beyond a couple of blocks before someone who knew our parents spotted us and told us to go home. This is unfathomable now, in this day and age, but as young as 8 or 9 years old, we used to roam the city. The whole city was our playground, and parents had no worries because they knew someone was always watching us. The phrase "it takes a village to raise children"? That was apt then. When we get on a taxi, the driver would inevitably be one of our dad's many friends and acquaintances. Instead of paying the fare, we end up getting a couple of cents for a snack. When we decide to suddenly drop in on someone's home, we were guaranteed at least a snack if not a full meal. Most of the time we also got a ride home or at the very least cab fare. Everyone was an aunt or an uncle, although not necessarily biological. We just called all of our parent's friends auntie or uncle, out of respect.
My sisters and I haven't been to Baguio for over ten or fifteen years now; I hear things have drastically changed. I couldn't tell if it's for better or worse, but I will always remember it as that bucolic little town, the haunting grounds of my childhood.

That's Amore'

2005-01-20T16:34:00.000-05:00

Ah, to be young again.... This is my mom (second from left) and my dad (far right) during their college years. My mom is from a small town, Sagunto, Sison, Pangasinan and my dad is from Aringay, La Union, also a small town. They went to Baguio to attend college, and that is where they met and fell in love. This is them with their friends, before they started dating. Already you can see the sparks of amore' flying.

Mom's Tres Marias

2005-01-20T16:18:00.000-05:00

This is my mom and her three girls. The Clone is real! I see so many parallels.

The Rockers

2005-01-20T14:43:00.000-05:00

Jade and I were looking through old photos, and we came across this:

Me and sister O and the famous rockers (described in entry below)
Taken at Lola Faus' house in Aringay, La Union. Sister O fell out of the front door in one of the rocking chairs, ha!ha!ha! She was ok (at least we think), the chair was not.

My Lola was Gourmet

2004-11-30T23:08:00.000-05:00

Lola Faus

This is Lola Fausta, that's me with her. Everytime one of us were born, she made the journey from the province to welcome us to the world, bearing gifts, and she always wore the dress you see here, the traditional 'baro at saya'. We called her Lola Pa-us, as we Filipinos have a penchant for pronouncing the letter f as p. She lived in a very small town in Aringay, La Union, by the sea. She is actually my dad's aunt, but she was more like a mother to him. She was the one who raised him after his mother died when he was only 3 years old. We used to go visit Lola Paus on holidays, and once in a while our parents would even leave us with her for a few days, maybe even a week. She would always treat us like visiting princesses, always buying and preparing our favorite foods. For me, that meant seafood. Anything from the sea, and it wasn't hard to come by, where she lived. Fresh fish from the sea always went by her house first before going to the market. You see, she lived along the only road that connected the fishing villages to town, so all the fishermen's wives would have to go by her house to go and sell their catch of the day in town. When they know her grandchildren are around, then they make an intentional stop as they know she will be stocking up. They would stop by with whatever it is they netted that morning, from seaweed (ar-arusep), fish, shrimp, and my all time favorite, crabs. She would always tell them to save crabs for her.

She lived in an old Spanish style house with corner posts that were so thick I could hardly put my arms around them as a child. The windows were 'capiz' made from scallop shells, and as was the custom in places prone to flooding, the main floor was at least 6 feet above ground. A grown person can walk under the house upright. The main room was enormous, with two smaller bedrooms towards the back. It used to have huge double doors that led to the main staircase in front of the house, but by the time we started visiting her, the main staircase had rotted away, so we always entered via a small staircase in the back of the house. The double doors in front remained though, and were opened on occation to let the breeze in. She had what seemed like massive rocking chairs too, and they were most often positioned in front of the doors to capitalize on the cool breeze. Sister O fell out of the front door taking one of the rocking chairs with her, at one time, but that's another story :) They say that during the Japanese ocupation, her house was used as the Japanese headquarters because it was the only one in the little town big enough. As a result of it's somewhat infamous past, it was always rumored that the house was haunted by all the victims of the atrocities committed by the Japanese. But, I am getting away from my title, of why my lola was gourmet. That too, will be another story.

I am amused when I look at the cooking shows and see how many people now use salt dishes, and finger bowls. My lola used these at every meal. She used local sea salt, "sel de mer", because it was cheaper than Morton's. I don't even know that they had Morton's back then, but try buying sea salt now, they're $8/pound! She didn't have salt shakers, but rather had salt dishes on the table. The dishes, all Japanese porcelain that were left behind. She also had finger bowls, bowls with water in them for rinsing your hand while you are eating as it was the custom to eat with your hands, especially when eating seafood.

Lola Faus was a great cook. If she wasn't, I wouldn't know because she was one of those people whose cooking you just remembered. All these recipes nowadays that are wrapped in corn husk, banana leave, grape leaves, etc? She used to do those too. She wrapped small fish in banana leaves and cook them plainly in just salt and vinegar, and they would come out sooo good! She is best remembered though, for her suman, rice cake wrapped in banana-leaf. It was a given that every Christmas, we would receive some of Lola's suman, and she would travel to Baguio to bring us our pasalubong; no easy feat as she had to travel by bus and carry her bags, 'bayon', with her. She was just that way though, a very giving person. If you were the one to visit her, she would still give you something to take home. If you visit unexpectedly and she didn't have suman ready for you to take home, she will find something, anything, just so you wouldn't go home empty handed. We have been known to carry home with us, live chickens, fresh uncooked chicken eggs, a whole side of bananas, cavans of rice, fresh oysters, or dozens of coconuts. No matter what though, no one leaves her house empty handed, no matter who you were.

Family Tree Project

2004-11-07T11:16:00.000-05:00

Recently, Asi had a project researching her family tree. This got us started again thinking about completing the family tree. Asi gathered quite a lot of material, thanks to a lot of help from her Aunt OP. We'll start posting some of what she found out here.
We don't have connections to royalty, no dignitaries, no one famous or infamous, but we found that our family is just as interesting to us. Part of Asi's assignment was to provide anecdotes about family members, and that was the part that she and her sisters found most interesting. We'll try to start compiling those here, as a record of the stock they come from.

The Castillos

2004-09-04T16:41:00.000-04:00

This is my Mom's family the Castillos. The matriarch is Angela Castillo (center), and my grandmother, Dora, is her daughter.

I don't know everyone in the picture, I have labeled that ones that I do know and still keep in touch with to this day. Our great grandmother Angela (everyone called her Ankila) died soon after this photo was taken, sometime around 1968 or 69. My lola Dora sits next to her, sister Jo is on her lap, sister O and I are sitting in front of her. My mom is the pretty lady on the right, Virginia. My mom and her cousins are a tight bunch. This may be due to the fact that my mom was an only child and cherished her relationships with her cousins, ergo she always kept in touch with many of them. Most of them, like my mom, have moved out of the little bario in Pangasinan where this picture was taken, but they all, as do I, still consider the bario as their home. They all still have their family homes their, and they all still go to visit every once in a while.
My lola lives in Los Angeles now, with my mom. Her brothers Victor and Diosdado have passed away, but her sister Ellen is still living in the Philippines. Aunt Gloria is a nurse and she now lives in Sacramento with her family. Her sister Diana lives nearby in Rancho Cordova. We had a chance to see them a year ago when my step father died and they all came. Unfortunately, we don't get to see our extended family as much anymore. Funerals and weddings have become quasi family reunions as we all have busy lives and don't always get a chance to get together.

Thanks, sister O for sending the photo.

2004-08-29T12:14:00.000-04:00

Talk about "When I was your age!!" yesterday, when Mike was working out back he found this tiny little shoe!

How amazing is this!! Mike says that the shoe, must belong to one of his sisters. It's only about 6 inches long and 2 1/2 inches, in the widest part. What an amazing artifact. It's still got some color under all that dirt as well, it seems to be a peach color on the top and a deep blue on the bottom. We'll send more pictures once it's cleaned off. See the cute little wavy pattern on the strap. It's so cute and tiny, with little roots sticking on the bottom. Wow, it's amazing, that it's so well preserved.

Blog the Olden Days

2004-08-26T16:17:00.000-04:00

I was just looking through old photos, and the nostalgic bug stung me again. I decided to create this blog not just so I can reminisce to my heart's content, but also so my girls and maybe other family members can enjoy the old photos and add to the stories. The bad thing when you start something like this, you soon find out your memory is not quite as sharp as you thought. I have a few old photos I have been planning on scanning for a while now, so I thought what better time to scan them!
Sister O has some terrific old photos, so I hope she can share some for this collection.