Wednesday, February 03, 2016

Stars and Skype


Long distance relationships are difficult, but nowadays, technology makes it somewhat bearable. Cellphones and computers allow friends, families or lovers to chat and see each other at any time of day or night, and in the privacy of their own rooms, or even cars (Just don’t drive and text).  And while we pay for Internet or cellphone service, connecting to another anywhere in the globe is actually free with Facetime, Viber, Hangout or Skype.

In the early 1970’s, when John was courting me (in those days, men courted women and we never said  “when WE were courting …”), John’s mother considered me a bad influence because I was encouraging him to work as a photographer, which meant that he was not paying attention to the family business. To separate us, she sent him off to Iloilo to stay with his sister. Now, in those days, there was no Internet, email or Skype, there were no cellphones or even pagers, and public coin-operated phones were just for local calls. Long distance calls could be done if one had a landline at home (we didn't) or would have to be done at the telephone company's premises.  Mailed letters took a long time, so any messages that needed to be rushed were sent by telegrams. 

My family was poor and we did not have a phone at home. If John wanted to call me, he would have to call my aunt’s house, which was next door, and wait for someone, usually my aunt’s maid or houseboy (then called servants) to call me and for me to rush to my aunt’s house. With cousins practically eavesdropping, there was no chance for John and I to say sweet nothings to each other. Besides, in those days, telephones had party-lines, meaning, two phone owners, usually neighbors, took turns in using one phone line. As a matter of phone courtesy, when one lifts the handset and hears someone talking, that person must put the phone down gently, and wait. If you’re the one using the phone, sometimes, it meant hearing that handset being lifted and put down over and over again, and when the other party becomes impatient, they say “Hello, party line, puede ba ako naman (may I have my turn?)  There was no way to stay on the phone a long time to make “telebabad” (staying too long on the phone).  

It was too embarrassing to use my aunt’s phone to call long distance, so for calls that I would have to initiate, I would go to the Philippine Long Distance Company office in Port Area, near the foot of Jones Bridge (two jeepney rides or approximately five kilometers from Paranaque, where I lived).  There were booths there, and callers were guaranteed not only soundproofed privacy, but also no party lines waiting on the wing for me to finish my call. But long distance calls were expensive, and I did not have the money to make such calls. 

Before he left for Iloilo, and anticipating the difficulty of keeping in touch, John agreed to my romantic suggestion to connect somehow by gazing at the sky and looking at a row of three stars (Orion’s belt) at the same time every night at exactly 7:00PM. We had no cellphones or Internet, it is true, but what we had was a direct connection, soul-to-soul through the stars, it was private, and it was free. Who needs Skype?

John eventually came back to Manila. We set up Adphoto, got married, and raised our own children. We’re still together, so obviously the stars worked. Once in a while, through the more than 40 years since the 1970’s, when John and I look up at darker provincial skies (disappointingly, Metro Manila no longer offers a clear view of the night sky), we give thanks that when we did not have Skype, we had the stars. 

Learning Language



It’s funny how very young children pick up words and expressions - from the people they have around them, as well as from videos they watch.

My younger granddaughter (just turned two last month) was insisting on getting something from me. An iPad, I think. Her demands were accompanied by appropriate authoritative facial expression and body posture - stumping her tiny foot on the floor like a little empress, and with a stern voice, demanding, “I want my iPad!!!” Her mother reminded her to say “Please” and in a split second, and in complete reversal, she not only said “please,” but also softened her tone and volume to what her mother calls “butterfly voice.” She looked at me with a pleading expression on her face, and asked in a very gentle, slow and hard-to-refuse voice,  “L-o-l-a, may I p-l-e-a-s-e have my iPad?  P-l-e-a-s-e, L-o-l-a?”  

On another occasion, she was trying to use expressions that she had picked up from her and her sister’s favorite movie, Frozen.

“Go away!” she told me, in the same tone and manner that the movie’s Princess Elsa did, when she tried to keep her sister, Princess Anna, away.  I thought she was cute, and just laughed but didn’t go away.

“Hmmm,” she must have thought, “that didn’t work.”

She tried “Get out!” I was not sure if that was in the movie, but I was impressed that she was trying other ways of giving the same message, so I laughed again but I still didn’t go away.

“Go…” and she groped for other words. I waited. “Go…” Oops, it looks like she has run out of words with the same meaning. “Go…,” she paused, and then, triumphantly, she commanded…

“Go home!”

She and I both knew that she was scraping the bottom for the right words, and straying from the original movie dialogue. We looked at each other, and we both laughed.


Super cute two-year old! Did I mention that she’s my granddaughter?