Recalling the Silver Jubilee

January, 1991 was something to remember. Lew Yap gave me a call informing me that things were moving nicely towards our Silver Jubilee in December of that year. I thought, "good, we have a few months to prepare". Well, actually almost a year, which was really good because then we would not have to cram and stuff, a talent I am well acquainted with. He let it slip that we had to get cracking a little bit because the LCHS 1966 Silver Anniversary was in February and that the LC girls were inviting us as special guests which gave us less than three weeks to prepare something. He also told me that I was elected Programs Chairman in absentia so it was my job to get us on that Lourdes College Auditorium stage and do something snappy and not embarrass Xavier University and the Jesuits who we were representing. No problem, I said.

I told Lew that if you're asking me to come up with something to be done on stage then there is only one thing I will suggest: we will sing some songs. I will have middle-aged men on stage singing their lungs out. That was my plan and he readily agreed. I did not tell him that I had other things in mind. Firing up my trusty Wordstar machine, I dashed off a medley of eight songs that I was sure was going to bring the house down, if not for the singing then at least for the memories. Printing up several copies, I headed off to Dr. Arthur Palacio's dental clinic and gave him my plan which was simply to "delegate" the job to him, essentially freeing me to do other stuff which I wanted to do that night. Arthur "Archie" Palacio, good friend that he always is, agreed to cover for me while I went off to Jasaan with a metal detector to look for some of Yamashita's gold.

Apparently, nothing much came out with the meeting/practice that night as did my treasure-hunting activity. It was not really so difficult to imagine; a bunch of rowdy high school boys very often turn out to be rowdy middle-aged boys if brought together in the same room with some beer and a guitar. Lew who btw was the Class President at that time called me again to give me the news and said that, "lahi na gyud bay kung ikaw ang magdala". Well, he's a smooth talker and I could not really say no to him so, I put on hold my dreams unearthing fabulous treasures until after the presentation at the LCHS 1966 2th Anniversary.

The next scheduled practice was on a Tuesday night at Raymond Wilson's residence. Beer and a lot of reminiscing was the order of the evening while we waited for the others to come. This was not a good way to start and once again, there was a lot of good time but not much practice that night. That piece of knowledge under my belt, I "decreed" that beer would be served only after each practice as a way of celebrating a job well done, hopefully. The next practice was at Lew's office at the Republic Planters Bank and we did not really make much progress even without the beers owing to the Class66 trademark of being rowdy and free-spirited. I was forced once again to take draconian measures which translated to limiting the number of participants to eight instead of the free-for-all that was expected. This had the sobering effect that I desired and being on the team suddenly meant something special and desirable so they buckled up and the practice went without a hitch after all, singing was something that we liked to do.

The singing having been dealt with to my satisfaction, I turned my attention next to choreography. Bing Elloso, Vencing's wife was an excellent dancer and enthusiastically took up the role of choreographer. I told Bing to just teach us a few simple steps, no break-dancing and no pirouettes. A few more practice sessions had me convinced that we were able to achieve something more than just re-learn old songs. We genuinely became a team, a unit and even those of us who were not part of the group to present at LC Auditorium rallied behind us. We were becoming XUHS Class of 1966 and not just a bunch of individuals sharing common classrooms 25 years before.

Needless to say, we were stupendous on the night of the presentation.

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Meditation is great for achieving mental clarity.