Amidst the festive rush and celebration of the Tercentenary of the Peñafrancia devotion, there was something else happening in one of the resorts out in Carolina. The place is called Casa Ofelia, owned by one of the students in the batch, Roger Cariño. The former classmates coming from Manila and other places in the region were gathered to celebrate a teacher and his memories.

Nostalgia always has a charming place when people try to remember things. This group, added something to memory - and that was action. They launched a project that transformed the book of Fr. James O'Brien, SJ, into the more accessible electronic form.

A day after the Traslacion, I was with kin in the old shrine of the Lady of Peñafrancia. We were waiting for the next Mass, and I was outside looking up at the façade of the Shrine. The icon atop the portal of the church is a copy of the Virgin de Pena de Francia in Salamanca. She is a Black Madonna in the original but in the Shrine she is all dark brown monochrome. She appeared not to resemble at all the image inside.

Certain towns are near but if you do not go back there, they recede into the distance, and become very far.

The fiesta in Canaman has brought me back to the charming town that even academics from as far as the U.S. are well aware of. I met, in fact, an American anthropologist who told me he feels he has been to Canaman already, just by reading the essays about it.

The meaning of the name Naga, our city, has lately changed. For a long time, we have associated the name to the presence of Narra trees, the local name for which is said to be Naga.

Last Tuesday, I had a lunch with three good friends. It was a delayed celebration of my friend's daughter's graduation. The daughter is well on her way to becoming a doctor.

A table was laid out at the porch. The beams surrounding the porch framed the skies and the clouds.

Compared to Ticao, the island of my birth, Buhi, the hometown of my father, was the least visited site of my childhood. The times we visited the town corresponded with deaths of certain family members, on my father side.

I was in Kamakura once more. From Tokyo, you buy a Free Kippu, which literally means "free ticket." The ticket is not free however but discounted. The ticket allows you to take the tram car indefinitely. You can stop at every station and a majestic monastery and temple or shrine will be there.

Kamakura, for those who romanticize the place, is the seat of warriors' culture. This was where the code of the Samurai called the Bushido reached its fruition. On that rainy day, Kamakura was indeed romance and adventure. Not even the squirrels scampering over electric and cable lines could diminish the foreboding that seemed to wash over the landscape of this seaside town.

I am forever playing the music of Rosita de la Vega, the Queen of Novelty Songs in the 40s and the 50s. In that rare collection made accessible by a group of enthusiasts who are able to resurrect all the torch singers and balladeers of the gilded age of Peacetime and Wartime and Post wartime is the song "Mambo Magsaysay." The jingle is considered the most popular political jingle of all time.

I spent the whole Good Friday struggling with the sounds of karaoke out in the field, near our home, in the subdivision in Concepcion Grande. I was expecting the chanting of the Pasyon to commence after the rituals of drinking and eating. But from early evening of that day till dawn and from sunrise of Good Friday until sunset, the tunes coming from that shack were a mix of pop tunes and ballad and rock music.