Of road diggings and hypertension

BENCHWARMER

by Ramon Dacawi

My command of the written word  gets spotty each time my blood pressure shoots up, as it does with all of those road diggings being done so they can be repaired again. I’m not alone in this predicament of loss, even if the project implementors tell us now and then that we are not engineers and therefore are not competent to decide whether a seemingly smooth and stable road needs “reblocking” or not. 

Hypertension hit that time they obliterated that old sidewalk along Leonard Wood Road , after the Teachers’ Camp bridge towards the Botanical Garden, to give greater roiom for cars to maneuver. Historically, the American founding fathers built the sidewalks, knowing pretty well that Baguio was made for walking because of its temperate climate and scenery.

The point, as Dr. Penalosa, former mayor of the highland city of Bogota, Colombia.noted is that a city is made for people not for cars. He went on to say that throughout history, more people were killed by cars than by wild animals in the forest.  

To fill space while I calm down, here’s my parody about all those diggings on roads and streets, here’s a parody of “Mountains of Mourne”, an Irish ballad written by the 19th century musician Percy French. The song was revived by Don Mclean as centerpiece of one of his records. I wish folksinger and weekly paper editor Alfred “Pacyay” Dizon would belt it out one of these nights:

“Oh, Alfred our streets are a terrible sight/ With people all working by day and by night/Sure they don’t sow potatoes, nor cabbage, nor beet/ But there’s gangs of them sinking jackhammers   in the streets.

“At least when I asked them that’s what I was told/ So I just took a look at this repairing of road/ But for all that I find there, I might as well be/ Where the dug-up gravel don’t sweep down to the sea.

“I believe that when writing a wish you expressed/ As to know how the contractor would have it pressed/ Well, if you’ll believe me, when asked to a “bull” (session, that is)/ They don’t put enough blacktops to press at all.

“Oh I’ve seen them meself and you could not in truth/Say they were bound to their quality mixes and  all/Do write a column or editorial piece, Alfred dear/ About their diggings being swept down to the sea.”

 In the same vein, we dedicate a parody by Ogden Nash  of Joyce Kilmer’s poem about trees to adult groups who have installed permanent billboards inside Busol. The forest definitely does not need any of these intrusive signs that, in the eyes of children who were working there years earlier but hardly put up their own signs, degrade, rather than exalt the names and reputations of their companies:

 “I think that I shall never see/A billboard lovely as a tree/ And if those billboards do not fall/ I shall never see the trees at all.”

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(Here’s how one guy made good his new year’s resolution.-RD)

(The writer, a German national married to a Cordilleran, was, until two years ago, no different from many of us, men in these uplands who can’t hold their day without holding their gin. Frank Georg who gained distinction as janitor and landscape designer for the slope beside the post office here, talks of his resolve to sober up, something he calls a miracle.)

March 2, 2013 was like any ordinary Sunday morning. Still, it was given significance by a thought gnawing in my brain, about a resolve I made two months back: I had to give up drinking. Still the resolve for abstinence was more bitter to swallow than alcohol.

That morning, I went to confide to a friend in a local church. He listened and after a while said, “I can’t help you, you must help yours  self alone.” Confused, I went home and started to pray for help from above, with tears running down as if I were a child.

After a while, I received the answer from an inner voice:When you, from now on, quit drinking you will see what I do with you”:. “What do you mean, Lord?”  “You will see….”

Images of excesses due to drinking while already under the influence flashed in front of me, including that time I had a bad fall and had to be hospitalized for a head injury. A friend footed the physician’s bill while others  echoed the obvious – Frank, stop drinking, you look like a skeleton.

Today, less than two years after the accident under the influence, friends have one word to explain m transformation: a miracle.

It’s not. It has something to do belief and faith in the Almighty as I did when he promised me, “you will see what I will do with you”  Of course, it’s about self-trust, faith in one’s self until one wakes up in the morning, in good shape and feeling non hang-over.

(Since March, 2013, Frank the volunteer street sweeper and plant propagator has received 17 citations and commendations for his work to keep closer his city closer to what it should be. A fine artist, he has also produced pointillist black and white paintings promoting Baguio as the place to live in.)