Mr. Browner’s House
Today is a lazy, sunny day which reminds me of when I was small.
My room is bordered by four large windows with traditional light fabric for curtains. Even as I type and listen to house music (which I don’t particularly enjoy), the curtains are dancing in the wind and touching my arm. This reminds me of growing up in the province, where every day seemed to have something in store for us.
After dismissal, my siblings and I would run to the public school in front of our house and fly kites or catch tadpoles on weathers like this. I’d have them sit in the sidecar of our bicycle and pedal through the concrete pavement into the grass-covered field where we would play habulan, langit-lupa, pluck grass and have ourselves dirty (to Ate
Lydia ’s consternation). Afterwards, we’d beg Papa to buy us grilled corn from across the highway and we would be happy.
There essentially wasn’t any television to divert our attention. Our old set had but a channel or two, and the reception was bad. The people appeared like stick figures with abnormally elongated bodies and we didn’t care for the soaps shown after Eat Bulaga.
There were myriad activities to choose from and places to go to even within the vicinity of Mr.Browner’s House (which we rented until our return to
Manila ). There were guava trees to climb, Mama’s orchids to look at, plants to water, books to read (we had a whole set of Bible stories, Charlie Brown Encyclopedia and Dr.Seuss), animals to play with and places to hide in for taguan. When we were hungry, we would pluck talbos ng kamote from the backyard and boil them and make sawsawan for merienda with rice. Sometimes, at night, a bat would be lost in our room (the highlight of our week, really) and all of us children would scream and flail and scamper about in excitement, until Papa appears with his tennis racket and swats the poor animal unconscious. What happens after that, I’d rather not tell.
There were always so many people in our house. We were then into the handicraft business and our basket weavers would usually stay for the day. There were bagging and rattan and all sorts of equipment (blowtorch, etc) all over. Once in a while, the weavers would go on break and tell us horror stories, which we would carry on among ourselves until bedtime. On other times, the men would bring their fighting cocks (Papa insists that I don’t call them “chicken”) and have sparring all afternoon. We would watch on the sidelines, pretending we knew at the onset which was the better chicken (ehem), even as we harassed our boy to climb up the buko trees on our backyard and have manang prepare some juice.
It was also during one of these gatherings that I watched the killing of a hen to be prepared for dinner. I wasn’t grossed out by it; it was the most natural thing in food preparation in my young mind. I watched the slow slitting of the hen’s neck and the collection of the blood in the basin and the final chak! of the knife cutting the hen’s head. To my utter horror, the beheaded body defecated and made three steps towards me! I didn’t watch another poultry killing since.
We loved Mr. Browner’s House. Among the three houses we rented during our stay in Solano, it was the one we had the most memory of. What made that house all the more special was its solitary Magnolia plant in the middle of the garden. Every three months or so, we would wait for our single Magnolia to bloom and fill the garden with the nicest smell I could remember. I can still imagine the smell now, if I try very hard. I have never smelled a Magnolia since we left Solano 20 years ago.
