IT’S dates time in date fruit land. Those still unripe fruits that are firmly clumped in the leaf bases of the palm trees look so insanely tempting already that you can’t blame these adolescent boys who stealthily attempt to shake these off their spines. Makes me wonder what an unripe date fruit would taste. I’m only familiar with the sweet, caramel-like taste and texture of the fruit that’s being bought at the supermarket that I have no idea how a fresh one would be.
I amusingly observe and then got instantly reminded of how we were as kids back home. It’s the same thing with those guava, persimmon and misperos or loquat trees that grew in front of lolo’s cogon house. Regardless if the fruits were ripe or not, it made us giddily joyful climbing the rickety branches to pick those obviously immature fruits. The rewards for doing such would be a small bounty of hard, sour fruits that we unhesitatingly indulge into. The aftermath would be constipation (from the rock-hard guavas that our chipped molars had no trouble biting into) and numerous welts from the dreaded “budo-budo” or wooly caterpillars. We’re lucky if we can escape the serious reprimands from our elders for acting like George of the Jungle in those unstable branches of the old trees.
I amusingly observe and then got instantly reminded of how we were as kids back home. It’s the same thing with those guava, persimmon and misperos or loquat trees that grew in front of lolo’s cogon house. Regardless if the fruits were ripe or not, it made us giddily joyful climbing the rickety branches to pick those obviously immature fruits. The rewards for doing such would be a small bounty of hard, sour fruits that we unhesitatingly indulge into. The aftermath would be constipation (from the rock-hard guavas that our chipped molars had no trouble biting into) and numerous welts from the dreaded “budo-budo” or wooly caterpillars. We’re lucky if we can escape the serious reprimands from our elders for acting like George of the Jungle in those unstable branches of the old trees.
I was lucky to have grown up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of kids my age. They immediately turned out to be not just playmates but instant brothers and sisters. The neighborhood was like a huge, extended family. Somehow, we kids managed to keep it that way. My older siblings would surely have no trouble recalling how they were often asked by Mama to come looking for me during lunch or dinner time. If I wasn’t at this Auntie’s house, then for sure, I will be at this other Auntie’s place. Possibly the only time my playmates and I get separated was when we had to say goodbye for the night. If it was possible to do sleepovers all the time, then we would have consistently done that as well. Oh the life of a kid -- no “big people problems” to worry about. Naïve, young and worry-free; time was ours, the neighborhood was ours, the trees were ours, the unripe fruits were ours.
Fast-forward to now. Those trees that provided so much guilty treasures and pleasures alike for us and home to many “budo-budos” before were gradually cut down to give way to more residential homes, commercial buildings, and parking spaces. The plenteous gumamela shrubs that had served as reliable bulwarks for our war games (aka “ba-ba-bang”) no longer grow alongside the dama de noches that naturally perfume the eternal starlit and summery nights of this rustic village. Tremendous changes have happened in a stretch of a decade, and so much more is expected, good and bad alike. With issues like putting up a wind farm in the locality, privatizing communal properties, big-scale tourism upgrades and such, nothing should surprise us nowadays.
I don’t know if it’s the years racing by at a breakneck speed, if it’s modernization and the generation Z culture rapidly catching up on us, or I’m just overly-romanticizing on those unripe fruits that were still too young to be plucked. No, I would not turn this piece into a metaphor where I would painstakingly extract a life-changing morale from picking those immature guavas, misperos and persimmons. That would ruin the whole thing. I meant to write this as a memory walk down the park -- a good one, and we’ll keep it that way.
Fast-forward to now. Those trees that provided so much guilty treasures and pleasures alike for us and home to many “budo-budos” before were gradually cut down to give way to more residential homes, commercial buildings, and parking spaces. The plenteous gumamela shrubs that had served as reliable bulwarks for our war games (aka “ba-ba-bang”) no longer grow alongside the dama de noches that naturally perfume the eternal starlit and summery nights of this rustic village. Tremendous changes have happened in a stretch of a decade, and so much more is expected, good and bad alike. With issues like putting up a wind farm in the locality, privatizing communal properties, big-scale tourism upgrades and such, nothing should surprise us nowadays.
I don’t know if it’s the years racing by at a breakneck speed, if it’s modernization and the generation Z culture rapidly catching up on us, or I’m just overly-romanticizing on those unripe fruits that were still too young to be plucked. No, I would not turn this piece into a metaphor where I would painstakingly extract a life-changing morale from picking those immature guavas, misperos and persimmons. That would ruin the whole thing. I meant to write this as a memory walk down the park -- a good one, and we’ll keep it that way.