THE WATER WORLD

Tulay da-an (Old bridge) In 1903, fourteen years before Aloran became a municipality, the Americans built a bridge connecting what are now the Baranggays of Dalisay and Palayan. It is safe to assume that this was simply called tulay since it was the only one in the area. But early 1960s, another bridge, just a few hundred meters from here was constructed. People refer to that bridge as tulay bag-o, new bridge, hence, tulay da-an, old bridge for the American-built. Typical those days, it was of concrete flooring and of steel arcs (arco). One rite of passage was to cross the bridge walking on top of the arcs. It was not easy. But you can start by crawling, then stooping, before turning homo-erectus. Did not we human evolve that way? The bridge also serves as a fixed jumping/diving board. Three levels. The lowest was a beam a foot below floor level, the median was another beam maybe three feet above the floor and the highest, top of the arc. On a typical day, dozens of boys and girls, some dive, some jump from all three levels. Paterno Redilla (may God grant his soul eternal rest) was Boy to us but was renamed Ugly from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly fame. Legend has it that he never learned to jump into the water below. He can only dive from the top of the arc. He was the Baron. Many of us can dive too, from the top, but mostly from peer-pressure. For the benefit of the Generation X and the Millennial, tulay da-an was demolished some years back, and a new one was constructed at the same site. This bridge then became the new old-bridge, bag-ong tulay-da-an, and tulay bag-o became old new-bridge, da-ang tulay-bag-o. I am not kidding!