ACES Class 1967-68 by: Lumad Aloranon

Let us do it well, we will be in high school in July. School year 1967-1968, 82 boys and girls, mostly 13, some 12 years old were going to graduate coming March from Aloran Central School or simply Central. Our last subject, before lunch was for boys Industrial Arts (Shop) and for girls, Home Economics, that is Monday to Thursday. That school year, a pilot project was debuted, every Friday the boys take Home Economics and the girls, Industrial Arts. Our Shop teacher was Mr. Generoso (Boongon) Cuajotor, the same notorious guy who dealt us humiliation in our Gardening class the year before. I wrote a separate chapter on that, it is just too important for us boys to be just a sub-chapter in any story. Among the projects we were assigned to make was a: Toy parrot: Cut a shape of a parrot from a 1/8” thick plywood, have a hole where the feet are, then paint both faces making it look like a parrot, yellow and green. Cut a 3-inch X 4-inch plywood and stick an (M) shaped like 1/8-inch diameter wire, after passing the wire through the hole at the parrots feet. Balance here is critical. The parrot should neither bend forward nor backward. Toy dog: More complicated than the toy parrot, but I made it on time. Another project I submitted was the book stopper. It was the like you find in libraries. You make a pair, in between you line the books. In my recollection, only Luperio Castillo submitted a waste basket. It was no wonder he was the teachers favourite. The fun part though is: Around noon, he (Boongon) joins other teachers in the principals office in the main building. About the same time, Diego Salvador, the famous radio drama that time is aired. Walter Buendia who lives right next to the shop building then sprints to their house, get their Avegon transistor radio and place it right inside the shop. We were that bold and confident, well we always have one of us a lookout. Almost always we finish listening to Diego Salvador and have Walter enough time to run back to their house to return the radio and before Boongon is back, (all hands were on deck).