My travels to places where there are no paths to follow.
I suppose baby souls fall back in line,
Reshaped and recast to wake up elsewhere.
So, dear Diona, as you wait in sky mists
For the next soulcast, listen to this:
Once upon a rainforest,
Giant trucks with ugly wheels
Vomited out a thousand army boots.
For nearly a decade from the mid-1970s onwards, I turned Cavite province into a big backyard, having been able to visit all its municipalities and gradually familiarize myself with its main routes, poblacions, churches and convents, even a number of beach resorts. Don’t ask me the whys and wherefores, because that’s another story.
Does anybody above 50 still remember PECO? I do. It was one of my earliest recollections of shopping in Quiapo with my mother.
PECO meant Philippine Educational Company. It was along Arlegui, just a corner away from the north-bound foot of the Quezon bridge, which back then still smelled of fresh river water. A quick search indicates that it was established by one of the Thomasites in the early 20th century, and had become one of the biggest bookstores in the country after World War II. In my vague recollections, it had the feel of a bombed-out building or a huge warehouse, with rough unpainted concrete posts and beams, and would be considered absolutely ugly by today’s Powerbooks standards.