One December morning in the mid-70s, a father of 4 took a 2-hour bus ride from Pampanga to Cubao in search of the perfect factory-built stereo system. When he finally found the model that would fit his budget, he made it his mission to save up for it. Most stereo systems then were housed in what could easily pass for a rectangular display cabinet. Inside you would find a turntable with a built-in amplifier hooked up to a cassette deck.
A year later, he borrowed a pick-up truck to make the purchase with his children in tow. Awed by the sight of their new appliance, his eldest exclaimed: “Can we really afford this?” As it turned out, “this” ultimately became the centrepiece of their living room for decades. No day would pass without music being played from “this,” often at full blast. In hindsight, the question should have been: “can we afford not to have this?” After all, it was from “this” that his children learned songs that defined what he was about.
Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” might as well be the perfect paean to his wanderlust - a penchant for adventure that was triggered by his father asking him to put his college studies on hold so his younger brothers could study. Being a good son, he obeyed but eventually found a way to paddle from the serene waters of Abuyog river, where he would fish for their daily meal, and fly into the wild blue yonder. Through places that went by the names of Fernando, Basa, Mactan, Clark, Sangley and even Chanute, he surprised even himself as he discovered his gift for flying through the F-86 Sabre and the F-5A Freedom Fighter. In the process, he was able to finish college.
Along the way, he fell in love with a local beauty queen from Bulacan who came from a family of means. Many of those who knew of his intentions to love and to hold the young lass were of two minds. A number expressed their doubts openly. The reasons were countless. She was not from the Visayas. They were not from the same economic class. And so on and so forth. But fought for his love he did. Hence, the “hugot” factor that unfailingly informed his every rendition of the Ben Zubiri song “Matud Nila.”
As he struggled to raise a family on a meagre government pay, he sought refuge in books - most of them rescued from the discount heaps at Alemars’ and Goodwill, and introspection - by way of journals that he never published. Perhaps it was this habit that may have gifted him with the wisdom that made so many people seek him out for advice and direction. To his siblings, his friends and those who were under his command, his capacity for perspective as it is celebrated in Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” was a source of enlightenment and inspiration.
Alas, he too was not left unscathed by the ups and downs of life. Crises and problems at home and at work came knocking on his door. Some of them he overcame. Others nearly overcame him. Through their crests and troughs he learned to embrace the stoicism that shines through in Frank Sinatra’s “Cycles.” He was amply rewarded by becoming a natural at taking tough things in stride.
In the end, it was these same crises and problems that eventually made him realize that for all his achievements, sometimes he truly just can’t make it on his own. Without God, he would often remind his children, nothing is possible. And so on many a happy occasion, whenever he was requested to sing a song, he would regale his audience with Andy Williams’ “May Each Day,” a well-meaning benediction that invokes the power of God to make our life count.
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche reminds us that music “can exalt us, divert us, cheer us up or break the hardest of hearts…But its principal task is to lead our thoughts to higher things…” like paradoxically making present that which is absent. It’s been 20 years this December since this father of 4 passed away at the age of 56. Yet wonder of wonders, every time I hear these songs from my own turntable this time, it’s as if he is never really gone. My grandfather Bennie lives on through these songs beyond that one December morning.
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