Brewing a good hot cup of nostalgia
December 12, 2001 | 12:00am
Our collective understanding of the past may seem to be failing even though our technical ability to recreate the past has reached an unprecedented level of development. Photographs, motion pictures and recordings, new techniques in historical research, the computer’s astonishing total recall provide a rich documentary record of the past. We live surrounded by records, if anything, overwhelmed with documentary evidence, bombarded by more information about history and everything else than we can possibly assimilate – all accessible to us by a mere click of the mouse. In some ways, life today is like life in a museum – the museum of the computer and the museum of our minds.
Of all the visions of historical time, the most arbitrary, and at the same time, the most obviously indispensable, are the months and years of the calendar, which have no reference to events at all, yet unavoidably take on the coloration of the memorable occurrences with which they are associated in our minds.
As one gets older, memories of one’s student life, instead of dimming, surprisingly become clearer and more relevant to what we have become today. Formerly, it took years, perhaps decades, to brew a good hot cup of nostalgia. Today, you just add water, and presto, you have nostalgia in less than five seconds!
At the Harvard-Yale dinner held on the Nov. 16 – traditionally falling on the eve of the Harvard-Yale football game – it was the turn of the Harvard Club president to host the affair. I do not know how long his term is supposed to last, but Teddy D. Regala, Harvard Club president, a friend of many years, and a schoolmate from the UP College of Law, was in his element and his charming best. One of the founding partners of ACCRM Law, Teddy was a brilliant student at law school in a class that had some great minds as members. Married through all these years to a celebrated concert pianist, Carminda de Leon, a figure I also remember very well at the UP campus, pretty and extremely talented, Teddy is a lucky chap indeed.
It used to be that whenever I see Teddy anywhere, in less than 10 seconds, the two of us would get caught in a heated argument over just anything. Now that we have both mellowed with time, and he has finally agreed that he is quite a bit older than I, instead of arguing all the time as has always been the natural tendency, there is now a miraculous placidity and calm.
The president of the better club, the Yale Club of the Philippines to which I belong, is Andy Gatmaitan who was, of course, present with his wife, Baby, managing partner of the Sycip Salazar Hernandez and Gatmaitan law firm and has been our club president for some time now. The Yale Club of the Philippines is by design informal. There’s no formal term for the president, and since the club does not collect any dues from its members, Andy will be president until he gets tired of subsidizing the club’s existence and all of us.
As Teddy said in his opening remarks, Harvard University’s relationship with the Philippines dates back to 1904 when Jose Petronio Katigbak, the first known Filipino student, earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Harvard College. As this was being said, I remembered my nephew, Andy Trinidad Reyes, who is on record as the first Filipino summa cum laude graduate of Harvard hardly a decade ago. And then I spotted Chris Po at the table near ours who, after obtaining two degrees from Wharton and graduating summa cum laude, went on to finish an MBA at Harvard. Andy Reyes has been living abroad and with his PhD, is a professor of history and anthropology at Groton, and on leave from Oxford in the UK where he is also a professor. Actually, the first Filipino to enter Harvard Law School was the late ambassador to the Court of St. James, Marcial Lichauco, and years later, Eddie Lichauco entered Harvard College and got his undergrad degree. That’s the reason there’s a lot of nostalgia around at Harvard Square.
On the other hand, our great alma mater, Yale University, just celebrated her tercentennial which culminated in a "Yale 300 Anniversary Celebration" last December in Hong Kong and included a whole weekend of extremely valuable and useful lectures with some of the most outstanding Yale alumni as speakers. Capped by a grand ball, it drew a great number of alumni from all over the world to our part of the world, Asia.
A Tufts University graduate, the charge d’ affaires of the US Embassy, Robert W. Fitts, was the night’s guest of honor and speaker. The US ambassador is traditionally the annual dinner’s guest speaker. Two years ago, I had the great pleasure of doing the honors of introducing US Ambassador Tom Hubbard, for Tom and Joan have been longtime friends, at that year’s Harvard-Yale dinner.
Bob Fitts, an engineer in the foreign service of his country, started by saying that he was glad to be amid friends "who know and understand the US so well from their old student days at Yale and Harvard, for these two universities represented the very best in American higher education." He remembered President John Kennedy, a Harvard alumnus, who received an honorary degree in 1962 from Yale, and had remarked enthusiastically that, "It might now be said that I have the best of both worlds: a Harvard education and a Yale degree."
That night as he spoke, Bob Fitts mentioned that it marked the end of International Education Week in the US, during which time recognition was given to the role that international education and exchange programs, like Fulbright scholarships, play in strengthening US-Phil. relations. There are now "more than 3,000 Filipino students in US campuses, more than 600 Harvard alumni and 118 Yale alumni. " According to him, the latest arrivals from the US were 29 Filipino agriculture students, who were recipients of new Fulbright MA and PhD scholarships. He underscored the value of these exchange programs and said that these have enriched America and have led to an increased understanding by the Philippines of the US.
Actually the topic of Mr . Fitts’ speech was, of course, Sept. 11. He stressed that "The World Trade Center was not a symbol of the US but of international trade prosperity and opportunity. Some 430 companies from 28 countries had offices in the twin towers. Governments like Thailand, Chile, the Ivory Coast, etc. also had offices in the towers. It is the international ideal of global progress that the terrorists sought to destroy." He strongly pronounced that "Al Qaida is to terror what the Mafia is to crime." Mr. Fitts said that its goal is not making money – it’s remaking the world and imposing radical beliefs on people everywhere. It’s a "fringe movement" that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. When he said that, the Taliban regime had not yet collapsed. He noted that the objective of the international war against terrorism is to ensure that Afghans, not foreign terrorists, determine the future of their own country – "the government that will arise from all these should be prepared to take care of the needs of its people."
At the Fitts table, aside from Teddy and Andy and their respective ladies, there were Kim Camacho, secretary of the Harvard Club, and my friend and "quasi-spiritual adviser," Santy Dumlao of the Harvard Club, who did an extremely good job of emceeing together with Bettina Benitez who represented Yale, but an outrageously strict job of refereeing the games.
According to my favorite young Yalie of a lawyer, Gabby Lapus, whose mother Charito Oreta Lapus has a graduate degree in education from Harvard, the planning of the event revolved around the two presidents, Teddy and Andy, Johnny Collas of Yale who, however, was in the US; Helen Tiu and Felicia Ravago of Harvard; a favorite young Yalie Laurie Jimenez-Westfall; Rene Benitez and Paz Angeles of Yale. But since this was a Harvard-sponsored event, Teddy Regala and Helen Tiu were the prime movers. I was particularly nostalgic about this dinner because it was the first time my only daughter Michelle accompanied me, having just graduated from Harvard with a master’s degree in education. Her friends from Harvard likewise attended – there were Teddy Kalaw, son of Trina Yujuico-Kalaw from Yale Law, who with Malou Feliciano just passed the New York bar; Phil and Linda Torio, Anthony Aguilar and Lorenz Reyes from the Harvard Kennedy, School of Government.
It was nice to see Jocot Concepcion from the Harvard Business School who delivered the valedictory address in Cambridge during his graduation; an admirable couple, Dr. Edilberto C. de Jesus, PhD history from Harvard and his brilliant wife Melinda; as well as Supreme Court Associate Justice Vicente Mendoza LL.M. from Yale, my classmate from UP Law; also Dr. Ponciano lntal Jr., PhD Economics, a former colleague in government, and of course, bright young Jimmy Ayala from Harvard.
Of course, our table sparkled with the presence of Don Ferry who has a doctorate in jurisprudence from Yale and was also a classmate at UP Law; Fernando Campos from UP and Harvard Law, Dodong Kintanar, PhD Economics from Yale, who was the foster father of the Filipino students at Yale during our time; Teddy Peña who charmed all the females at the Yale Law School before he went on to win the hand of Don’s sister Edda.
All the above and more played an exciting game after dinner called "Who wants to be not quite a millionaire" or Yale-Harvard trivial pursuit. Of course, the first table to answer the question on Yale and Harvard alumni dating as far back as four centuries ago wins, but then again not quite – you must, on top of an extraordinarily informed memory, be able to write the answer legibly on a piece of paper as you struggle to get up as fast as you can, shouting the answer at the top of your voice. You get P1,000 if you guessed right after the first clue, P800 after the second, up to P200 if you guessed after the nth and last clue. Our table collected P2,800, which we readily donated to Santy Dumlao for his many charities.
That’s when the Turf Room became the howling, racing football field of the Harvard-Yale game! By the way, Teddy Regala has just sent word to me that it was a Harvard victory. You’ve got to hand it to them – they’re good in sports and sports only (this is just a joke for I do not want to be sued for libel).
That was my cup of tea – my good, hot cup of nostalgia.
Of all the visions of historical time, the most arbitrary, and at the same time, the most obviously indispensable, are the months and years of the calendar, which have no reference to events at all, yet unavoidably take on the coloration of the memorable occurrences with which they are associated in our minds.
As one gets older, memories of one’s student life, instead of dimming, surprisingly become clearer and more relevant to what we have become today. Formerly, it took years, perhaps decades, to brew a good hot cup of nostalgia. Today, you just add water, and presto, you have nostalgia in less than five seconds!
At the Harvard-Yale dinner held on the Nov. 16 – traditionally falling on the eve of the Harvard-Yale football game – it was the turn of the Harvard Club president to host the affair. I do not know how long his term is supposed to last, but Teddy D. Regala, Harvard Club president, a friend of many years, and a schoolmate from the UP College of Law, was in his element and his charming best. One of the founding partners of ACCRM Law, Teddy was a brilliant student at law school in a class that had some great minds as members. Married through all these years to a celebrated concert pianist, Carminda de Leon, a figure I also remember very well at the UP campus, pretty and extremely talented, Teddy is a lucky chap indeed.
It used to be that whenever I see Teddy anywhere, in less than 10 seconds, the two of us would get caught in a heated argument over just anything. Now that we have both mellowed with time, and he has finally agreed that he is quite a bit older than I, instead of arguing all the time as has always been the natural tendency, there is now a miraculous placidity and calm.
The president of the better club, the Yale Club of the Philippines to which I belong, is Andy Gatmaitan who was, of course, present with his wife, Baby, managing partner of the Sycip Salazar Hernandez and Gatmaitan law firm and has been our club president for some time now. The Yale Club of the Philippines is by design informal. There’s no formal term for the president, and since the club does not collect any dues from its members, Andy will be president until he gets tired of subsidizing the club’s existence and all of us.
As Teddy said in his opening remarks, Harvard University’s relationship with the Philippines dates back to 1904 when Jose Petronio Katigbak, the first known Filipino student, earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Harvard College. As this was being said, I remembered my nephew, Andy Trinidad Reyes, who is on record as the first Filipino summa cum laude graduate of Harvard hardly a decade ago. And then I spotted Chris Po at the table near ours who, after obtaining two degrees from Wharton and graduating summa cum laude, went on to finish an MBA at Harvard. Andy Reyes has been living abroad and with his PhD, is a professor of history and anthropology at Groton, and on leave from Oxford in the UK where he is also a professor. Actually, the first Filipino to enter Harvard Law School was the late ambassador to the Court of St. James, Marcial Lichauco, and years later, Eddie Lichauco entered Harvard College and got his undergrad degree. That’s the reason there’s a lot of nostalgia around at Harvard Square.
On the other hand, our great alma mater, Yale University, just celebrated her tercentennial which culminated in a "Yale 300 Anniversary Celebration" last December in Hong Kong and included a whole weekend of extremely valuable and useful lectures with some of the most outstanding Yale alumni as speakers. Capped by a grand ball, it drew a great number of alumni from all over the world to our part of the world, Asia.
A Tufts University graduate, the charge d’ affaires of the US Embassy, Robert W. Fitts, was the night’s guest of honor and speaker. The US ambassador is traditionally the annual dinner’s guest speaker. Two years ago, I had the great pleasure of doing the honors of introducing US Ambassador Tom Hubbard, for Tom and Joan have been longtime friends, at that year’s Harvard-Yale dinner.
Bob Fitts, an engineer in the foreign service of his country, started by saying that he was glad to be amid friends "who know and understand the US so well from their old student days at Yale and Harvard, for these two universities represented the very best in American higher education." He remembered President John Kennedy, a Harvard alumnus, who received an honorary degree in 1962 from Yale, and had remarked enthusiastically that, "It might now be said that I have the best of both worlds: a Harvard education and a Yale degree."
That night as he spoke, Bob Fitts mentioned that it marked the end of International Education Week in the US, during which time recognition was given to the role that international education and exchange programs, like Fulbright scholarships, play in strengthening US-Phil. relations. There are now "more than 3,000 Filipino students in US campuses, more than 600 Harvard alumni and 118 Yale alumni. " According to him, the latest arrivals from the US were 29 Filipino agriculture students, who were recipients of new Fulbright MA and PhD scholarships. He underscored the value of these exchange programs and said that these have enriched America and have led to an increased understanding by the Philippines of the US.
Actually the topic of Mr . Fitts’ speech was, of course, Sept. 11. He stressed that "The World Trade Center was not a symbol of the US but of international trade prosperity and opportunity. Some 430 companies from 28 countries had offices in the twin towers. Governments like Thailand, Chile, the Ivory Coast, etc. also had offices in the towers. It is the international ideal of global progress that the terrorists sought to destroy." He strongly pronounced that "Al Qaida is to terror what the Mafia is to crime." Mr. Fitts said that its goal is not making money – it’s remaking the world and imposing radical beliefs on people everywhere. It’s a "fringe movement" that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. When he said that, the Taliban regime had not yet collapsed. He noted that the objective of the international war against terrorism is to ensure that Afghans, not foreign terrorists, determine the future of their own country – "the government that will arise from all these should be prepared to take care of the needs of its people."
At the Fitts table, aside from Teddy and Andy and their respective ladies, there were Kim Camacho, secretary of the Harvard Club, and my friend and "quasi-spiritual adviser," Santy Dumlao of the Harvard Club, who did an extremely good job of emceeing together with Bettina Benitez who represented Yale, but an outrageously strict job of refereeing the games.
According to my favorite young Yalie of a lawyer, Gabby Lapus, whose mother Charito Oreta Lapus has a graduate degree in education from Harvard, the planning of the event revolved around the two presidents, Teddy and Andy, Johnny Collas of Yale who, however, was in the US; Helen Tiu and Felicia Ravago of Harvard; a favorite young Yalie Laurie Jimenez-Westfall; Rene Benitez and Paz Angeles of Yale. But since this was a Harvard-sponsored event, Teddy Regala and Helen Tiu were the prime movers. I was particularly nostalgic about this dinner because it was the first time my only daughter Michelle accompanied me, having just graduated from Harvard with a master’s degree in education. Her friends from Harvard likewise attended – there were Teddy Kalaw, son of Trina Yujuico-Kalaw from Yale Law, who with Malou Feliciano just passed the New York bar; Phil and Linda Torio, Anthony Aguilar and Lorenz Reyes from the Harvard Kennedy, School of Government.
It was nice to see Jocot Concepcion from the Harvard Business School who delivered the valedictory address in Cambridge during his graduation; an admirable couple, Dr. Edilberto C. de Jesus, PhD history from Harvard and his brilliant wife Melinda; as well as Supreme Court Associate Justice Vicente Mendoza LL.M. from Yale, my classmate from UP Law; also Dr. Ponciano lntal Jr., PhD Economics, a former colleague in government, and of course, bright young Jimmy Ayala from Harvard.
Of course, our table sparkled with the presence of Don Ferry who has a doctorate in jurisprudence from Yale and was also a classmate at UP Law; Fernando Campos from UP and Harvard Law, Dodong Kintanar, PhD Economics from Yale, who was the foster father of the Filipino students at Yale during our time; Teddy Peña who charmed all the females at the Yale Law School before he went on to win the hand of Don’s sister Edda.
All the above and more played an exciting game after dinner called "Who wants to be not quite a millionaire" or Yale-Harvard trivial pursuit. Of course, the first table to answer the question on Yale and Harvard alumni dating as far back as four centuries ago wins, but then again not quite – you must, on top of an extraordinarily informed memory, be able to write the answer legibly on a piece of paper as you struggle to get up as fast as you can, shouting the answer at the top of your voice. You get P1,000 if you guessed right after the first clue, P800 after the second, up to P200 if you guessed after the nth and last clue. Our table collected P2,800, which we readily donated to Santy Dumlao for his many charities.
That’s when the Turf Room became the howling, racing football field of the Harvard-Yale game! By the way, Teddy Regala has just sent word to me that it was a Harvard victory. You’ve got to hand it to them – they’re good in sports and sports only (this is just a joke for I do not want to be sued for libel).
That was my cup of tea – my good, hot cup of nostalgia.
BrandSpace Articles
<
>
