Remember the "Crippled Cowboy"?

John Rey asks if I'm already OK and out of the sickbed. I say I'm a-OK because my doctors - Neurosurgeon Wyben Briones, Cardiologist Maning Lim, and surgeon Mike Mancao - haven't yet told me to take the first flight to Lourdes, France.

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Western is the motif of this year's The Freeman/Banat News Christmas party. I heard they're still looking for a venue that would reflect the real Western setting. I suggested Duljo where they still have the "cuadras" and horses.

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I hope I can join this Western style TF/BN Christmas party. I want to pose as James Cagney of old who was small in size but big in action. He starred in the movie "Crippled Cowboy" where his role fits me to a T. At least, at the moment.

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I don't think I could make it to the TF/BN party. Unless I'd force myself to look crazy and blow into the ranch not astride a horse but on a rickety wheelchair.

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By George! What's happened to George Benaojan who was gunned down cowboy style somewhere in Talisay City? As I write this, no one has yet been nabbed. Except the cartography of one of the suspects.

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George was a radioman who covered the Customs beat. Which is the favorite beat of many newsmen. By the way, why is it that many media persons love to cover the Customs? Until now I have not found the answer. Some of them media guys cover the Customs on their own, sans assignment from the editor/radio station manger. "That's journalistic enterprise," a friend of mine said. Oh, well

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Another contemporary who's gone away is Juan "Dodong" Aquino Jr. There's so many good things to talk about Dodong but much of these have already been touched in the write-ups about my Tocayo. But there's one thing many didn't know or have forgotten. It was Dodong Aquino who put up the very first basketball school for children. Not just in Cebu but in the whole country. That caging school for kids in Manila that claims to be the first is not exactly telling the truth.

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Dodong Aquino's Cebu Basketball School for Children was born out of his desire to make Cebu the source of the best hard court materials in the country. Some sons of Cebu's well-to-do families were among the students. It is just too sad that Dodong's project did not win the support of the community. The one that followed in Manila got a strong following from companies manufacturing health drinks.