Getting a kick out of football

The Azkals — never mind if they’re winning or losing — have given soccer football a big kick in PHL.

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 Even in the highlands, young natives now go for football in a big way. There’s a team of young Igorots wearing G-strings (“bahag”) and winning cheers louder than the Azkals.

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 “There is really football,” says a newsman from Baguio. “They play barefoot.” The same foot they use in climbing the Cordilleras.

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 No, this Igorot football team does not aim to draw tourist attention. The G-stringed members are serious about their aim to win the championship in the tournament they’re in. And they’re not pulling strings.

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 The girls and kolehiyalas are crazy about the Azkals, you say? They haven’t yet seen the Igorot Stringers.

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 When my fellow senior Noy Temyong celebrated his 80-something birthday, he said he enjoyed growing old. Me, too. What I don’t enjoy is ... while we men are growing older, the women are growing younger. Hehe.

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 When I turned 80, someone said to me: “If you’ve never smoked at all, you can ignore the anti-smoking campaign and start now. It won’t have time to hurt you.”

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 When I heard that, I did not know what or how to react. Whether to smile or to look angry.

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 I just read an article about “the change of things” in the world today. Among other things the author said: “Even the birds in the sky are giving us trouble.”

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 She mentioned the hundreds of birds that caused the grounding of some airliners in the international airport in Manila. “Never happened before,” she said.

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Apparently, that article was written before some naughty turtles also caused the delay of some flights at the NAIA. The news said some 150 turtles crossed the runway in their own sweet time, as if there were many tomorrows.