Sundays be like

I don’t consider myself to have a busy life, and that’s why I seldom make it as an excuse for anything since it makes me feel foolish just uttering those words. It’s just that my priorities sometimes don’t follow the sequence that I had envisioned.

I remember the Sundays of my youth when from the time I remember until I moved to Cebu for college was spent on the beach of Biking, a barrio in Dauis, Bohol. Biking is pronounced as a Bisaya word, not the English one. It amuses me to no end when people pronounced it in its English version.

Anyway, Sundays are supposed to be slow days, the day to recharge not only the body but also the spirit. So all those Sundays was spent at Bikini Beach (that’s what my folks of Biking called their amazing beach). My late Uncle Pepe, who would alter become Mayor back in 1983, and his crew would get up early Sunday mornings to retrieve the 10-15 “bobo’s” strewn around the reefs. Bobo’s are fish traps made of stripped bamboo. It measures approximately, 8x6x3 feet approximately, and it's the typical trap where fish can get in but can’t get out.

I love the outdoors but growing up was fat compared to my cousins whose body looked ripped. Look, I was considered fat in the 70’s but today, I’d be considered not fat!.One Uncle, Mario, was a no-nonsense kind. He didn’t like me tagging along since I always slow them down. I was slow when walking, I was slow getting back to the boat (my weight means I had a hard time climbing back to the boat), I complained a lot that I was hungry- he thought I was soft, but I know deep inside he loved all of us. Uncle Pepe would just smile when he starts to act up.

When I was in 2nd year HS, my priorities and my body changed. I finally got tired of going to Biking. I didn’t want to spend time anymore with them. I hated Bikini Beach, and I wanted to go to the Tagbilaran Causeway with my friends. But my Dad wouldn’t have none of that. Three more years, I “suffered”.

Finally, I arrived in Cebu back in 1982 for college. Since then I have spent more time outside of Bohol than in Bohol since then. I loved my freedom. With my first paycheck in 1987, I bought my first road bike, and it was amazing! I have never stopped riding my back since then but then I started looking back at my life. Both Uncle Pepe and Mario have moved on and I missed them. I miss the scolding, I miss the smell of the sea, I missed the tuba soaked-kinilaws, I miss the smell of burning “lukay” and “bino-ongan”, I missed my rough, sea-dried skin- I missed Biking and a lot of things! Most of all I missed the Sundays of my youth