My typewriter and me

A martial arts instructor said: “The best defense against a kung fu fighter are your feet.” He did not explain well. Whether the feet for kicking back or for running away. Hehe.

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While I was writing this column (Jan. 16/13, 5:30 am) a brownout hit my place, erasing what I had written in the computer and thus validating my continuing partnership with my vintage typewriter.

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Yes, my typewriter. It has always been my dependable writing tool. I think I'm the only journalist in town who still write -- most of the time -- on the typewriter, which one young reporter called a contraption.

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We used to have many standard typewriters in the newsroom. The computer was still virtually unknown. When the computer came rushing in, the typewriters just disappeared. Maybe they were sent to the junk shop. Which is an act of ingratitude to the writing tool, which served our needs for decades.

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I have a very high respect for the typewriter. It has helped me live a decent life. My old battered Underwood enabled me to earn enough money to build my house (a small house) and own a second hand car. Plus other little luxuries.

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In Singapore, I saw a standard typewriter enshrined as it were on a pedestal in the main lobby of the Singapore Straits Times. It was that newspaper's way of showing respect and gratitude to the machine that helped make that paper one of the best in Southeast Asia.

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Ambassador Frank Benedicto is now an educator having established the Benedicto College, now making a good name in the academe. I learned that the school is concentrating on courses that help students fit into jobs they could easily land after graduation. Here's wishing Amba Frank success in his new role as educator.

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Thanks to my FEU Boys High classmate Jimmy Palomo for sending me prayer pamphlets for the sick. Jimmy who is also from Cebu now works in religious institution in Manila as a retiree senior catechist. He said in a note: “Ayaw’g hunahunaa nga duna koy planong mosunod ni paisano San Pedro Calungsod...”

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OVERHEARD. Talks are making the rounds of the neighborhood that the nanny of the child of a government office chief is receiving a salary higher than the chief's office secretary. Some gossip-mongers suspect that the chief and the nanny are playing with fire. “What they don't know,” says the chief's driver, “is that the nanny writes the chief’s speeches and his reports to the main office.”