Elsietampong's Blog

Hurray for the Golden Girls of 1961!

We met again after having lived separate lives spanning 50 years. We went from carefree, innocent children, to insecure, though attractive, teenagers. Then we married, had children. Some pursued careers, others became housewives, and still others combined both. Some had happy marriages, a few marriages failed. Those who had the courage (and money!) to leave their failed marriage, packed up and lead separate lives. Others stayed on, bearing each hurt as it was given. The children grew up, left the home. Some of our classmates died, some of their husbands died, and more painfully, some of the children of our classmates died.

A big number of our classmates left the Philippines to start lives in another country, another culture. Raising children in a different environment while trying to hold on to our old world values proved to be very difficult. But both parents and children survived the tumultuous game of tug of war.

The economic and political conditions had their effects on our lives. The children of hacienderos who led comfortable lives suddenly saw their fortunes collapse with Martial Law.
Children of businessmen also suffered as their finances hit rock bottom when their parents died without passing to them the reins of the business.

You can tell from the faces those who had good lives and those who had bad. You could feel their hands if they were calloused from hard work, or if these hands never touched a rag in their lives.

But we survived. We didn’t have a single case of suicide among our classmates. We didn’t have a case of spouse brutality, or worse, death at the hands of a spouse. Hurrah for the Golden Girls of HS ’61!

The prettier girls married successful men, and they came with their expensive cars to our lunches.

This entry was posted on March 28, 2011 at 10:40 am and is filed under School Memories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.