Lolo goes to the US…and back to Pinas!

Four decades and a half after the war, Lolo Badoy pledged allegiance to the American flag. He was one of those veterans granted US citizenship. He can’t read and write. His conversational English is quite funny. But he’s good at memorizing the American anthem and the pledge. We’re really surprised coz that's what all it takes for him to get by.

My mother wanted to accompany him to the US, but was denied at the embassy. So Lolo traveled alone. He’s such an adventurer that he was not afraid of the long flight and of the things to do while in the US.

For many months, he lived in a home for the aged and war veterans. He said he got bored, but did not mention missing his family. He said he was tired of seeing old and sickly people. He wanted to play checkers and he boasted that none of the residents can beat him. He wanted to see a cockfight but there was none nearby. So he sneaked out one day with another fellow and visited Las Vegas. That was the start of his new activity. A few dollars on a night per month didn’t do a lot of damage to his pocket. He’s a prudent gambler. (As if there’s such a thing.)

But one night, Lolo got into thinking. Since Lola died a few years earlier, he wanted to remarry. He wanted to come back to the Philippines. With the approval of a new US law, he could already receive his veteran’s pension while in the Philippines, though at a lesser amount.

Who wants to marry septuagenarian? When he arrived in his hometown in Misamis Occidental, he was eyeing his widowed neighbor. Her grandchildren already called him Lolo. Perhaps she was a decade younger. But it does not matter when they already got the wrinkles.

“Oh no! Not her pa!” my mother complained. “Her grandkids will compete with yours. Find a younger one.”

Lolo just grinned. The idea of finding a younger one might have delighted him. My uncle, (the one I mentioned in my previous post), suggested to take Manang V as his wife. She’s the one who took care of Lola for many years and was like an adopted sister to my mother and her siblings. She’s in her mid 30’s then and never had a boyfriend since birth.

So the courting began. It was still the old-fashioned manner. He was told to ask permission from her parents. Ok, fine. Lolo agreed and took both my parents to accompany him to some hinterland in Bohol. The parents of the bride-to-be were shocked. Lolo is very much older than them. But they can’t ask her to find a younger one.

The weakened knees suddenly found a new reason to be alive. Lolo got himself a new wife and he was all smiles in his wedding barong.