Mendoza: PAL Interclub haven of good people I love
-A A +AAll Write
Monday, February 25, 2013
I WILL always love the PAL Interclub Golf.
I met Orlacsan, one of the finest men of Cebu, because of the PAL Interclub.
I met Many Oyson, one of the most colorful guys of Cebu, because of the PAL Interclub.
I met Bombi Aznar, one of the funniest dudes of Cebu, because of the PAL Interclub.
Orlacsan proved that handicaps (he was a hunchback) can also achieve their dreams, becoming one of the best sportswriters Cebu has ever produced.
In his lifetime, Orlacsan had downed beer with me up to the small hours of the morning while talking mostly about trivialities with the passion of poets lost in time.
Oyson proved that being a lawyer did not mean the end of his newspaper writing. He ate with gusto, yes, but he was a good listener, too, before he’d go for his second serving in a buffet dinner.
Aznar loved life so much that he said he bought a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t island “because I always love to be different.” On a beach in Cebu, we pitched camp, opened an icebox filled with beer and drank in front of the sea—with the top of a faraway island barely visible.
“That’s my island,” Bombi said. “Soon, we will go there.”
We never got there. Either we were too drunk to board his boat, or the island never really appeared in full at all. At least that afternoon, we had our fill of beer—and
then wine much, much later.
Gene, Bombi’s son, would soon become a dear friend of mine, too. Still is. My Cebu
guitar, now nearly 35 years old, I had bought with help from Gene.
I will always love the PAL Interclub.
It is here that I met Mike Limpag, not as the sports editor of Sun.Star Cebu, but as my dutiful “waiter” at the Media Center of the 2001 PAL Interclub in Cebu.
“Hey, boy, please bring me a cup of coffee?”
“Boy” was Mike Limpag. I had mistaken him for a waiter.
Did he mind it?
No. He made me godfather of his first-born in 2009.
I flew to Cebu for the baptismal rites.
You know a man is good when he gives you bread after having mistreated him.
Oh, wait, did he bring me my coffee?
Yes, he did. Without spittle on it, I believe, unlike in the movie, “Color Purple.”
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on February 26, 2013.
Sports
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