Games We Played

GROWING up as a kid in the 80s, we played the precursor of extreme games of today.

Rue de Paree, including its adjoining streets, was our playground for the better and worse of times for my brothers Benedict aka Butiki (houze lizard), Mano whom we call Bunikol or, roughly, a pot-bellied twerp, and I, known as Batbatog (bullfrog).

Our house was a typical suburban middle class bungalow with four messy bedrooms, an equally cluttered huge master’s bedroom and an extensive but literally dirty kitchen. The garage—where the broken down Mercedes Benz rusts to eternal damnation—was interchangeably used as a basketball court even if its tiles were smudged with engine oil while the uneven driveway served as a skateboarding arena.

Need for Speed

We rode our BMX bikes without helmets on and pedaled our way as far as San Fernando near the old Coca-Cola plant. Dad’s car had no seat belts or air bags in it but I was able to survive our frequent trips to as far as the Babuyan Islands near the Taiwan Straits. And I would never forget: it was always a good trip riding at the back of a speeding pickup truck.


At the driveway in Rue de Paree (that's the swing again!), three young,
carefree souls, heirs of the Great Wushu Toto.


Battlefield Lansangan

My brothers and I would play all day at home, on the streets without fear of getting run over by a speeding maniac or in someone else’s backyard in the village. Since cell phones were still unheard of, no one was able to reach us all day. We played maro (a variation of “tag”), skateboarding, hide-and-seek, jolens, “flyball” (where the ball really hurts), cops and robbers (where Benedict insists on playing cop), 2-on-2 basketball, “kickball”, and swapped comic cards. We bathe and frolicked in the rain and swore at kids singing “Rain, Rain, Go Away.” If we were lucky during weekends, my big brother Conrado would bring us to the village pool where we would dive, dip and drench in the water till our bellies ache and our skins burn.

All-Terrain Creatures

We would walk or bike around the village to look for abandoned houses and cast stones at light bulbs or window panes like they were sinners from the Scriptures. We would muster creativity to the hilt to make up games and were contented with illusory exploits from metal scraps and junk. Once, we dug a hole for about a week—reaching nearly fifteen feet deep, four feet wide—in a vacant lot near our house and played Neanderthals living in a cave. We also had a penchant for heights so we often climb mango or guava or aratilis trees and make a feast of their produce, or climb our roof or the neighbor’s roof and laze in its warm galvanized iron sheet. As dusk nears, we would try and hunt spiders (the mean-looking, the better) and secure them on matchstick boxes for their future fights, or catch a salagubang (Atlas beetle) and tie a string around its neck like a frolicking puppy on a leash.

Hi-Tech? Duh!

We did not have a PC, Play Station or Nintendo 64 or X-Box, no 160 channels on cable, no DVDs, mobile phones or Internet chat rooms. But we learned to spend time with plenty of friends and playmates just outside our gate. We weren’t couch potatoes so Sesame Street was already a treat for us and Bert and Ernie (who we learned later was gay), The Count, Super Grover, Oscar the Grouch and Snuffalufagus were totally endearing to us. By late afternoon, we would be glued to Voltes V, Mazinger Z and Daimos. At night, Benedict and I would keep the transistor radio to ourselves in our room and listen to a local AM station play Another One Bites the Dust and My Sharona.

Generation of Risk Takers

They say you’re not a kid of the 70s or 80s if you don’t have scars on your knees and elbows. We had accidents; got bitten by dogs (and cats, too!), bumped our heads stupidly, crashed our bikes, crashed with one another in rough plays, fell off from trees, got cuts and bruises and broken bones and teeth. Oh yes, we had fights (usually Benedict and I), punched and kicked each other and got black and blue but learned to get over it and lived to play the following day.

My brothers and I drank water from the garden hose and not from a mineral water dispenser. We were addicted to sugar but we were never overweight. Our sisters Josephine and Trinidad would spare us some centavos and we would sprint to the nearby store to stuff our faces with FlatTops and Chocnuts, strain our gum-filled jaws with Texas, Tarzan or Bazooka Joe, ate hot pandesal with coconut jam and drank gallons of Fresh or RC Cola.

In spite of ourselves, my brothers and I never got tired of playing. Before the sun sets, we would come home starved and smelly from sweat and grime to mom’s eternal dismay.