HOW IT WAS. Compiled from my previous Facebook posts.

Slippers or barefootin’. Cautionary tales abound these days, online. Don’t do this, don’t do that. Don’t eat that, don’t eat this. Humanity isn’t spontaneous anymore. Primal behavior, instinctive reflex (sic) are gone. We gotta google stuff. Slippers may be manufactured with toxic materials. Barefooting may infect feet with deadly viruses. I remember those days when my main “shoes” were outdoor slippers and I could run around the yard, in mud and dirt, barefoot. 👣🩴👣

Long time ago, television was a huge luxury. Only the rich had a TV set. And those came with a door that could be locked because TV-watch was only in the designated hour of the day or week. So we did extremely appreciate TV shows then. I remember those years when we kids, kin and friends, would gather in one room, kept quiet and very behaved, to watch the week’s favorite event on television. Rowdy children were sent out. Those were the days. 📺👦📺

Mahjong is a tile-based game that was developed in the 19th century in China and has spread throughout the world. Usually played by four players, mahjong is a game of skill, strategy, and luck. Although the game has also been adapted into an online entertainment, I prefer the family and neighborhood leisure original. My family and kin played mahjong a lot as a form of weekend social, as we kids minded our chess and scrabble. 🎲🤹‍♀️🎲

“Bilyaran.” Or pool halls. With most medals in the sport, the Philippines is a dominant force globally for billiards/pool. Brazilians are obsessed with futbol/soccer, Canadians with ice hockey? Filipinos with billiards. Betting, heckling, and sometimes petty fights, figure in the neighborhood “bilyaran.” My mom had to angrily fetch my older bro Alberto from there to remind him of house chores. I do play but I am not very good at it though. 🎱🇵🇭🎱

Holen or jolens is a variation on marbles game. It is played by tucking the marble with the player's middle finger, with the thumb under the marble, and the fourth finger used to stabilize the marble. In a one-on-one game, you and your opponent choose a “shooter” marble. The rest are grouped and placed in a circle. Opponents must have the same number of marbles. You and the other player will then take turns using your “shooter” to hit the other's camp. 🧿🪬🧿

“Turumpo” is a small, egg-shaped top. A well-known toy or street competition game among Filipino children. The top is spun by winding a length of string around it and launching it so that it lands spinning on its point. If the string is attached to a stick the rotation can be maintained by whipping the side of the body. It could be dangerous, I know. But still less dangerous than the mental impact of the Grand Theft Auto video game or social media on young minds. 🔫😁🔫

Jingle (chordbook magazine) exudes a poignant flash in my memory. Before I launched a young pro journalism life at 14 for a provincial city newspaper back home, I was already sending out poetry and jokes (!) to Jingle. Yes, I wrote jokes that my own dad laughed with. LOL! I got free Jingle copies in return. Me and my bestfriend Duwi used to follow guitar chords from the magazine to write our own songs. We wrote quite a collection then. Our high school days. 📰🎼📰

The payphone by the roadside in the middle of nowhere or by a dark alley as rains poured. We only see them now in crime thriller movies. The black phone in our neighborhood pharmacy store in Manila of many years ago: 1 peso for 5 minutes. Go beyond time, the store clerk would eye you like a terror professor. Payphones. When phoning means communicating. These days, people use the cellphone 101 ways. The least, to communicate with someone. ☎️📞☎️

In the Philippines, “sangplatitong mani” means a bowl of fried (or boiled) peanuts. The finger-food goes with a drinking social. A symbol of “may pinagsamahan” or comradeship. If you share a drink with someone over “sangplatitong mani,” that’d mean you are now friends. Many neighborhood quarrels are fixed via this pop-culture gesture. Simple, primal. No need to sue anyone. All can be negotiated or “napag-uusapan” via serbesa and “sangplatitong mani.” 🍺🥜🍺

Tobacco and cigarettes. My grandpa’s tobacco brand was Alhambra Regalis. His cigarettes, Empress. Old brands: Pall Mall. Chesterfield. State Express 555. Lucky Strike. In the Philippines: Winston, Hope, Champion, Bataan. The ad “I’d walk a mile for a Camel.” The macho cowboy TV commercial for Marlboro? Most (Filipino) women didn’t smoke in those days though. And if they did, it was for “class.” Virginia Slims: “You’ve come a long way, baby.” 🌱🔥🌱

Photo credits: CNET. CEAT. Shutterstock.