The story of Baguio, the story of my life

I find that when i said that to write about Baguio is almost like writing the story of my life, it is almost literally true

My first trip to Baguio was when I was five years old and my most recent trip was more than eighty years later. From the very beginning of my conscious memory to the present, the mental pictures I have had of Baguio always have a magic quality to them, a mixture of romantic nostalgia, an ache in the heart and, paradoxically, a surge of great joy that always goes with the many wonderful memories. I think of myself as a happy child, then of the thrill of growing up as a teenager discovering the many memorable "firsts"–first dance, first date, and falling in love for the first time–all happening in the most romantic setting that this world can offer

The Baguio of my teens was an exciting place of many daily activities. In later years when my own teenage children were bargaining for the use of the only family car for a Baguio trip, I remember saying to them, "You don’t need a car; everybody walks in Baguio."

And they would protest, "That was in your day, Mama; now everybody rides in Baguio."

In my day we did walk all the time–up and down Session Road after mass on Easter Sunday, walking back and forth just to see and to be seen, to exhibit the "catch of the season"–the latest basketball hero, the Baron of the PMA graduating class and other such "trophies"!

We would go on long hikes, too– to Crystal Cave, to Mummy’s Cave –walking under towering pine trees on winding narrow paths of bare red Baguio earth. One of the most memorable excursions is a two-day tortuous hike up Mount Santo Tomas. We spent one night on the mountain top, sleeping around a bonfire, wrapped in wooden blankets, to wake up at dawn to see the sun rise and the moon set at the very same time on opposite sides of the mountain

When I was eighteen, another "first" was my first journalistic out of town assignment–to go up to Baguio for a week to cover the doings of the Manila socialites who traditionally would move to Baguio for the summer. It was also the first time I had gone on a trip on my own, my first professional trip and the first time I left home alone. Not really alone but with my best friend then, and still my best friend now almost seventy years later

She is now 90 years old and lives in a small town in Michigan where everybody calls her Lola. But even now when we call each other by overseas telephone, we reminisce with a mixture of laughter and nostalgia about that incredible summer when we were two of the most sought-after girls in Baguio– not so much because of our charms as for the fact that we were "newspaper girls" who could put names and pictures in our column anytime we wanted to. That was when we first discovered the much touted Power of the Press! We really had ourselves the time of our young lives

And, of course, the first among all "firsts" was the honeymoon I spent in Baguio. My first and last! Doña Titay Osmeña, our wedding ninang, had lent us the Vice President’s cottage in Teachers Camp (Don Sergio Osmeña was Vice President then and concurrently Secretary of Education). In my own personal opinion, anybody who has not spent a honeymoon in Baguio just has not lived!

I think of all this to myself now so many years later, and I say to myself, "Jeanie Benitez, don’t ever complain–you have had a life!"

The harsher realities of that life came when the War broke out. I was 23 years old expecting my first baby, with a husband fighting in the jungles of Bataan. For those of us who lived through "The War", there have been other wars since but for us there was no other war. When those of us who were young adults then remember the Japanese Occupation, the battle for Liberation and the first years of the present Philippine Republic, we cannot help but think of ourselves as The Survivors. Whenever we get together (and fewer and fewer of those "survivors" actually still survive) we scoff at the present generation of young adults who think they have troubles. Heavy traffic? Polluted air? Peace and Order? Those are problems? High food prices? What is that to our generation who knew what it was to have to pay two thousand Japanese pesos for one ganta of corn (not rice) for the whole family’s meal for one day!

So many years of "real living" passed before I went back to Baguio again. I had grown up children by then, I had grandchildren and I had become a widow. To me Baguio became a place for solace, a place for healing of wounds of the heart and spirit

When the old Spaniards first discovered Baguio, it was recommended as a place that could cure almost any kind of illness– tuberculosis, asthma, hypertension and even hypochondria! So say the old Spanish documents

But Baguio also heals the "sickness of the soul". Something in the glow of its beautiful mornings makes the world seem new again. Something in the quiet of its starlit evenings soothes the wounded spirit

Solace and renewal were what I found in Baguio when I went back as a widow. It was then I first became a member of the Baguio Country Club; 25 years ago I would take my grandchildren up with me and they would wonder wide-eyed why Lola’s house was so big with so many people. Did she invite all her friends?

I introduced my grandchildren to the childhood joys of Baguio. We would take long walks in the nearby pine forests of Camp John Hay; the children would gather pine cones and I would pay them ten centavos for each carefully counted cone. Then we would divide the cones into two portions and ourselves into two camps for the "Battle"–we would pettle each other with cones, laughing and whooping it up until the last cone found its target. Both sides would claim "We won! We won!" Then the dispute would be forgotten in an orgy of a picnic with everything cooked over a pine wood fire–hotdogs, hamburgers and even marshmallows melting and sweet

The grandchildren are now young adults but they still remember the Baguio of their happy childhood. As for me I discovered the healing power of the many real friendships I found in the Club. Friendship is like love, only often it lasts even longer. I think now of those hours we all would spend together on the old Veranda–good friends, laughing and teasing and rejoicing in all the good things Life still had to offer

Often when I think of those wonderful friends I made in Baguio, I count them one by one, and it makes my heart ache when I realize that most of them are gone and nothing remains of them but memories of happy times gone by. Sometimes, as a Spanish poet would put it, this is "A heavy load that we carry on our shoulders like a cross"–Un cargo para el corazon–a weight on the heart

But for me Baguio brought one thing back: it brought back my love for writing and it brought back, too, my love for life

It was fitting that the first book I ever wrote was about Baguio. There have been many books since, and many joyful events; but truly, the story of my life is almost the story of Baguio. Sometimes reflecting on The Inevitable when the Great Adventure must end, I think I would like to lie for a while under a canopy of Baguio flowers laced with fresh branches of fragrant Baguio pine

But why think of endings? I’m looking forward to still another Baguio New Year with whoever is surviving of our old Baguio Gang. See you at the Club in December– "with bells on"!