ONCE UPON A TIME IN ASINGAN

part 3

As early as 1950, there already existed a mini "mall" in Asingan. It was found in what we called during those days as the PARADAAN.

Paradaan, translated means a place to park. Pantranco buses, from Urdaneta, Dagupan ( using the Dagupan-Mangaldan-San Jacinto, Manaog-Binalonan-Asingan-Tayug-San Jose route), some jeepneys plying the Asingan-Urdaneta route, a few caretelas, etc. Some Asinganians would sometimes "park" their carabaos or goats in the town plaza close to the Paradaan where these could rest. The poor beasties would have a snack of grass for the meantime while their owners are away somewhere else. During those days, leave your livestock in the Plaza these would still be there when you come back.

The busses would stop here to unload the passengers from Baro and beyond. Passengers from macalong would just stop the bus at any point in the barrio by hollering "PARA" then banging an interior part of the bus which will not hurt their fists. The bus would stop whether or not there is a bus stop sign.

I remember, on the Dagupan-San Jose route, sometimes if a passenger can not really hold on to his/her bladder, he/she would request the conductor for the bus to stop in a secluded place along the route. The driver would say: "Those who feel like urrinating you can go down.." Men and women, including the driver, would get down and would scatter all over the place looking for strategic places to relieve themselves, ..

My uncle was once a bus inspector. One of the stories he told us was: "There was this guy, who wanted to crap but there was no toilet paper available..I just gave him my handkerchief to use and told him just to throw it away after using it.."

Back to the Paradaan...

The Paradaan strip consisted of : a convenience store owned by a burly, big bodied guy married to a small wispy lady..They had all the goodies which kids love displayed in their store. So after my Grade 1 class, I would drop by there looking at the marbles, playing cards, candies, chocolates, etc. The man looked big enough to make a kid change his mind about shoplifting any of the goodies. The store, by the way, was just beside the South Central School gate.

Then there was this halo-halo stand..Aha, I can remember the owners of this joint. Goyo and Eugene. During his lifetime, he musthave shaved enough ice to fill up a skating rink. His refreshment parlor was right between the trunks of two gigantic acacia trees that overlooked the entire poblacion. These trees must have been seedlings during the time when the first inhabitants of Asingan started to walk about. Many of the teachers of the old Rizal Junior College would come and relieve their work stress by gossiping in this place over a glass of Goyo's halo-halo.

Then there was Mr. Guillermo Banaag's newspaper stand. I loved this place before. It sold not only newspapers ( mainly the Manila Times ) but also American and Filipino comics. Yep, I remember the very popular ( at that time ) Pilipino Komiks, then Hiwaga Komiks and Tagalog Klassiks. Tagalog Klassiks followed the format of the defunct Classics Illustrated which was well known all over the world at that time. Printed in New York, it has glossy beautiful covers and full colour illustrated comics inside..Classic Illustrated featured novels like THREE MUSKEETERS, ROBIN HOOD, etc. Copies of these comic books would now fetch a good price on e-bay.

Mr. Banaag has a delivery guy who, with a bike  distributed newspapers to Asingan subscribers. A Manila-Asingan Pantranco bus would deliver a bundle of newspapers and magazines to Mr. Banaag's store. The magazines ( Liwayway, Bannawag, etc.) would be stranded on a string for people to see near the back wall..Yes, I remember buying a Classics Illustrated copy of Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM from this store. I was fascinated by the cover: a pixie sitting down beside a man with a donkey's head. I had a hard time convincing my mom to give me the money to buy this comic book.."Like you do not have enough comic books in the house already," she would say. But in the end, like a typical Mom, she would give in to her son's pleadings...

The last stall was a barber shop owned by the well known Tata Opong..The line up in his shop was always long, any time of the day.Sometimes, his wife would give him crackers to munch while he was clipping a man's hair. There was a table tennis in front of his shop. Players, for a fee would demonstrate their skill with the game, to the delight of the costumers waiting for their turn in the barber's chair. The older guys would just while the time away playing DAMA. In the table tennis game, by the way, most of the time losers pay. The son of Tata Opong would get the money, of course because he also works as the scorer for the game.

My classmate, Johnny Pascua asked this question in one of his riddle fests:

"Who is the man in Asingan who is married to his mother?"

"You got to be kidding!!, we answered.

"No, " he said.."It is Tata Opong. The nickname of his wife is Enang. And Enang in Ilocano means mother.."---#