Home is heaven

Title

Home is heaven

Language

English

Year

1951

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

J4ome Jfeaven "Pot!" "I beg your porfion?" "I said 'Pot' ". Nanoy raised on eyebrow. "Tatay," cut in Lucy, "is imitating Junior. Thot's Junior's favorite cuss word. I often hear him say 'Pot'*. Like one time he shouted at the top of his voice, 'Who the pot drew a mustache on Celia?' " "Pot! You would be saying 'Pot' too if somebody smeared lipstick on the picture of your boy friend." Nanay was perplexed. "But what does it mean. Junior?" "It doesn't mean anything, Nanay. It's just a harmless, little word the Fathers in school say we may use instead of some vulgar word like 'damn' or 'hell' "But I still .can't see why Tatay has to use It. He hos always been using Carambola Y billa. It sounds so nice." Tatay's head bobbed like a submarine's periscope from the magazine he was reading. "Nanay", he said, slowly and deliberately, " 'Pot' is the only word for this—this trash!" And he thrust the magazine to his wife. "'The Two Week Plan For Winning a. Man' ", Nanay read the title of the article aloud. "Oh my," she remarked, "Isn't that sweet!" "Carabola y billal" Tatay exclaimed, throwing up his hands. " 'Sweet'! Nanay, do you call that 'sweet'? Why, it's the most idiotic, foolish, stupid,- crazy, inane, mo"Pottin'," suggested Junior. "... the most pottin' piece of writing I've come across in a long time. Such balderdash could have come only from the head of a wom"Tatay!" gasped Lucy. "Well, I can't help it," milrmured Tatay, 'It's such an insult to us men. Two weeks. Huh! We're not as cheap as that." And he stuck his pipe into his mouth so that he would not say more. But the Eve in Lucy got the better of her. After a while: "Tatay", she asked demurely, "What is the two week plan for winning a man?" "Oho! So you wont to lay a trap for Bert, eh?" teased Junior, hiding behind a flower vase. "Quiet, Junior," Nanay broke in, "I want to hear this too." Tatay pulled up his chair nearer to the group. "We-e-ll," he began, "Our woman 57 56 THE CRO& HOLLYWOOD is "TAROS" "Hollywood, although still clutching its mantle of genius, is finished. Everything has gone sour out there. "The writers are bitter and frustrated. The producers arc fat, laxy and unimaginative. The new gctors are mostly freaks bored with their jobs. None have ever acquired or learned any real artistry. The "atmosphere" of Hollywood is "sickeningly phoney." "It has lost touch with reality. It doesn't give the public what it .wants any more. The producers —most of whom sit behind four secretaries and eight receiving rooms, are afraid to try new faces, afraid of new ideas." Well? Don't ask us. We haven't been to a movie in yean and yean. Confidentially, we can't recall missing anything. —Information writer starts off innocently enough. She advises the heroine of this capsule courtship to smile the moment she sights her man. She is to keep this grimace on her face at all costs." "Even if somebody around fall', down the stairs and smashes his upper plate?" "Junior," Tatay replied, "You have a horrid imagination. Anyway, as soon as the ice has been broken, the girl employs the 'admiration tech"Nakti!" exclaimed Nanay, "what's that?" "It means that our man-hunter must find something to rove about in the man to whom she is talking. ." "... you mean, whom she is stalking," quipped Junior. "... for example, she should rave about his unique set of ears, his taste in belts, the way he manipulates his Adam's apple—" "Try doing that with Bert, sis, and you'll find yourself holding the bag!" "Humph 1"^ Lucy lifted her nose in the air, "I suppose Celia never does thot to you." "Collate," Nanay reproved them, "If you two keep on interrupting Tatay the way. you do, he'll never finish. . . Go on Tatay." Tatay suppressed a smile and went "Rule Three—'the girl should throw herself into the sports which interest her prospective victim' ". This was too much for Lucy. "Teehee," she giggled mischievously, "J should like to see Celia playing bJ ketball with Junior." APRIL, 1951 59 Before Junior could retort, Totoy wos on Rule Four: " 'It's quite proper for the girl to store, while eating a piece of apple ,ne, "This is yummy, but just wait till you taste the pie I bake." ' " "Oh, my," Nanay commented, ' The hook is too open. She will drive away her man." And she shook her head disapprovingly. "The Fifth Rule takes the cake for utter imbecility." "What is it?" asked Lucy ond Junior together. "In her conversation, o girl must '.emember that 'all her mon hos on is mind is sun ond sex' ". Tatay stopped, his face suddenly ^grown sad. Junior and Lucy knew »his serious mood of their father, ond they made no comments. Nanay put her hand on Tatay's shoulder. "Poor girl", Tatay said reflectively, "either she's trying to be funny, or she has moved in the wrong crow^i. She seems to think that life is just a round of parties .and vacation trips, and that a husband nothing else but a dancing partner and a playmate. God forbid that such a mentality ever take hold of our Filipino girls. It is the surest way of destroying the family, and with the family, our nation . . . Junior, will you hand me Monsignor Sheens book Philosophies at Wor?" Tatay opened the book at a marked page. There was a ring of conviction in his voice as he read: "The foundation of marriage is love, not sex. Sex is physiological and of the body: love is spiritual and therefore of the will. Since the contract is rooted not in the emotions, but in the will, it follows that when the emotion ceases, the contract is not dissolvable, for the love of the will is not subject to the vicissitudes of passion. A life-time is not too long for two beings to become acquainted with each other, for marriage should be a series of perpetual and successive revelations, the sounding of new depths, and the manifestation of new mysteries. At one time, it is the mystery of the other's incompleteness which can be known but once, because capable of being completed but once; at another time, the mystery is of the other's mind; at another the mystery is of fatherhood and motherhood which before never existed; and finally there is the mystery of being shepherds for little sheep ushering them into the Christ Who is the door of the sheepfold." PAGING AUNTIE CLIMAX! A priest told of a Negro family in Californio which was blessed with three sets of twins. The first pair was "christened" Pete and Repete, and the second Kate and Duplicate. The third set taxed the parents' ingenuity for some considerable time, but eventually they found a solution. It was: Max and Climax!

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