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7 College Days IT WAS GOOD TO BE A CIVILIAN AGAIN. THE FIRST thing I did was to buy Mama and Papa a pair of red metal rocking chairs for the patio. Now in their early fifties, Papa and Mama had acquired a mutual interest in gardening,and they could admire their handiwork while sitting comfortably in their patio chairs. The rest of my discharge money went to buy a year-old 1951 Chevrolet Bel Air. It was the first car I ever owned. When I was in high school, I was one of the few students with regular access to a vehicle and often drove Papa’s 1932 Model A converted pickup.The Bel Air was clearly a major step up. Thanks to the GI Bill, I enrolled as an incoming freshman at San Jose State College in September 1952, along with Junior, who had just graduated from high school. Like millions of returning World War II and Korean War veterans, I took full advantage of the bill, which provided $80 a month for a full-time student enrolled at an accredited college. The GI Bill virtually assured my going to college . I did not save money during my years in the navy, although I regularly sent money home to Mama to help with Herb’s college expenses.Moreover,it is doubtful that Papa and Mama had enough money to send Herb, Junior, and me to college at the same time. I will be forever grateful to the GI Bill for giving me the opportunity to go to college. For someone who had long planned on going to college, I found myself poorly prepared. It was a good thing Herb was there to help show me the ropes. He was in his junior year at San Jose State, majoring in social work. I did not even know what a major was, let alone what social work was all about, but I also declared myself a social work major since I had no idea what I wanted to do. Besides, I knew I could always change my major later. As it turned out, I enjoyed the course work in my accidental major. The curriculum required classes on social issues,race relations,psychology,and cultural anthropology. All had great appeal for me, undoubtedly because of Mama’s example, my experiences with discrimination, and my desire to deal more effectively with social injustices.I stayed with social work, a decision I would never regret. Herb, Junior, and I lived in a large flat above a grocery store operated by my Ninang “Bali” Todtod in San Jose’s Japantown.We shared the flat with three other roommates—Ray Paular and brothers Epiphanio “Fonnie” and Raphael “Bee” Raagas from the Central Valley, whom we met through the Filipino American athletic tournament circuit. We all shared in the upkeep of the flat and in cooking meals—except for Ray. His father operated a restaurant in Stockton, but strangely, Ray never learned how to cook. Therefore , he became our designated dishwasher. As the only roommate without a sibling present, he also was the target of pranks. We “short-sheeted” his bed and often sneaked up on him to scare him when he was studying. Ray was good-natured about the pranks, and this only challenged us to come up with new ones. Ninang Bali lived in Oakdale at the time of my birth and served as my godmother at my baptism. I had rarely seen her in the intervening years. She was now in her sixties, and while she may have slowed physically, she still put in a full day as proprietress of her mom-and-pop grocery store.Her daughter Pacing lived nearby and was a frequent visitor.She was renowned in the Filipino community for her singing role in the John Wayne movie They Were Expendable , which was set in World War II Philippines and had been seen many times by proud Filipinos. I hoped to hear about Pacing’s days in Hollywood, but she seemed not to want to speak about that part of her life. I renewed my acquaintance with our cousins,the Galanidas.They lived in Sunol, about twenty miles from San Jose, in a camp popucollege days 97 lated by Filipino families who worked in the adjoining strawberry fields.We knew the Galanidas through semiannual meetings of the Garcia-Hernandez Association, a mutual aid organization of former residents of Mama’s and Papa’s hometown. Aunt Emma, who was of...

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