Class 1972’s latest reunion dinner was at a plush uptown restaurant in Cebu. Class ’72 is the batch of students who went through the high school of Sacred Heart School for Boys and passed from its halls that same year. They are together not because they are an organization officially institutionalized by the school now called Sacred Heart School-Jesuits, Ateneo de Cebu. They are instituted instead by their friendship and its memory. They are technically a batch of friends, an extended barkada, now grown into their late middle years. They have decided to get together officially to plan projects for a big event this year. Unofficially, they are only having fun.
They are scattered all over the country and globe. Expatriate Cebuanos love to come home from time to time. And with this, they have another good excuse to travel. The reunions provide good opportunity to exchange stories with old friends. The high school stories would, of course, be the staple.
There is a singular psychology that pervades. This was the last batch of high school students to graduate before martial law was declared. By September, the year of their graduation, their world would be changed forever. On the upside, there was at least one semester when all the universities were forcibly closed. One half year to bum around and grow their hair long, like hippies, like rock stars; the full menu of them ranging from Jim Morrison to Don McLean.
They might have been nihilists once. They might have sang to themselves: “I close my eyes; only for a moment and the moment’s gone. All my dreams; pass before my eyes; a curiosity. Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.” And so on.
But they are respectable professionals and businessmen now, most of them married and with kids, some older now than them, once, in 1972. They do not drink half as much. They have to watch their food. They are not as naughty as they once strove to be.
And so it made perfect sense to invite Mr. Roman Dolotina as guest of honor to their latest dinner party. Roman Dolotina is their former Spanish teacher. His class might have been the most interesting high school class of all. Certainly it is the one that has spawned the most controversy, the greatest number of peculiar narratives, the most vivid memories of high school. These narratives cannot be mentioned here without inviting additional controversy. But perhaps it is enough that the class invited him to see how he is doing and to see what they might give him by way of a gift, perhaps a peace offering of sorts.
Roman Dolotina now lives in Tagbilaran. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus. And he gives us good example of how to be tolerant and accept all that life may dish out. He has obviously been through a lot. And there is much to respect him for even if he was never quite the ideal Spanish teacher.
Spanish has been deleted from the official high school and college curriculum. Only a few people now still argue over the rightness of this move. But most of us who are old enough to have attended Spanish classes might remember what a strange lot Spanish teachers were. And we might have expected this considering the colonial history and the fact that after World War II the country had become almost entirely Americanized, much to the disadvantage of the continued spread of the Spanish language here. Spanish teachers were an endangered species of teachers even in 1972. What did we expect?
And to be perfectly blunt, Class ’72 had been more than naughty with Roman Dolotina. In fact, they were on occasion downright bad. Inviting him to dinner might have come out of the need to ensure he has forgiven them for all that they ever did. Dinner was another chance to make things right, to lay to rest old demons. And there are higher considerations as well. In a country where the teaching profession is not ever sufficiently rewarded, Class ’72 makes its own opportunity to thank an old teacher beyond what he might expect by way of gratitude from society itself. And all this, while getting together to enjoy themselves. What other reason is required?
Well, there is also the hope that despite everything that ever went on in Mr. Roman Dolotina’s class, they did turn out passably well. And this must be irrefutable proof that despite everything that ever went on in his class he was a good teacher for Class ’72 even if they were not quite the best students a Spanish teacher could ever wish for.