Classes for the new school year 2012 to 2013 opened last Monday. I left the day before on a flight for a three-month visit with family in the United States.
Two years ago I was there for over five months visiting with three of my children, spending most of the time with my then-ailing second daughter, before coming home to spend Christmas with a son in Manila. It was there in Manila after New Year’s Day 2011, that we learned that my ailing daughter had died, so back to the States we both flew, with my son, to attend her wake and interment. He had to return to his job in Manila. I stayed behind in the States for the traditional prayers during the 40 days thereafter. Memories still return, as they often will.
This latest flight to the States was smooth from Cebu to Hong Kong for a brief stopover, but encountered turbulence halfway to Los Angeles, possibly a side effect of the passage of Typhoon Ambo on its way to the China coast. I’ve always dreaded turbulence on a flight, the rolling rise-and-fall of a ship on stormy seas and the tremors of an earthquake. In more recent flights, I was prepared with prescribed sedatives, a proper mindset and prayer.
I was met at the Los Angeles airport by my son Antonio. He is the third of my four children; the second being my late daughter Raquel in San Diego, my first and eldest being my daughter Amelia in Texas and my youngest son a recent immigrant with his family to Calgary in Canada.
This latest visit on their invitation was to spend special days with them: Antonio’s birthday last Wednesday, June 6th; his youngest daughter Carla’s birthday on June 11th next week; my late daughter Raquel’s youngest daughter Jenelle’s high school graduation on June 12thand Antonio’s eldest daughter Caitlin’s birthday on the 18th. Blessed and joyful greetings to all of them!
June is an eventful month for the Golden State of California, holding its Primary Elections in preparation for the national General Elections in November. California hopes to regain the key to regaining the Democrats’ control. I am reminded here of our own pre-election year activities in the Philippines.
As a still concerned and involved media practitioner, I continue to follow current events. In the Los Angeles Times and the Asian Journal Weekend, I learned that our own President Benigno Aquino III was due to visit President Obama in the Oval Office June 6th through today, the 8th, while the American Vice President welcomes to Los Angeles our own 15th Vice President Jojo Binay.
On the lighter side in showbiz happenings, current rave Mexican-Filipina Jessica Sanchez, “American Idol” runner-up, was mobbed by fans in New York City, where the “bubbly teen” is doing the rounds of TV shows.
One tried and true vintage movie star, Kirk Douglas, now 95, has written a memoir about one of his greatest triumphs, “I Am Spartacus!” which “recounts how Douglas helped break the mid-century anti-communist blacklist.” In an interview with Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times, he revealed that he secretly hired Dalton Trumbo to write “Spartacus,” the historical epic that was directed by Stanley Kubrick and produced by Douglas. It came out in October in 1960.
Meanwhile, singer Cissy Houston, mother of the late Whitney Houston is writing about her famous daughter Whitney’s “triumphant heart-breaking life,” recalling for us her greatest hits including “The Greatest Love of All” and “I Will Always Love You.”
I was also taken in by Betty White, smiling as I posed beside a wax likeness of her at Madam Tussaud’s in Hollywood. I had occasion to visit Madam Tussaud’s first Wax Museum in London years ago, marveling at the likenesses in wax of the historical, cultural, heroic and popular modern day figures, among others.
Queen Elizabeth II of England has been grandly and fittingly honored on the 60th anniversary of her reign with celebratory fluvial and ceremonial parades and displays, spectacular fireworks and a concert by Paul McCartney and others.
On rare astronomical spectacles, astronomers and sky watchers in Los Angeles as well as in other venues around the world, viewed the transit of the planet Venus across the sun last Tuesday at 3:06 p.m. until 8:02 p.m. We learn that this rare astronomical event will not happen again until Dec. 11, 2117!
Meanwhile, we learn that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been gifted with a pair of giant identical telescopes from the National Reconnaissance Office which oversees the US constellation of space satellites.
With all the troubles happening in our country and around the world, we “look to the skies” for this column before we turn to nitty-gritty reality in succeeding columns.
Till next week, then. May God continue to bless us, one and all!