A Tribute To My Beloved UP
On Its Centennial Celebration
Timeline 1908 to 2008

The memories of this period became so vivid now that I am retired from public service. Exactly half a century ago, a long time ago, I recall the afternoons, when we use to loiter around the corridors and hallways of Rizal Hall. The times in our early teens, our bags loaded with books, eager and wide eyed, always quick to learn the basic subjects of the arts and sciences, or sometimes explored its dark crawl space looking for misadventures, learning to smoke the dreaded blue seal cigarettes.

Listening to the jeers from members of the upper classes, as they would taunt, and it was juvenile as I reminisce now, "you have not reached manhood yet until your first puff......or stay in the crawl space alone for this long....or..." maybe with some reluctance to our awakening puberty, encouraged ourselves to socialize with the opposite gender. These constituted a happy and some basic phases of our formative years, with all these judgement and experience of yesteryear directly affecting a big portion of our persona towards maturity.

Our generation probably is the most interesting, born in the crucible of World War II, then in later years, the most changes and perhaps the last of the innocent generation. The years from 1943 to 1945 are considered to be the silent (war babies) generation, between the so called hero and the baby boomer generations. My intent, to emphasize the war years, reflected my perception of this period that significantly impacted everybody. If not for the war and the turn of events, maybe we would not be even here. In truth, it is our trademark as war babies. How we and our parents survived the tribulations of that era was in itself phenomenal. However, bear with me, the later years will show the lighter side of our generation, and hopefully all can enjoy the chronicles and timeline of everyone in this segment of our life.