With apologies to Kurt Vonnegut,Jr., you go out into the world, and it’s high school all over again: class officers and all. And for all the time that you are out, there’s this longing to meet up, to relive the banter of those years with your second family–yes, family, as in home!

June 25 through June 29, 2016 marks the Golden Jubilee of the Divine Word University of Tacloban High School Class ’66. A half century since the best years of your life. And it is a de rigueur that you attend. The venue is where else but the DWU campus in Tacloban City. (DWU has since closed shop, but the buildings are still there, and the school has morphed into LICEO of Tacloban.)

The air in those days reverberated of the Beatles, Cliff Richard, the Monkees, Dave Clark Five, the Beach Boys. Where such beauties as Marie Villegas and Baday Chapman lorded it over, in the same manner that Father Joseph Jaschick ruled the Boys High with an iron first. Where your JS Prom was held in the hangar, masquerading as a gymnasium. Where your military ball was on the roof top of the Granda Building. Where your movie theater of choice was the Republic along Gran Capitan.

Those were the days. . .

Where during the baccalaureate breakfast, Romeo Antido would wolf down a chunk of ersatz butter at Rolando Villablanca’s taunting. Where you were in awe at the Liz Taylor-ish beauty of Josefina de Veyra, your Literature teacher. Where Tito Gonzales’s antics rolled the room in hysterics. Where you filed in cadence during the flag raising under the huge narra tree, which was bedecked in colored lights at Christmas. Where Estefano de la Cruz was tops in mischief; ditto Eduardo Nierras.

And along the way you reckon that you have lost Benito Pacho, Alfredo Morden and Enrique Enage, Jr., and that you wish for their peace in the afterlife.

Yes, you are raring to touch base with your second family, long lost in the travel through time, if only for the last moment.