This grandfather of 76 is attending a reunion of the CNHS class of 66 first week of May.

Technically, I don’t belong to that class. Having skipped the subject of Industrial Arts, I missed the moving on ceremony and graduated a year later at Quezon City High School where a favorite writer is known by another name.

Before that, I won second place in extemporaneous speaking in the Bicol Literary Musical Contest (first prize went to Linda Bolido of Masbate with whom I would be reunited as we both wrote for the Inquirer many years later.)

I was determined to be a writer and missing the class of 66 in that high school graduation in the island wasn’t a big deal. I was too busy reading Shakespeare and Edna St. Vincent Millay to bother with gardening and industrial projects.

I cross-enrolled in a Manila university and became Features Editor of the Campus Leader. I ended up in a technical school and became editor of its paper. My last school-hopping was MLQU where I was features editor of its Quezonian and later the journalism class paper, The Quill. I skipped MLQU one more time to join the Graphic Magazine as proofreader.

The rest as they say is history.

After writing a dozen short stories, I discovered music. That’s because the Manila Symphony Orchestra rehearsed just a few houses away from MLQU.

After discovering live classical music, I turned away from short stories and poetry and turned to arts reporting.

After watching a monumental Tosca at the CCP starring Placido Domingo and Eva Marton in 1979, I joined CCP where I watched the world’s most revered performing artists.

With my literary inclinations taking the back seat. I became a full-time arts chronicler.

I wrote a column called View from the Wing for the Sunday Inquirer Magazine and later, Culture Vulture for the Manila Chronicle.

To be in touch with fellow islanders, I decided to write a weekly column, Islander in the City, for the Catanduanes Tribune whose founder was a good friend.

When the Chronicle folded, I was back contributing for the Inquirer where I covered the arts every Monday until today.

How is that for a life?

I earned a measure of fame in the arts circle and during the pandemic, went back to my early passion, poetry and short story.

My poems and a short story appeared in various publications and regularly in Graphic Magazine where I was Graphic Salute Awardee in poetry for two years.

Sadly, earning bylines for poems and short stories is not the same as getting a regular income.

Hence, I announced on FB I will be attending that Class of 66 reunion where I would probably be the poorest classmate in terms of regular income.

But then as they say, life is what you make it.

You don’t regret what became of you because you are happier writing minus the big income.

I took refuge in awards which came my way in my old age. Since I am not comfortable with awards, I donated some of them to the Catanduanes Museum and the remaining ones I intend to donate at the Pasig Museum where Mayor Vico Sotto honored me with a marker for a pandemic poem, Ode to the Frontliners.

I believe I am the only contemporary poet honored with a marker by a city government.

After almost 60 years, I would see the Class of 66, most of them successful in their chosen lives and the rest leading modest but happy lives in the island.

I will share my second book, Encounters in the Arts, with classmates and my English teacher.

That would be a good testament to my chosen life in the arts.