UP and down memory lane

The world was still safe and good when I was in UP. My student number was 87-xxxxx, fyi. I remember riding the bus from Quezon Av-Edsa all the way to Paranaque around 11 pm, reeking of the then popular Tia Maria Zombie, maybe even snoring loudly in my drunken slumber. This was a scene that happened many times before and always I got home unscathed. Ours was a UP when cellphones were totally unheard of and there was of course zero probability of getting killed for having one. Ours was a time when climate was still a blessing. Between January and February, the Sunken Garden would be enveloped by mist and a good number of us students would jump at the chance to don those knitted cardigans that were so in fashion at the time.

It is sad that one can no longer take a walk within campus grounds at night without fear of being mugged, a far cry from our UP days when my friends and I would walk from AS to Philcoa way past 9 pm. Trip lang. I even went moon bathing with other friends at the Sunken Garden, slept there and didn't get stabbed or robbed during my sleep.

Once I flunked an activity in production class, thanks to my classmate. Peeved, I walked from Mass Comm to AS to cool down. It was then that I discovered that if I needed a breather, all I had to do was stand somewhere along the length of the Academic Oval and look up and there! a canopy of leaves and branches hanging from the magnificent acacias that lined the whole oval. It was breathtaking.

A couple of weeks ago my husband Nubs and I had this craving for Rodic's silogs so off we went to UP, baby in tow. The trees were still standing proud. But was that smog I saw? Poor acacias. They didn't live up to a hundred just to be smoke-belched to death.

My UP is still there. But not quite.