Village Elders

I have always wondered how the village elders managed to grow to be so old. The average age was somewhere in the 90s. One such older gentleman - my grandfather - grew to a ripe old age of 108. I am not a scientist and I have no empirical data to present. All I know is that these folks lived just like most of us in the village. They smoked and chewed locally grown tobacco, chewed betel nut with lime, they indulged in a little bit of sugar cane wine every now and then and even drank hard whiskey when it was available.

Was it their diet and lifestyle that contributed to their longevity? Let's see. The prevailing diet when I was growing up was very simple. Steamed rice. The only difference between this rice from the store bought rice is that it was from that year's freshly harvested rice crop. The grain was threshed using mortar and pestle since there were no machines to husk the grain. Could it be that part of the rice germ remained intact thus adding to the nutritional value of the starch? Then there would be an accompanying dish of mainly vegetables in broth. Poached, flavored with salted fish. Fresh greens gathered from the vines and plants grown in the backyard or growing wild out in the nearby fields. Purslane, spinach, Indian spinach, watercress, sweet potato leaves, horseradish tree leaves, bitter melon, winter gourd, lima beans, squash, long beans, pole beans, legumes, eggplants, tomatoes, corn - whichever of these were in season. There would also be a liberal serving of seaweed as salad - sea lettuce, precious tengusa, sea grapes, and young kelp. Since there was no refrigeration and/or other preservatives readily available, except salt and dehydration, vegetables were eaten in their prime freshness. That included freshly caught fish and crustaecians, mullusks and cepalophods.

Since there was no motorized transportation, people walked a lot. They walked to their place of work, to town, to church services, to the market, and to the fields. They walked to school. There were no television sets, no video games, just an old radio left behind by the GIs who were encamped in the village towards the end of World War II. Entertainment was left to the few talented guitarists, musicians, and local artists to provide. Sing alongs, short plays called sarsuelas were the staple. Even potluck suppers and a harvest festival.

People were either farmers, share croppers, or fishermen. The farmers began their trek to the fields early in the dawn, working in the slightly dusky morning light taking advantage of the cooler atmosphere morning sunlight. The heat from the sun easily becomes oppressive and unhealthy as the day approaches noon. For the fishermen, if they are not on the water with their nets fishing, they spend most of their days mending their nets, scraping barnacles from their catamarans, re-stringing their bamboo rafts, repainting their paddles and maintaining their equipment.

Could it be the absence of bills to pay, no cell phones ringing, no violent spectator sports thrills, no alarm armed homes, no petty thieves or gang bangers to threaten the peace, no homicide, no drugs and no lawyers. I am sure there was plenty of sex but no rock and roll.

Tropical

Coconut trees grow to willowy heights, their slender trunks obedient to the prevailing winds. I think they grow so tall so they can protect their fruits from unscrupulous poachers. If you can climb all the way to the top then you may pick the fruit, drink the juice and eat the meat. If you can't shinny up the tree, then you may just wait until the ripe and dried coconuts drop to the ground below. But by then they would only be good for cooking.

Coconuts are strong and pliable. I have never seen a coconut snap while being blown every which way by a passing typhoon. They just dance and sway like roosters in a cock fight. If the ground they grow on gives way, the trees may slant close to the ground but then will straighten back up their crown and reach out toward the waiting sky. Coconuts grow taller and taller mostly unnoticed. They keep growing; they seem timeless. When its time for the coconut to die the natives take its trunk to create walking canes, boat paddles, oars, batons, and other strong dowel shaped rods out of its trunk core.

Just as the fruits are used for many purposes, even the fronds of coconuts are very useful. The frond leaves can be woven and interlaced so that the whole frond can then be hung as a hut siding, or the roof of a shed, or room divider, or laid atop a boat like a tarp. The leaves may also be taken individually and used to line the bottom of clay pots while cooking rice and other vayands. The coconut leaf imparts an aroma and flavor to the cooked food that is unique.

At dusk the coconut fronds seem to droop as if in preparation for their passage through the dark of night. Trees growing closer to the water's edge, specially the younger and much shorter ones yield to the invading crabs and birds seeking shelter. Sometimes snakes even make it to the crown. The Rhinoceros beetle is one beetle than can be a coconut killer. With its hard horns it can burrow deep into the coconuts' crown and infest it eventually killing the tree. It is always a sad sight to see a tall, majestic coconut tree felled by a lowly, overgrown, inconsiderate dunglike beetle. The coconut readily gives shelter to the beetle not realizing it is also giving up its life in the process. In the end, the coconut tree looks like a leafless stake stuck in the ground.