THE BOOKSTORE : THE GOLDEN YEARS

It all started in 1990, repeat costumers were mostly book readers hoping to chance upon the titles of their favorite authors. They were the happy side of business, appeased with their finds and and eager to go back for the next weekly delivery. Some of them have stories to share, and before leaving passed me lists of books they wanted to include in their private library.  Paperback novels from Booksale was so cheap and being a big buyer, I was given a call each time they have new arrivals. Filling out the customers' book preferences were a bit easy those days. Not one of them haggled and most of them are thankful for the lower price they pay.

The reign of the queen of darkness, caused a daily 10 hour brownouts, so I decided to let go my photocopier and electrical repair shop. The repair shop was hard to manage since its quite difficult to guarantee the works of the technician I employed and handling complaints drained my patience. What started off as "second hand garage sale type store' was then named Juleric Rent-a-Book. With no TV, radio and playstation during brownout, reading books or "pocketbooks" (as most refer to Tagalog novels) became the favorite past time while waiting for the lights.  Tagalog serialized comics were slowly being edged out by Valentine Romance and other tagalog romance novels.

The Pinoy comics was marginalized. With the rising cost of printing, the comics business was slowly being eased out by the tagalog novels. After a year, sales of books covered only a third of our income while two-third came from renting out pocketbooks. Book collectors still visit our store regularly taking with them their friends, and friends of their friends. I have to employ a couple of helpers to accommodate the costumers especially on rainy days and weekends. The brownouts was shortened to four hours a day but new costumers keep coming.

Never a dull day ... By the end of 1992 we have over 2,000 members renting out tagalog pocketbooks and about 500 members who preferred english novels. The tagalog readers just pick out whatever was new and since most of them were housewives, the bookstore became sort of social club where stories about what they read about were shared.  I took care of the english readers by putting up collections of books per author and buying new releases. I have books lined up for my regular english readers that they usually get what I reserved for them and made request for the next title they would like to read.  

What I enjoyed most in serving costumers  was the way they appreciate the efforts I exerted in trying to provide them the titles they have been long searching for.  Unsolicited friendship as you may call it, sharing ideas and reflections from the books we read, and recommending some titles which they believe I too would appreciate. The eyes can tell as well as the smiles, for at times they reveal a part of of themselves from the books that they pick. Considering that almost all my costumers were women,  I enjoyed every minute of the conversation,  falling in love with beautiful minds and at times feeling attracted to some.  The first 3 years was indeed our golden years.

The golden years ended the second week of 1993. Just 3 days after I was featured in the Life and Leisure Section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer titled, "The Masa Doesn't Only Read Comics", an isolated fire destroyed our bookstore. It lasted only 30 minutes with the fire fighters responding after only 15 minutes, partly gutting down the one storey, 30 square foot commercial stall yet completely ruining nearly 5,000 books. Only the exposed sides of the books were torched but they were all soaking wet.  Adding insult to the fire was the garbage collector's refusal to collect the damaged books since they termed them as  fire debris instead of garbage.  I was asked to pay 700 pesos to have the "debris" collected. And then came some more "vultures" - the fire investigators and the insurance adjuster, and topping the cap was the real estate tax collector who argued that since the fire broke out the 13th day of the first month of the new year, real estate tax for improvement still should be paid. 

We have to start all over again ... with 3 kids in tow, we decided to rebuild.  Now we have to pay the rent for the new store we will occupy, and hope that the 2,000 plus costumers we have before will continue patronizing us. But tha's another story.

TEARS FOR BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

I dig Frank Sinatra. In the early 1960's the song "Fly Me to the Moon" was a big hit 'cause dating and walking at the park by the light of the silvery moon was really romantic. Women's beauty was poetically compared to the mystic moon and its goddess Diana. But that was before men landed on the moon. Since then, the moon became a symbol of pock marked faces. 

Then Rock and Roll took over with Elvis and the Beatles. Then in the 1970's came the regal rock group, the "Queen" with their hit song "The Bohemian Rhapsody".  I did not like the song then. Never did like all the yelling and bastardized opera music. I stuck to the music of the 1960's and the 1970's, appreciating a few song from the 1980's on. But things changed a bit after we watched the bio-movie of Freddie Mercury and his band.

He was a musical genius of his time and his rendition of the song "Love of My Life" can really get into you. The movie was well made and the final scene of Freddie singing "The Bohemian Rhapsody" caused me to shed some tears. His life was no different from other rock stars and celebrities who cannot handle the curse of fame. But he was one of the "lucky ones". Stricken with the AIDS virus, he was able to reconcile with the people who mattered most to him and vindicated himself by reuniting with his old band and performing to the biggest crowd ever assembled to watch a concert. Unlike the grief-stricken big names who chose the easy way out by committing suicide, he faced all the pains and found his inner peace before his demise.

Now 5 of his hits songs are on my playlist and he too has filled a slot in my idol list of stars who dealt life in their own unusual way. Sinatra, who defined his life through the song "My Way",still is my guy but not very far behind together with Muhammad Ali, Magic Johnson, George Foreman and Arthur Ashe. These guys all suffered a sudden twist of fate, Ali with Parkinson's , George Foreman with his humiliating losses to Ali and Young and early retirement from boxing, Magic's struggle with AIDS, and Arthur Ashe's cancer, but dealt with the pains and bounced back with questioning God's Divine will.

Hope everybody has the time to see this movie ...

From "The Diary of Anne Frank"  --

" In spite of everything, I still believe that people

are really good at heart. "

"I don't think of all the misery,

but of the beauty that still remains."

Anne Frank's Diary was written by a 14 year old Jewish girl, who together with her family hid in an attic for over 2 years before they were discovered and sent by the Nazis to the concentration camp. She, with her mother and an elder sister died, and was survived only by her father who found the diary inside their hiding place after the war.  Anne's father had the diary published and the book became a classic and a timeless testament to the human spirit..

Despite her tender age, she wrote with an adult's wisdom. She loved life despite the cruelties brought about by war and chose to make her life a testimony that even in its simplest element, thoughts well written with stubborn honesty could leave a mark in human history. 

 
The book contained her innermost thoughts including her romantic feelings for her beau. Since she never meant her thoughts to be open to the public, she expressed her willingness to be kissed and caressed, which the Catholic hierarchy considered obscene and recommended that the book be banned from public libraries and discourage people from reading the book. The book was listed in the "Librorum Prohibitorum", translated as prohibited books by the Catholic church.

The book became a classic, withstanding the test of time. Rarely a month pass that no customer would not inquire if we have the book in our inventory. Its always on top of the list among classic readers. I have read two versions of the book and I find the one originally published by his father that contained the photocopied pages of her diary as the more interesting read than the more widely published book entitled "The Diary of a Young Girl". The latter is easier to decipher and contained the refined sugarcoated version of the diary. The first is more authentic.

Whichever version you read however,  is enough to satisfy your curiosity why the book ranks high in the annals of classic novels. Its a different rendition of the second world war seen from a hiding place. Living in constant fear for over two years, robbing you of some of the best years of your life.

"  War does not determine who is right

-  only who is left. "

 ---- Bretrand Russel

FATHER AND SON

" Just when I am beginning to understand my father's ways, 

I have a son who thinks I'm wrong ... "

                                                                                                                                                 ---   Anonymous

" No matter what you do with your son, he will always 

try to be like his father. " 
                                                                                                                                          --  Chinese Proverb

Called up my father a couple of days ago.  He was in high spirit despite being in sickbed for over a week and he said jokingly that he was just practicing how to die. He'll be 90 years old 5 months from now and he was hoping to make his birthday a "last hurrah." Mom died about 7 years ago and no matter how hard he tried to hide it, he feel the loneliness of living in solitude.

He has accepted the inevitable, at peace with himself knowing he has a good run, and we have said our goodbyes knowing that I won't be there when he leaves. 

I never got to see my mother when she died. Denied a visitor's visa before, I won't undergo another run in with those  Canadian consuls who looks at you as a prospective TNT.  I have spent my early years doing my share of house chores and helping run my parents' business. I may have been bullheaded some of the time, but not most of the time, so at least I have earned a soft spot in my parents hearts. They have lived more than three decades of their lives in a foreign land and they have known eversince that the day will come when the phone calls would cease. Mom's memories have lived unsullied in my mind and I have so much of my dad's traits in me that death won't make much of a difference.

So as the song goes ...

The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old

But his blood runs through my instrument

              and his song is in my soul ...

My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man

I'm just a living legacy to the leader of the band ...

I thank you for the music and your stories of the road

I thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go

I thank you for the kindness and the times when you got 

                                                                tough ...

And Papa I don't think I said "I love you" near enough ...

Dad was that way. He was not much into music - never even heard him voice out a song.

His means of trying to forge a bond was telling "x-rated jokes" and his escapades with women.

But he showered me with gifts when I was a kid. Took me to movies almost every week and never fail to slip a coin in my pocket before he leave home. He was not a perfect dad but his deeds were perfect examples that I imparted to my kids in return. He was just being himself most of the time - and he did his things mostly out of sight, taking the tasks of running our business when all my siblings are past asleep. I got to connect with the things he did for he would wake me up after preparing the goods we would sell the next day so I could carry on what he has started. 

That's one thing I picked up from him. I treated my kids like they were not kids.  I learned that kids prefer dad's lap than the soft sofa's cushions. I learned that kids prefer  dad's embrace than new jackets and sweaters.  I learned that they prefer listening to my stories than playing outside. I learned that they prefer my cooking than the junk foods they could buy from the variety stores. I learned that they enjoy watching television with me and their mother than playing video games. I learned that the kids value more our presence than "presents".  And most of all, my kids learned that their grandfather was my very much like their father.

NEVER TOO LATE TO LEARN

"  We will travel as far as we can but we cannot in one

lifetime see all that we would like to see or

learn all that we hunger to know. "

                                                                                                                                                     ---  Loren Eisley

King Solomon, said to be the wisest man who ever lived, knew the value of knowledge. He knew that every proverb was a product of lifetime experiences that needed to be passed on through generations so he compiled them into 3 books now known as "The Book of Proverbs", "The Song of Songs"  and  "Ecclesiastes". It is said in the Bible that he was given unsurpassed wisdom by God but later squandered it by turning away from his faith.

One good thing about getting old is that you never stop learning and you get to tackle life with a bit more sense of urgency.  Life is slowly taking away the gifts that you once have. The once good eyesight has faded a bit, the body ached and some joints has stiffened and your memory is no longer as good as it used to be. And the experience of losing some of your friends and loved ones have taught you that your clock is ticking and it may stop any time. 

" A man is too apt to forget that in this world he cannot

have everything.  A choice is all that is left to him."

I forgot who quoted the verse, but there's a grain of truth to it. Our mind is different from other people's mind, as well as our feelings, but our life is is interlinked to other people's lives. Our life touches others just as other people touches our life. The only real choice that we have is what we do the time and space given to us. We are all planters. The reap what we sow. And when we die. the people we leave behind gather fruits from the memories we planted.

King Solomon advice was for us to seek enlightenment from books. Books are products of lifetime of works and experiences. It is through books that we could talk and listen to people who lived before us. It is through books that we could travel to different places and live in different times. It is through books that we get to bridge the generations from our origin to the present and maybe give us an idea what is in store for us in the future.

There will never be an end in the pursuit of knowledge. Even in this age of computers, the machines will never be able to figure our why men shed a tear when they hurt. For thousands of years men have never even succeeded in deciphering the "real nature of women" as much as they have figured out what makes a real man. And most of all, the word "love" will remain undefined, unmeasured, beyond reason and unfathomable.

TUMAWA NAMAN TAYO # 4

Joke No. 1.  >     

               Inaresto ng mga pulis ang asawa ni Inday sa kasong pagnanakaw.

               Inday    :   Asiong, mag-text ka sa akin kapag nakakulong ka na, ha !

               Asiong  :   Inday naman ... wala akong cellphone.

              Inday      :   Sinungaling !  At saan mo dinala yong na-i-snatch mong cellphone

                                 kahapon  sa Avenida ?

Joke No. 2.  >

---------------

              Nagkita sa Escolta ang dating magkaibigan.

              Berto    :    Asiong, kumusta na ?

              Asiong  :   Eto, walang delihensya.  Mahina na kasi ang tuhod ko.

              Berto     :  Ibig mong sabihin eh retired ka na.  Bakit ano ba ang trabaho ?

              Asiong   :  Akyat-bahay, Pare.

Joke  No.  3   >

------------------

              Isang snatcher ang isino-soli sa may-ari ang cellphone na ninakaw niya :

              Snatcher  :   Ma'am, nandito ako ngayon sa harapan ng tindahan ninyo.

                                  Iiwan ko na lang sa counter ang cellphone mo, ikaw na ang bahala.

              Inday       :   Ay, naku salamat. Bakit mo naman naisipan na isauli ang cellphone                   

                                  eh hindi ko na naman na-i-report yan sa pulisya.

              Snatcher   :   Ay naku ...ang daming tumatawag sa akin at naniningil ng pautang.

                                   Ayaw naman maniwala na hindi sa akin ang cellphone ...sumasakit na 

                                   tuloy ang ulo ko.

Joke  No.  3   >

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             Nanay     :   Walanghiya talaga ang asawa mo Inday.

             Inday       :   Bakit naman naman po Inay  ?

             Nanay      :   Kung hindi ba naman eh, sa isang linggo pa ako aalis pero

                                  iginayak na kaagad ang mga gamit ko.

Joke  No.  4.   >

------------------

            Nag-aaway ang mag-asawa sa labas ng bahay habang nanood ang mga kapit-bahay

            Inday     :     Walanghiya, huwag ka nang uuwi ng bahay at lalasunin kita !

            Pedro     :     Talagang hindi na ako uuwi, Maghahanap na ako magandang asawa !
                                 Pangit ... hah ...hah ...hah

            Inday      :    Di bale na ...maghanap ka ng iba .. Wala nang papatol sa'yo
                                  SUPOTTTTTT....

           Pedro      :    (Parang napahiya)  'Day naman ...walang ganyanan


Joke  No. 5

          Kapitbahay  :   Inday, 'yong asaw mong si Pedro nasa bubong at magpapakamatay daw.
                                   May hawak na kutsilyo at maglalaslas daw siya ng leeg !!

          Inday           :   Huwag kang maniwala 'ron .  Magpatuli nga natatkot na ...maglalaslas
                                  pa ng leeg ...


Joke No. 6

         Pedro       :      ( Sa anak na lalake na may dinaramdam at nakahiga sa kama )
                                 Anak, nararamdaman ko ang sakit na dinaranas mo...kung puwede nga
                                 lamang na ako na ang pumalit sa katayuan mo ay gagawin ko para
                                 lamang hindi ka mahirapan.

         Inday        :      OA ka naman masyado Pedro, eh nagpatulilang naman ang anak mo !


Joke No. 7

         Anak       :        Tatay totoo ba yong kantiyaw sa akin ng mga kapitbahay na supot ka
                                  raw ?

        Pedro       :        Oo anak pero tinanggap na naman ng nanay mo ang katotohanan.
                                 Ano lang naman yon ..kung baga sa hamburger 'yong sa akin with cheese

GOLDEN RULE FOR ACCOUNTANTS

Accounting is arguably the third noblest profession. Accountants are the lifeline of business, making sure systematically that profits are made and losses are within controllable limits. So important is their work especially in the government that the fate of the nation depends on a well managed expenditures of  budget and collection of taxes.

The medical profession is undoubtedly the first followed by teaching. Lawyers and builders argue that they should be on the third but definitely there could be no construction without first arriving at a budget. Lawyers too will argue their place but that's where they are good at - arguing. And they continue arguing their case but still money figures are far more attractive to deal with and lawyers only step in when there disputes regarding the dispensation on those figures.

In the book " J. Edgar Hoover ", the first 50 recruits to be trained as agents of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation were all Certified Public Accountants.  When the President summoned Hoover for clarification, the latter reasoned out that what he really need are people with "a nose for the job, and accountants can easily figure out if something is wrong." 

The same thing in the movie, "Schindler's List", Oscar Schindler, played by actor Liam Neeson emphasized the importance of accountants in his take over of the factories owned by the Jews. It also took an accountant to bring down the almost untouchable Al Capone for tax evasion. The FBI, unable
to pin him down with a string of murder cases have to resort to digging up his tax accountability so he be sent to jail. But the best movie about accountants was Stephen King's "Shawshank Redemption". Its a story of revenge told in a strange way but highlighting the accountant's slow but sure plan to alter the course of his life after being put into prison.

However, every accountant should never forget the CPA's Golden Rule - Do not allow emotions to overcome your judgement. CPA's deal with numbers and numbers things should be. You put in your conclusions based on the numbers and figures provided for you to evaluate if the transaction records are done in abeyance with the right procedures.

Here is a short story I read from a book - a collection of short stories of Ancient Chinese Wisdom.

A  long time ago, palace accountant had a dream. He dreamed that an angel came to visit him that he was to die in a years time. He could live another 50 years if he will be able to do ten thousand good deeds within the year. It was an impossible task and he could not think of a way to accomplish the feat in such a short time.  Confused and worried of the dream, he consulted the village sage about the meaning of his dream.

The old sage advice him to go home first and heal the rift in his family before going back to the palace. The accountant had a long standing feud with his elder brother whom he thought squandered the family inheritance which the latter acted as administrator. His elder brother tried to explain how he lost the family business and their land but he was so angry he did not bother to find out what happened. Following the old man's advice. he confronted his elder brother who showed him the records of  all the transactions he entered into while he was handling the affairs of the family. Indeed records showed that he made some mistakes in judgement but he was able to account for every expenses made. With the records set right, the family was reunited and all the fingerpointing was settled.

Then the accountant came back to the palace and re-organized his record books. Realizing that he has very little time left, he reviewed the records of all the residents in the villages ruled by the emperor and made some changes. He started to consider the effects of the typhoon that ravaged certain areas in the kingdom and deducted a tenth of the taxes to be levied from the emperor's subjects. Furthermore, families who suffered loses from death of family members, sickness, and fire were also given deductions in the taxes they have to pay. He also reduced the interest rates of loans extended and proposed pensions for the elderly and disabled.

And yet, no matter how hard he tried, he could not think of any other way to earn the ten thousand merits required of him. He again consulted the old sage. The old sage told him that he has done more than enough to earn the merits required of him. The merits he earned by bridging the gaps between his family has earned him about a hundred merits. Since all his brothers and sisters reconciled, all their children, grandchildren, house-helps and farm-hands benefited.

He earned over a hundred thousand merits from the reduced taxes he proposed since all the kingdom's subjects benefited. All the people improved their lives with more food on the table, and more money to spend for their other needs.  It maybe just work for him but his job affects hundreds of thousands.

The accountant came to live for another fifty years enjoying the respect he deserved.

As the saying goes ...

" While the worriers are worrying,  while the planners are planning     and the accountants are figuring out how to keep things in               balance,  debit = credit.  "

Profits and loss are revealed by the financial records which had to be interpreted and CPAs can decipher them better than anyone else. Financial losses can be traced by verifying the veracity of the transactions through the paper trail instead of relying on hearsay testimony of parties involved. Between the two versions is the truth supported by receipts, issued checks and other bank transactions.  When you shy away from the chance to uncover the truth because of emotions and prejudgement, then you're an accountant on the job and not an accountant by heart.