Get-Together of the McBrats in Hayward, California
It was on Sunday evening at 6:00 o'clock, the 21st of January 2007, when I attended the get-together of the McBrats in the San Francisco area. With my daughter Dolly, we drove all the way from Brentwood and made it to the beautiful home of Frankie and Portia Jocson in Hayward. Their home is located on a hilltop which has a panoramic view of the Bay area.
This get-together was my very first chance to meet my childhood friends and former neighbors who used to live at Fort William McKinley whom I have not seen for some 47 years now. It was during this get-together that I met 4 of the 14 Jocson siblings (Ligaya, Frankie, Reynaldo, and Bles). I was also able to meet Carl Quijano (Ligaya's husband), Portia (the wife of Frankie), and Carlos "Carling" Zamboanga who is the uncle of the Jocson siblings who came with his wife Luz.
I remembered Carling quite well since he also lived with the Jocson family in Fort McKinley. During the hot summer nights in Fort McKinley, Carling used to join us kids stay on top of our roof looking at the stars and where we sometimes slept since it was a little colder on the roof at night. He and Luz are now both retired and they currently live in Pleasanton, California. Also present last night was Sam Mendoza (my regular YM chat mate) and who now resides with his family in Daly City. Sam was also a former military dependent and resident of Fort McKinley just like us.
Frankie and Portia Jocson (couple shown below on the 1st row of photographs) were our host for the evening and prepared a sumptous dinner which consisted mostly of tasty Filipino dishes which included fried chicken, pancit bihon, beef prime rib, eggplant torta, baked salmon, pinakbet, biko, fruits, rice, soda, etc. There was so much food that was prepared and we were even asked to bring home some of the food that was left on the table.
Right after dinner we congregated to the living room to talk story, have our pictures taken, and listen to Alyssa (youngest of the 2 daughters of Frankie and Portia) play the piano. We also asked Sam Mendoza to play the piano and he ended giving us a mini-concert which entertained all of us that night. Sam and Frankie even sang some lively old songs for us. Portia was also kind enough to serve us hot tea as we sat and talked.
I learned that most of the Jocson siblings now work for Kaiser ... Ligaya is a lab scientist at the Hayward facility, Reynaldo is a bio-medical engineer at the San Francisco office, while Frankie and his wife Portia are also with Kaiser. If I got it right, Portia, who is a nurse, is currently the manager of Kaiser's Sports Medicine while Frankie who just joined Kaiser is with the materials office. Frankie and Portia only have two adult kids - Adrianne and Alyssa. I believe it is only Bles ("Baby") who does not work for Kaiser. She is with the Stanford Medical Center where she is a registered nurse. Bles is married to a Chinese person whose last name is Tsung and they currently reside in Freemont, California.
Ligaya's husband Carl (with the mustache) has retired some 5 years ago. He used to work for the U.S. Postal Service at San Francisco. He also was once with the US Army for a few years. Carl and Ligaya have two adult kids - Brian and Marissa ... and are still hoping and waiting to have grandchildren, just like Frankie and Portia.
It was already about 10:30 pm last night when Dolly and I were able to leave and drive back to Brentwood which is some 50 miles away from Hayward. It was indeed an enjoyable and a very memorable evening for me since I had the chance to meet once again old childhood friends whom I haven't seen for almost 5 decades now.
junylaputt@yahoo.com
