Tall stories is defined as a false, exaggerated, improbable, high flowing and grandiloquent stories. But, even if they were false, at our age, we thought that they were true. The delivery of the story was very convincing.
Romeo Villaluz alias “sawa” or snake, was my classmate from the first grade to the six grade. His house was at the back of our Parish Church. He was full of stories. While all of the stories were convincing, they were false.
But, we enjoyed listening to those false stories. He was a good story teller. And he believed all these stories told to him by his elder brother whom he referred to as “ Manoy Estok.”
Here were some of the stories which because of our innocence we believed as true:
1. His “Manoy Estok” always stayed out of the house very late at night. Their small house was just behind the Parish Church of Nabua. Because there was no electric system yet, there were no street light. There was total darkness. The church (the building) was made of stone (2 x 1 and one foot thick) which was carefully cut. There were bricks which we called as “ladrillo” . Both the cut stone and the bricks were made through a forced labor by Filipinos. They were slaves of the Spanish conquistador. The Church was built sometime in the 16th century.
2. His “Manoy Estok” told him that the big snake was so mysterious that it gave out from its huge mouth gold coins.
3. His “Manoy Estok” also told him that somewhere at the foot of the altar was a hidden door leading under ground,
Because of these stories, their alias or “bansag” was :”sawa”.
It was only when we reached the secondary school that we learned that the stories were false. It was the way so that they will not stay out at night and study their lessons for the next day.
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