“Samba Nights – Saan Ka Ba Nuong ‘68-’78?”, Part 2

         After my eyes enjoyed the scenes as I  panned the entire hall where I saw familiar faces of brods and sisters mixed with new images of beautiful Dance Instructresses and macho Dance Instructors, I noticed a table occupied by brods Jun Crudo ’56,  Nano Dy-Liacco ‘58 and Art Navasero ’67 I decided to join them. I noticed that they were sipping red wine and picking slices of tuna and salmon sashimi. I went to the bar and asked for a glass of red wine! Yes! Wine, cognac, beer and other kinds of drink were on the house! Free and overflowing! With a wine glass in one hand, I went to the sashimi table and placed my favorite salmon and tuna sashimi on my plate. When I got a saucer for the wasabe mixture, the sushi bar ran out of Kikkoman sauce! In a few minutes, a new Kikkoman bottle was opened.

      While I was enjoying the fresh sashimi, I cherished the rare moments in the company of brods Nano, Jun Crudo and Art Navasero. Brod Nano asked for a picture taking session with me so he can show it to his wife. You see, it was the first time we met in person although he told me he love reading my articles in our yahoogroup specially my Boracay series! When Inky Reyes signaled that the brods may already get their food from the buffet table, brod Jun went to the buffet table and returned with a plate full of “balat ng lechong baboy” for us. I immediately asked them if they do not have any cholesterol level problems which everybody chorused, “paminsan-minsan lang naman ito!” I added that anyway, vidastat and lipator are already available over the counter!

        The dancing was temporarily stopped  when the program started. There were video presentations showing old photos of the brods belonging to the batch ’68 and ’78. There was a dance number participated in by sisters who were all dressed up in Samba costumes. The most famous batch ’68 – Senator Richard “Dick” Gordon gave an inspiring speech sounding like a Presidentiable!

        I had  counted only three of us belonging to our batch ’73 –  Mon,  Butch Bandong  and myself when the batches were called on the floor.

      Then came the substance, the meat of the preparation for the evening – the ballroom dancing! I had attended several Upsilonian fellowships in the past which also lined up danceable  Dance Instructors but to the credit of batch 1968 and 1978, this was the first time that the floor was literally flooded with DIs (both females and males). There are moments when the DIs have to go around looking for brods and sisters to dance with them. I could just imagine how much was the budget for the talent fees of the DIs! In the past fellowships, there were scarcity of supply of DIs, but not that night!

       I must admit, I was overwhelmed! I lost count of the number dance instructress I danced with, and even with how many songs I had danced from swing to boogie to cha-cha to reggae, but I was able to record that I danced from 10:00 p.m. till 1:00 a.m.! Special mention should be made to the professionalism of the DIs of Bykes Café led by Ms. Leah!

        Brods, when will be the next fellowship with another ball room dancing?