A POE. I like that.
My father—who was born near the beach where, thirty-nine and a half years later, MacArthur returned like he said he would (Lingayen Gulf, meeting place of the provinces Pangasinan and La Union)—made it to the US early in his adult life. How he actually made the journey has always intrigued me since no one in the family ever talked about it.
After looking at a Google map, I figured that if the Gulf were big enough to accommodate battleships in wartime, it would’ve been big enough to harbor smaller vessels in peacetime, like tramp steamers. Tramp steamers were easy to sign on to then, and even as late as the 1970s you could hop on, do a lot of dirty heavy work, then hop off at the first stop and hop on the next steamer going further. The trick back then was knowing the comings and goings of such short-run vessels which, as this was in the old days before comprehensive shipping news, you pretty much had to do by going in person right to the docks to find out.
There were two directions my dad could’ve taken, east or west. East would’ve meant hopping from steamer to steamer, wending his way through the islands and peninsulas of Indochina. West meant making his way down the coast of Luzon facing the China Sea, into Manila Bay, where if he lucked out he could sign on to one of the much larger, international, Pacific-crossing tramp steamers, like the Queenmoor out of Newcastle, UK. I’m inclined to think that’s the route he chose. Because, thanks to the Thomasite teachers sent by our American conquerors, Dad had one invaluable asset: He could speak the English language.
In either case, it still might’ve taken him as long as 6-8 months to reach San Francisco, which my mother told me was his first place of residence. So it happened that my father, Cenon Merto “Sam” Ramos, started his American life in the most evocative city in America—the home of fog, hills, sourdough, hashish, Dashiell Hammett, Harry Bridges, Mission Dolores, earthquakes, Chinatown, Manilatown, the DiMaggio boys, and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (recording of Alfred Hertz conducting the SFSO in Wagner’s Parsifal here).
It was 1927. Dad was 22.
- “The Story So Far, with Conductor John Wilson”
- “The Story So Far; Or, Conductor John Wilson—His Limits”
- “Cantara Christopher Gives Her Beloved Conductor John Wilson Crib Notes on Todd Field’s Screen Masterpiece, Tár: Love, Teshuvah, and Filipinos Will Save Western Music (PDF)”
FULL DRESS // A gifted mesmerist—a sinister composer—a naive young conductor from the north…inspired by an episode from the life of Rachmaninoff // DOWNLOAD FREE BOOK POSTER
"I'll Be Dead Before You Break My Heart" 