Slide

When we were young, we would toboggan on the slope near the house. Toboggan is a relative term because we would never have snow but one time, a supermarket, Bellan's, was being built in a nearby street and they have to take out the soil. They dumped them at the slope, burying the marapait (wild sunflowers) but making a fine slope to slide especially when it just rained. We made our sled with a board of plywood, waxed with candles and the bitter leaves of marapait. I still wonder why no one was hurt, thinking how easy it would have been to have an avalanche (he, he, mudslide). At the bottom, we have to pass through a field of cabbage and sidestreets that would take us 20 minutes to go back on top. The safer slide would be on the slope going to Paul Fianza's house beside Magsaysay Elementary School. That's a 40 degree slope of cement but the students would never dare do it on schooldays or they would get whipped on the butt (which was still sore after those tobogganning). My brother has a secret slope but he abandoned it after getting wounded by a hidden barbed wire. It happened on Good Friday. They said your wounds won't heal if you hurt yourself on Good Friday. My brother still has the scar after all these years. I'm sure he's secretly proud of it as he tells his stories to his sons but I doubt it. They're always on the Internet playing games that won't even hurt a soul.