Selling The Drama

This is one chicken story that hit me ever since two days ago when Colonel Sanders finally hit town. In a quaint corner of the city streets, somewhere where the roads are wider and the traffic is more reasonable, KFC, the famous chicken store rose from the ground and in their opening day, the loudspeakers boomed so gloriously and a great number of the city inhabitants troop to the new place in town and just outside was a long parade of parked cars, obviously from all the all-too-eager customers.

Events like this in the city are hard to ignore for every known franchise putting up store in our shores signals progress, a big step forward. McDonald’s, the famous burger store, is also about to hit town in a few days or so. Years ago, Zamboanga earned some reputation in a very perplexing way when it qualified for an entry in the Guiness Book of World Records in the food category. It turned out that when Dunkin Donuts opened up in the city, its first day of operation spurred an unimaginable amount of sales of those world-reknown round breads that the city streets practically smelled of freshly-baked donuts as people lined up in very long queues from morning till dawn---even up to midnight. I remember that day very well as local TV news covered the scene of what appeared to be near hysteria over a food item, and radio stations held on-site broadcasts, chronicling blow for blow what appeared before us as an explosion of consumer power---a letting of steam from years and years of seeming deprivation.

Such is our city, for many years it had yearned for all the things good that one could ever find in every progressive city (until now, there is no SM mall in our town where every city worth its dime should have one) but peace and order situation here made it harder for every fancy food brand to come by. There were frequent talks then that mad extortionists roamed our downtown streets that businesses were not wont to open up here, not to mention that in the national papers then, Zamboanga often become embroiled in the rebellion wars that raged so hard in those dangerous days when the MNLF was still as active as a raging volcano. That’s why these days, for every arrival of these famous food franchises, the city inhabitants let off steam that boils towards the high heavens.

Yesterday afternoon, we drove by KFC and the line of customers remain extensive and the wife and kids decided that the time for us to savor some new chicken may not still be at hand.

Along with the famous Jollibee brand, as well as Kenny Rogers, KFC remains in the top of my fast food palate. In the rare times that I was in Manila, I never failed to visit its store at least once. There is a story to this, which I thought might interest you for all its storytelling value.

When we were kids (there I go again backtracking my life, aren’t I?), KFC chicken is high on the list of pasalubongs every time my Uncle Mameng arrives from Manila. The minute he comes through the apartment door, thehighly noticeable chicken smell would permeate throughout the household that such mornings were filled with glee for us kids. One of those days when the pasalubongs came, there were just too much KFC chicken that we ate it morning, noon and night. The following day, Aunt Nene put out a very huge chicken leg on my plate and because of the glutinous rage I had the previous day, I miraculously pass on it. “I am very filled”, I just said to my aunt. Days after, every time I feel hunger in school or anywhere else, I always come back to that day when I rejected a huge tasty KFC chicken leg served on my plate, and always pondered how I should not have turned it down. “Only if I could turn back time”, I always said to myself. Since then I promised myself no to turn down no more chicken legs especially if they are famous chicken legs like KFC and swore tom myself that when I grow up I will buy myself a lot of them KFC chicken legs. These particular childhood dreams as you well know did not let me down every now and then.

You see the food in our lives is at times the portals of our time. The things I ate in the past would remind me of past events or situations in my life. The list of my childhood favorites includes those that are not available anymore like Lemolime, that soothing colorless beverage which always taste better than Sprite or 7-Up combined (those days, Royal Tru-Orange if my memory serves me well, still had some bits of real orange seeds in them. That’s how true an orange drink it was in the past). There was also Caramel candy and Texas chewing gums, which once in a while I see in some faraway sari-sari store, and the list also includes kropeck which still remains in the stand of many of our neighborhood store here in Lustre St. Who could forget the La Perla Saltine biscuits, which actually was not one of my favorite but a staple of one of my older girl cousins. That biscuit became an unlikely disturbance in my childhood days where this older cousin of mine would always looked out for me and send me walking to the store every time she wants to eat it, even at times when I was lazier than a turtle. And unfortunately, she wouldn’t even share it with me. For once then, I regretted all the saltines in the world.

Just like brewed coffee, the thought of the foods in my life send me into a twilight zone, just like the thought I have every time I pass Colonel Sanders’ chicken store.

We talk of quaint fancy foods, yet the hungry amongst us remain cold in the night. Let me take this opportunity to remind the world that in times of bounty, we must become more aware of our responsibility to lift the hands of those who are downtrodden, especially in this season of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. I put online some drama in my life in order that readers may gain more interest and lead them to read the more serious side of my works, especially those in my blog, The Prophecy of Our Time and The Voyage.

Verse for the Day. John 16: 7-9, “ Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me.” These are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.