LAUNCHING OF ARIEL'S ILOKANO BOOK

Ilokano writers' literary icon, Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, will be launching his Ilokano dictionary at the Mariano Marcos State University, Laoag campus, on July 27. We arrived today in the so-called Sunshine City for this event. We left Oscariz, Ramon, Isabela yesterday, slept in Baguio at the house of my third son and his family. Went down to San Fernando this morning and met Errol Abrew and Prescy Bermudez and had lunch at Chowking along Maharlika Road.

SIMONIE AND OTHER RELATIVES

     My cousin Simonie, who lives in LA, writes long and nice letters. She has a good command of the language of her adopted country. Now and then she visits the country, staying in Manila and Laoag, where the old ancestral home is located along V. Ligot Street in West Riverside. 

     There are two photos of her she gave to my sister Linda who resides in Waimanalo, Hawaii. One photo was taken in May 2000 on her 62nd birthday when she was crowned"Mother of the Year" at the Fil-Am Community Center of Los Angeles. Another photo shows her dancing with Raymond, her son who had just graduated at the University of the Pacific Mac George College of Law.

     In her last letter to Linda, she conveyed the sad news of her Uncle Efren's untimely death in Canada. She talked of her cousin Judit--my classmate in the grades in Laoag--who has been undergoing chemotherapy since she was diagnosed to have cancer of the uterus. At the time, Judit's sister Eva, who was living in Laoag, had cancer of the lymph node, the same disease that killed her sister Myrna in Colorado. (Judit eventually died years later.)

to be continued  

FOR LAARNI SUELA

I hope you are all fine there in Davao. 
Laarni, please give me your address in Davao and your cellphone number. You can text your cp no.

Don Corleone (Anib-Israel Julian and his wife Dianne and his Mom Estelita in California

I will be sending a book to you.