Nostalgia Bloggista: Reno Maniquis

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Batgirl & Robin: Me and my older sister around 1978.
Name: Reno Maniquis
Blog: http://ka-blog.blogspot.com

1. Where did you grow up, and what made that place special?
I was born in Sampaloc, Manila, but grew up in Parañaque. I spent childhood, teenage years, and most of my adult life there. I remember when we first moved into our subdivision, we were only the second house in the area. Everywhere you looked you saw "talahib." Me and my siblings and the kids from the one other house used to play hide and seek in the tall grass, never mindful of any snakes that might be living there (and there were). As the years went by, more houses were constructed and the number of our childhood friends grew. We would ride our BMXs, make obstacle courses in the empty lots, and we would play in the still-being-constructed houses, much to the dismay of our parents.

2. What was your favorite tv show, cartoon, or children's show growing up? What did you like about these shows that made them your favorite?
This is a difficult question to answer, since there were so many. Educationally, I'd have to say Sesame Street. I'd watch Electric Company, but Sesame Street was much more interesting since they had a bigger range of topics, whereas Electric Company was concentrated mostly on words and reading. Cartoons... Voltes V wins hands down. I guess it was the first Giant Robot show that was shown here in the Philippines, that's why it made such an impact on kids my age.

3. Favorite music group or artist? Most memorable song?
During the 80s, there were two camps: Duran Duran ka ba o Spandau Ballet? I was always on the Spandau Ballet side. They were just more cooler and suave to me, I guess.

4. Share with our readers one of your fondest memories of growing up.
It was a blast being a kid back then, especially during summer vacation. You'd be out of the house all day, coming home to eat lunch, then take a nap (because your parents told you to), then go out and play again at around 3pm. We played all the games... Taguan, syato, kidlat, tumbang preso, patintero, piko, minkey monkey annabelle, cops and robbers... The whole shebang.

5. What do you miss from back then that's not available today?
I miss seeing kids play outside the house. Nowadays, most kids are cooped up watching TV or playing videos or hunched over on a computer. And during my childhood, parents don't have to worry that their kids are out of the house. There were no cellphones back then, even landline phones were a rarity. There was no way for a parent to track down where their kids are, but still, they weren't too worried. I guess the world was a much safer place back then.

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