Blog
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Friday Photo: Redwood Regional Park
Deborah and Rebecca, Redwood Regional Park, Oakland, California, December 2018. -
Friday Photo: Temple of Kukulcan, Chichen Itza, December 2012
El Castillo or Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, December 17, 2012. -
Friday Photo: One Peso Note from Philippines, 1922
On the wall of The Bahn Mi Shop restaurant in White Plains, NY, a one peso note from the Philippines. The small text across the top of the currency says, “BY AUTHORITY OF AN ACT OF THE PHILIPPINE LEGISLATURE, APPROVED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES JUNE 13, 1922.” That president in 1922 was Warren G. Harding, often regarded as one of the worst presidents. The signature in the center of the note says “S. Osmeña” (for Sergio Osmeña). Beneath that is says “President,” and he was president of the Philippines from 1944 to 1946. -
New poem: ‘A Shooting Star’ in Eye to the Telescope
Thank you to editor Colleen Anderson and Eye to the Telescope for publishing my haiku in Eye to the Telescope Issue 29: The Dark. If you click on the link, you can scroll to the end to read it. The poem is much shorter than even this blog post.The poem, by the way, was written during my stay at an artist residency in Cadaqués, Spain. So thank you to Catherine and Sergio for making the new poem possible!
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In memory of my father
Col. Maximiano “Max” Romualdez Janairo Jr., a man of deep faith and honor, died early Thursday, September 27, 2018, after a long illness surrounded by family at home in Mount Lebanon, Pa. He was 85 years old.A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Janairo served in Korea and Vietnam before becoming the district engineer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Pittsburgh from 1975 to 1978, when he retired from the military. As district engineer, Janairo oversaw the U.S. Army’s response to the 1977 Johnstown Flood and took responsibility for the delayed opening of the new Brady Street Bridge, which earned him accolades in the media for being a rare, honest public servant.
Janairo was born in Manila, Philippines, to the late Amelia Romualdez Janairo and Col. Maximiano Saqui Janairo. The elder Janairo was a 1930 graduate of West Point who survived the Bataan Death March, escaped from the prisoner of war camp, and hid out with his family in the provincial village of his birth. At that time, the elder Janairo enlisted Max Jr., then 11, to take notes to friends in neighboring villages. Only after the war, did Max Jr. learn that he had been carrying hand-drawn maps of Japanese-occupied military facilities to guerrilla fighters.
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