Introducing – Frank A Hilario, “The Happy Blogger Who Talks Trass!”

September is my birth month; on the 17^th, Friday, I will be 81 – and I must not forget to thank God! I have been asking Him to let me live up to 120 – at least 100!

The above image states the date (in 2018) and suggests “1940” when I was born. I am beginning to celebrate with a new blog, where you are reading this: Tradition, Science & Sense (Trass), https://traditionsciencesense.blogspot.com. This is the first essay of The Happy Blogger Who Talks Trass! (See outline of face above?)

The Hilarios are Roman Catholics. As was required by the parish priest at that time, the name of a newborn came from the Roman Catholic calendar, that of the saint that birth day, and the 17^th of September is the Feast of the Stigmata of St Francis. Localized, the name “Francisco Hilario” was registered in the archives of the Roman Catholic Church of my hometown Asingan in eastern Pangasinan.

“Francisco” did not last very long because in Elementary, when I wrote my name “Francisco Hilario” on top of the Grade 1 paper, the designated line-space was too short! Solution? My father Lakay Disiong (Dionisio Hilario) requested Mrs Bautista to change my recorded name from “Francisco” (9 letters) to “Frank” (5 letters), and she consented. Problem solved. “Frank” was the name of an American soldier who became a family friend during World War 2.

2021. I have been writing essays more than half of my life. Based on the “Multiple Intelligences” theory of Howard Gardner, I have Linguistic Intelligence, which I would consider “idea smart” rather than “word smart” – an essay is not a list of words as in a dictionary but a string of ideas expressed in one’s own manner or style of language.

I will tell you now how I discovered my smart. I attended a private high school, the HS Dept of the Rizal Junior College (RJC), located in the town proper of our hometown. Asingan is mostly Ilocanos, migrants from the Ilocos Region. Even before Grade 1, I had already found that I loved reading the Ilocano monthly magazine Bannawag, but it was in the RJC Library that I discovered I loved more the English language. The RJC had the whole downstairs of a medium-sized house turned into a library, full of books and magazines, British and American classics, and the American magazines I liked: LOOK, TIME, Newsweek, and the Reader's Digest. I particularly enjoyed reading the classics and the Digest.

In 4^th Year High, our Tagalog teacher Ms Constancia E Cruz gave a writing contest to find out who should be the Tagalog Editor of the RJC Newsletter proposed, and I won – surprise! This Ilocano won over the pure and lovers of Tagalog! When I found I had won, I said to myself, more or less, this: “So this is where my talent lies. I will be the best writer I can be!”

At almost 81, after blogging at least 5 million words since 2005, I can tell you that I fulfilled that self promise.@517