By BEHN FER. HORTALEZA, JR.

THREE things to keep your sanity and peace in these stressful times: Old Hanna Barbera cartoons on TV, a quiet brook or creek in a forest and a little child’s (preferably, your apo’s) laughter at play.

I have taken solace, okay, refuge, in these things lately, ones I have been largely ignoring or taking for granted in the past because of pressure of work. Now I find they provide such a unique feeling of relief after a hard day’s or week’s toil. Maybe I’m really getting old.

The cartoons, especially the Tom & Jerry or Mickey Mouse varieties are being re-run in one TV channel and it’s a delight to find yourself almost unconsciously laughing out loud (lol!) in your living room, something you’ve hardly done before. Such therapy, indeed!.

Sometimes, you get to wander into some riverbank or a quiet natural pool and just sitting there, forgetting about the rice shortage, Lozada vs. Panelo, the unsolved disappearances, interfaith or indignation rallies, mediamen’s antics, jueteng, scams ad nauseam, and just listening to the sound of the water flowing and crickets in the bushes reinvigorates the soul in ways you feel so thankful to God for creating such beauty for beholding.

But nothing beats the little child’s mirthful laughter and bubbly kiddie talk to shake the blues away while leisurely whiling away time in the house. It has the effect of blocking out negative thoughts and giving one fresh adrenaline to walk out the door and face the world again.

You’re right, we’re musing.

Times there are when a columnist’s mind just wanders off – for want of a better topic to pick on.

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I must congratulate both organizers of the Bangus Festival in Dagupan and the Pista’y Dayat in Lingayen for coming up with something new and novel to offer summer revelers each time.

This can only mean that both festival centers are not lacking in men and women who stir the spirit so, so to speak, to make people happy on the days leading to the May 1 celebrations. These men and women, most of them to remain largely anonymous or in the sidelines for the most part, are the brainthrusts who carry out the vision of city or provincial officials for a summer festival that will be remembered long after the tents have folded up.

While Dagupan goes for the big bands and ‘rakistas’ that cater to the younger set, the provincial Capitol is putting up a grand orchestra showdown that promises thrills for the old and not-quite-old. Surely, the crowds will be there and a grand time will be had by all.

Bangus Festival’s Belen Fernandez, the city vice mayor, no less, has cooked up so many other features for this year’s event you’d think she’s bidding for the title of World’s Biggest Impressario. With Belen, the catchword at City Hall seems to be “Think Big!”

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The local divisions of the Department of Education (DepEd) can’t seem to shake off some controversies regarding their actions vis-à-vis plantilla items for teachers and some other “interesting” goings-on in their areas.

If the reports are true, the seemingly quiet front on teacher items for the past couple of years, has come to life anew following a supposed incident involving Congresswoman Rachel Arenas, no less and some teachers for whom she painstakingly worked to get much-sought after items.

The scuttlebutt is that Congresswoman Rachel had to intervene for about four teachers for whom she got plantilla items (from where and how, our source failed to tell us) after the latter teachers found out that the schools superintendent had given these “allotted” items instead to other teachers.

When Arenas protested to the superintendent, because she precisely had secured the items for the four teachers in her district, the latter supposedly offered to cancel the items already given to the earlier teachers to accommodate the congresswoman’s request. Quite naturally, Arenas felt awkward about the situation as she thought all along it was the four teachers she mentioned who got the items, not knowing the items have been “compromised” by the superintendent.

Now, the “cancelled out” mentors are reportedly raising hell because, according to some sources, they practically ‘labored’ for the items already, possibly not just with their blood, sweat and tears. At presstime, we don’t know how, if ever, the school superintendent wiggled out of the tight fix,