When we lived in Manila, we were fortunate to have been able to make a few trips to Baguio — up in the mountains where the climate was temperate, even cold during the nights. Back in 1903, Baguio was made the Summer Capital of the Philippine Islands. As you may or may not know, the Philippine Islands became a territorial possession of the United States shortly after the Spanish-American War. Anyhow, shortly after Baguio was proclaimed the Summer Capital, President Theodore Roosevelt reserved an area of 535 acres for military use in the area. This reservation was named Camp John Hay — in honor of John Milton Hay, the Secretary of State in President McKinley’s and Roosevelt’s administrations.
When we lived in the Philippines, there was a very nice golf course at Camp John Hay. We usually stayed in Baguio — all the houses had fireplaces, and you needed them at night. On one of our trips, we had dinner one night at the Forrest House — It was an old house that was a restaurant. It still looked like a regular house… when you ate there you might be seated in the living room or maybe the dining room or even the hall. It made for kind of an intimate setting. Anyhow, the house was located on the edge of town and you had to go there the day before and tell them what you wanted for dinner, because they had to go shopping to get the food. We went out one afternoon to make reservations for dinner the following night. I knocked on the door and an old lady answered and took my order and asked how we liked our food prepared, etc. While I was talking to her, another guy came up and followed the same routine and he ordered steak and wanted it well-done. The lady told him if he wanted his meat well done, he should order fondue and cook it himself, because she wouldn’t serve him steak well-done. He agreed and we both left. When I got in the car, I told Claire about the guy and fondue. She said fondue sounded like fun — maybe we should do that next time.
It just happened that the next night we were seated in the same room with another table of four — one was the guy that ordered the fondue. Everyone seemed to be having a good time until suddenly Claire screamed, “your shirt’s on fire!” I looked up and sure enough the fondue guy had somehow managed to set his shirt on fire — and — hadn’t even noticed. Some of the staff came running and almost immediately put the fire out — it looked like it was the pocket on his shirt that somehow caught fire. Everyone finished their meal and didn’t seem to pay much attention to the big black hole in the guy’s shirt.
Just another day in Baguio and a fitting way to end an enjoyable day of golf…..
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