Legacy

This story starts shortly after the beginning of World War II in the Pacific.  My name is Robert Brady; my wife’s name is Alicia Brady, albeit she didn’t become my wife until sometime after the beginning of this story.  Her maiden name was Simpson.

I’d first met Alicia about five years ago, I wasn’t happy to meet her.  She was well poised, had a perfect professional smile, dressed very well, and was extremely beautiful.  She was also cold as ice.

We as fate had it were competitors.  We each represented different Medical Equipment Companies vying for a big contract, especially with hospitals being built.  It seemed everywhere I went, there she was, trying to outdo me.  Sometimes she did, but I held my own and won my fair share of contracts. Still a cat and dog relationship, not that I’m saying she was catty, just cold.  I used to say if she had one warm thought she’d probably burst into flames.

Anyway, here we were at each others professional throat again at an almost finished in construction, new hospital in Manila, the Philippines.  We’d each spent a bit of time making our presentations.  The potential buyers decided it was time for a lunch break and they would tell us their decision in a couple of hours.

There we sat in the same restaurant as far apart as possible.  To this day neither of us has any idea what the buyers decision might have been.  For you see, before lunch was over, bombs started falling.  Japan was invading the Philippines. To say the least the restaurant emptied out fast, no one even stopped to pay for their lunch.

Well Alicia and I must have been of one mind about one thing; that was to haul out of there, forget selling anything and head for home. That turned out to be easier said than done.  I’ll give Alicia credit, she could really move, even in those high heels.

We headed for the airport as fast as we could run. Get a taxi, forget it, they were high tailing it out also.  So it was a fast foot race there.  Got there and discovered that wasn’t a workable escape route as Japanese troops had already landed and that was one place they took control of first.

So we looked at each other and found we could converse decently when we had a common interest. Besides, we both spoke English. We decided to head away from the airport and would try and figure out where safety might be one step at a time.  The Japanese were rounding up people indiscriminately, loading them into trucks going God knows where.  We knew we didn’t want to find out where.  We took an very erratic path trying to get out of town. Ducking down one street or another, sometimes an alley, but finally our luck ran out.

Some Jap’s noticed us and we ended up trapped in a dead end street.  They pushed into the back of a canvassed covered truck and told us to behave.  Already in the truck were an elderly Philippine man and a dozen children.  The children a mix of boys and girls about ages six through nine were a combination of American and British children taken from their school along with their teacher, the elderly Philippine man.

There was one guard in the back of the truck with us.  We were going to be taken to someplace we wouldn’t like, that was for sure.  We left the city and after a couple of hours going through the countryside started to go upgrade toward the mountings such as they were.

We started through an area with dense vegetation and many trees.  At least what I could tell from the back of the truck.  Some of the trees were almost blocking out the sunlight and cast many shadows.  The road was rather narrow and for some unexplainable reason the truck was moving relatively slow.

I leaned over to Alicia and said don’t ask why, just flirt with the guard.  That didn’t set well with her and she give me the old stink eye, but did as she was asked; using that professional smile she was famous for.  That wee bit of distraction was all I needed; I sucker punched him with all I had.  He went out like a light and never made a sound.  Of course now everyone in the truck knew something was up.

I grabbed his rifle and bandolier full of ammo, made a follow me motion and we all hastily jumped off the back of the truck and silently ran into the undergrowth.  We figured as hard as I hit that guard it would be twenty or thirty minutes before he came to and sounded the alarm.  By then we would have gone who knows where and they would never know either.  As it turns out, where was a good question, we had no idea of where we were, just happy not to be on the truck any longer.

Needless to say we distanced ourselves from the road very rapidly just in case.  After a while we came to a stream. That was nice, it was fast flowing and pristine, perfectly safe to drink from.  Now when one is not to sure where one is and one comes across a stream, one usually follows it down stream. Theory is that will lead to civilization.  But in this case that would mean more Jap’s.  So we decided to follow it upstream.  Alicia was very good in helping with the children.  I began to think she might have a soft spot in her icy façade.

The first night out we had come to a small clearing.  We started a small fire for warmth as it gets a bit chilly at night even in higher up jungle country.  Also hoped it would keep away any nosy unwanted critters.  As the evening waned on, Alicia sidled up besides me, looking a bit vulnerable.  She quivered a bit a said she was scared out of her mind.  I acknowledged I wasn’t feeling as secure as I wished either.  I thought, what do you know, the old iceberg is thawing.  Now I didn’t mean to have such sarcastic thoughts, but one must realize that she and I had a long standing adversarial relationship. Nothing personal in the overtones, but that was the way it had been.

Probably she thought the same, but funny now we were going to have to join forces and be a team.  I mean an old man and twelve children is hardly a responsibility you can ignore; and certainly we weren’t going to be able to wish it away. It would obviously take joint effort.  So we’d need to become friends somehow.

Water was not a problem, but food was.  Fortunately the old man was familiar with what plants and berries were safe to eat, so we got along fairly well in assuaging our hungers.  We followed the stream upwards for a few days.  I think we had increased our elevation by at least a hundred feet, but still no shortage of vegetation or chattering monkeys and birds.  So far hadn’t encountered any bad creatures, like snakes. Though I was told they exist.

We came to what was apparently the streams source at that level, it was a waterfall of moderate flow with about a sixty foot drop into a beautiful pool.  There had been notice of an occasional wild pig; and while it was tempting, I wasn’t sure who might hear a shot.  We didn’t want to draw any Jap attention.

In looking around the area I noticed a cave entrance about two hundred feet to the right of the waterfall.  I thought lucky us, a good shelter and place to hide from the war.  It was a fancy cave entrance; it was faced off with heavy logs to form it. They were ornately carved.  A few feet in front of it was like a stone bench.  I said to my self, nice, it even comes equipped with a patio.

I went back to tell the others of our good fortune in what I’d found.  The old man about stood on his head and became very excited, almost agitated over the news.  He said can’t go in their, very bad, dangerous place.  It was home of the giant blue Guruangas.  I said what on earth are you talking about?  He then told this story that sounded like it came out of a comic book, but he was serious.

Apparently a couple of centuries back the cave was occupied by seven foot tall blue men who wore shiny suits.  They were very scary, and even though no one could say they ever harmed anyone, it was probably because of appeasements.  Namely, food offerings left regularly on the stone bench.  Also it seems it had been many a year since anyone reported a sighting.

I figured whatever, probably means they are no longer there.  I said I wasn’t worried. But the old gentlemen persisted in insisting it was no place to go.  I countered we were going; everyone found that acceptable except the old man.  Yes he was an educated teacher, but superstitious as could be.  I finally put it to him this way; you can join us or stay out here and wait for an opportunity to greet some more Jap’s.

He was none to happy about having his arm twisted and suggested I didn’t have enough respect for my elders.  Nevertheless he came along.  Big surprise, at least for the old man, no one was at home.  Seeing how possession is nine tenths of the law, I claimed it as ours.

A couple of days later while looking over the cave more closely, I couldn’t see any signs of it having been habituated by anything, except for a few bats.

The surprise came when I was exploring the rear part of the cave with one of our home made torches and found a small opening with some stairs leading down.  Just had to see what that was about.  They went down only about fifteen steps then leveled off into another passage.  You guessed it; I had to see where it went.  Well it went about one hundred feet and then I came to a set of stairs going up.

It was getting rather interesting.  I’d come that far and figured might as well go farther.  Those were about another fifteen steps and at the top a short passage of maybe ten feet into the daylight.  Whoa! Nellie, what a surprise, it opened into a lush valley that appeared to be about two miles long and one mile wide.  It was completely surrounded by the high hills or mini mountains if you wish.  The only way in or out was through that cave.

Well I pranced like a kid with a new toy all the way back to the others.  Needless to say it was a big surprise to them also.  Even the old mans eyes got wide.  Still he was the nervous one.

I said I think we have found the place to safely wait out the war.  Everyone thought that was probably true. We decided to occupy the valley and make the best of it.  Even in the valley we could hear the sounds of war in the distance and observed the Japanese airplanes that would fly over on occasion.  We were glad they had no idea what they were flying over on their way to where ever.

We never did encounter any giant blue men in shiny suits, but they may have been there at one time.  As we toured and explored the valley, we came across some shelters that had been built by who knows.  They were in good shape and some of the materials used in them were not familiar to us.

In some of them and nearby, we found some very basic tools, crudely made out of again, unknown materials, but very functional. Shovel’s, axes, something resembling a plow.  There were tables and chairs in some of the shelters that were a little large for our use.  We used some of the found tools to modify them to our size.

One day while looking around in the valley I came across a wreckage of some sort of craft. Not much left of it. It looked like it had been pretty well stripped.  Probably explains the material we found used in the shelter and crude tool construction.  It also made me seriously suspect that the old tale of blue skinned giants may have been true. But they certainly weren’t around any longer.

Well the days were passing and the over flight of Jap planes we were getting used to.  During this time I discovered old stone face was indeed human after all and actually a very nice person.  We shared the responsibility for the children and assigned them as they were able to tasks helpful to the group.  The old teacher continued to teach the children and that helped their education to not fall to far behind.

Indeed over the first year there had been a great affection develop between Alicia and I, yes it was love.  We decided to marry. However in the absence of a regular Preacher to do the ceremonies, we asked the old teacher to officiate. He was pleased and delighted to do so.

Altogether after about three and a half to four years had passed.  We stopped seeing Jap planes and started noticing American planes.  We concurred it was time to come out of our sanctuary and head back to civilization.  This time we did follow the stream down and sure enough we found civilization again

We got back to Manila with our little band.  We did our best to find the parents of the children, but only succeeded for four of them.  It was a tearful reunion.  The other eight had tears also, but apparently their parents hadn’t survived the interment camps the Jap’s had set up.

The old man retired and was able to get his teachers pension.  The other eight children; well we had developed a strong bond with them so after asking if they would like it, and they all said they would very much.  We adopted them and brought them back to the states with us.  Since then we have had two more of our own and now we are ten strong, child wise.  We knew that we couldn’t pursue our previous careers because they would have kept us away from home way to much.

So we went to Idaho and started a small ranch.  The kids were great in doing ranch chores.

Anyway folk’s, that’s how we became The Original Brady Bunch.