The Distant Glow

About the Book

As an autobiography, The Distant Glow traces the story of my life to the rough and rigorous way of life in Corella, Bohol my birthplace. Descending from generations of very poor and illiterate ancestors, I exceeded my parents’ grade three education by finishing grade six and graduating as elementary school valedictorian. Because my parents could not afford to send me to high school in the city, I stayed out of school for six years, helping my father on the farm and my mother in household chores. One of several backbreaking works I used to do was climbing several coconut trees, about 50 feet in height, to tap the trees (sanggutan) for “tuba”, a coconut juice that yields mildly alcoholic drink. I used to climb 20 coconut trees every morning, noon and evening, mount over top, sit on one of the palms and tap the juice. One evening after sunset, while atop the sanggutan, I saw a glow, a distant glow. I muttered to myself: “Someday, I’ll find out what causes that glow.” I equated that statement to my goals in life. I did find out what caused the distant glow. Other distant glows appeared and I reached most of them with hard work and having a dream. When the owners of a private school offered me an opportunity to go to their school free of tuition, provided that I maintained the first place standing in the class honor roll, I went to high school, starting at age 20. To help shoulder the other costs of going to high school in the city, I paid my room and board with service: scrubbing and polishing the floor, fetching water from an artesian well and gathering firewood every weekend for the landlord family. With all the hardship, I maintained the tuition-free deal and graduated from high school as class valedictorian.

About the Author

Terry Sarigumba descended from very poor parents who inherited their poverty from poor and illiterate ancestors. With scholarships and assistantship grants, he finished high school, college and graduate school. Terry found a job in private industrial forestry in the US in which he used scientific innovations to help the companies he worked for to cost effectively and environmentally meet their corporate goals. Terry and his wife, Nattie (nee Del Mundo), has resided in Brunswick, Georgia since 1975 and they are just six years away from celebrating their golden wedding anniversary in 2019. Terry and Nattie are blessed with three sons, Edzel, Glenn and Dean, who are all hard-working, talented and academically and professionally successful, with two lovely and loving daughters-in-law, Valerie (Nee Dippery), Edzel’s wife and Robin (nee Wedekind), Dean’s wife and five beautiful grandchildren: Dominic (8), Mitchell (6), Noelle (4), Abigail (4) and Madeline (2). With the grandchildren (APOs), Terry and Nattie enjoy doing APOstolic work.