Remembering Jaime Picornell by Cecilia Brainard

Cecil­ia Brainard Remem­bers Jaime Picor­nell who passed away last August 16, 2021

Pub­lished in Pos­i­tive­ly Filipino

https://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/the-jolly-spaniard-of-cebu

The Jol­ly Spaniard of Cebu

Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard

 

Cebu in the 1950s and 1960s had small-town ways. The city was not as sprawl­ing or as heav­i­ly pop­u­lat­ed as it is now. Fam­i­lies knew one anoth­er. Every­one knew the Picor­nell fam­i­ly. They were a holdover from the Span­ish era, pure Span­ish in blood, though they had assim­i­lat­ed Cebuano ways.

Jaime became close to our fam­i­ly in the mid-1960s. He became a good friend of my broth­er and his wife. When my sis­ter Ana and cousin Chick­ie returned from their post-grad­u­ate stud­ies in Spain, Jaime became close to them. He also became a friend of my moth­er. So, it hap­pened that when I was in Cebu for my school hol­i­days (I attend­ed col­lege in Mani­la), I got to know Jaime better.

He used to come around for merien­da or din­ner, and while we sat around the table, my moth­er would say, “Jaime-Jaime, tell us about …” And Jaime would start telling sto­ries about the per­son­al­i­ties of Cebu, send­ing us into hys­ter­i­cal laugh­ter at his ani­mat­ed live­ly sto­ries. Jaime was a great sto­ry­teller; he knew how to zero on in people’s quirks and turn them into fun­ny anec­dotes. We laughed but knew we had our own pecu­liar­i­ties and that we were all part of the fab­ric of Cebu. — please con­tin­ue read­ing in Pos­i­tive­ly Filipino

Tags: Cebu Soci­ety, Cebu Philippines