Lola Bats story 11: Lolo Bats, the mechanic

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Lola Bats used to say that she and Lolo Bats did not reach the highest levels of education during their youth. It was quite understandable... back in their time, anyone who finished grade school in the Philippines could already get a good job. Lola Bats did not finish grade school but Lolo Bats probably did. 

Lola Bats used to tell us that Lolo Bats was a skilled mechanic. He used to work at the well-respected Batangas Transportation Company (BTCo.) during the Commonwealth era. It's one of the most prominent bus companies... it's known as the red bus. More than 50 years later, I (a pre-school student) became a regular passenger of this bus company, typically catching the bus plying the Laguna-Tayabas route (hence the new abbreviation, BLTBCo.)

Anyway...

Lola Bats had fond stories about Lolo Bats going to work wearing a white uniform. He used to be assigned to fix stalled engines. People in the barrio had a high regard for him because he'd tinker with the problematic engines for a bit and then they would be functional again. But this was before World War II, when my grandparents were still based in Batangas. I wondered what the buses looked like back then (between 1930 and 1940) because the earliest photos I could find of the red bus came from the 1960s.

The red BTCo. bus which my dad actually remembers riding as a kid. (SOURCE: https://www.batangashistory.date/2018/05/transpo-batangas.html).

This bus certainly didn't look like the bus that I grew up riding. Since this bus was used in the 1960s, I doubted that this was the same model that Lolo Bats used to fix. The battle in Cuenca during World War II was so brutal that buses didn't survive the war intact. So I continued searching... but there weren't many photos of BTCo. buses before the war (most probably, the photos didn't survive the war either).

One photo of a BTCo. bus did survive... and from it, I learned that buses back then do not look like modern buses at all! This particular bus resembles a caritela down to its wheels but it's not pulled by an animal anymore. It also looks like a jeepney (even with the trapal for cover against rain, except that the vehicle is open on both sides. Now that I think about it, it reminds me of San Francisco's cable cars!

A BTCo. bus from 1918 (SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/pg/busnapula1918/photos/?ref=page_internal)

Could Lolo Bats have been repairing this version of the BTCo. bus? 

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