Grade School Alpha

Going to the same grade school for eight years (that’s prep plus grades 1-7), I got bored seeing the same campus year in year out. But thanks to my over-active Piscean imagination, I was able to transform the grade school into a wonderful place.

There were days when the grade school would be Moon Base Alpha from the TV series Space: 1999. I would be Commander Koenig, arriving at the base in an Eagle spaceship (in reality, our old Ford Futura—bet you’ve never heard of that one, huh?!) Carrying top secret documents (my school books and size one paper), I’d walk straight to the command post (my classroom). The covered hallways became Moon Base Alpha’s force field-sealed corridors; the grounds outside was the lunar surface. The force field was strong enough to keep space out and to shield the people inside from strong laser blasts. However, one can switch off certain areas of the force field should one want to walk on the surface of the moon.

At the command post (which changed every year, as I moved up grade levels), I’d take my place behind the command console (my wooden desk full of graffiti and etchings) and survey the on-line computer for the tasks at hand. The two huge blackboards on the wall became on-screen monitors which often showed enemy spaceships closing in on the base. I’d bark instructions into my com-link (my Bic ballpen or my Bensia pencil, whichever I was using at the time) and the Eagles will be launched to intercept the enemy.

Of course, in my Moon Base Alpha there was no Maya or Dr. Helena Russell, the two major female characters in the series. I had a big crush on the Alan Carter character back then, but unfortunately I had no classmate who was blonde and blue-eyed.

from left: Koenig, Russell, Maya, Carter

During stormy weather I imagined Moon Base Alpha to be threatened by a severe meteor shower. At times I’d imagine it was being over-run by hostile aliens. Or when I’m really bored, I imagine a meteor the size of Araneta Coliseum colliding with the moon, destroying the whole base. After the dust clears, Moon Base Alpha is no more and in its place is the usual, everyday grade school campus.

By the time I entered high school, my imagination was better served in the theater. But once in a while, as I walked down the corridors, they would transform… and somewhere ahead, an alien is about to turn the corner and pounce on me; I set my ray gun on stun.