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The TBTK (Tigum Bol-anon Tibuok Kalibutan) that gathers Boholanos worldwide into the province every three years is a source of envy of other places. They want to copy it.

The ties that bind, the bonds that unite kindred spirits from different walks and climes is a joy to behold. Even as early as meeting at the metropolitan airports in Manila and Cebu, the "Luzonites" exclaim that Boholanos bond with one another right there as if they had not met one another for a hundred years. And it might as well be.

Amid the thunderous festivity of the animated street dancing and nightly entertainment fares in the province, it is always the reunions that highlight the Boholanos' coming home. It can be a town, clan, or school reunion like the big ones for the University of Bohol, Holy Name University and the Holy Spirit School, among others.

In between that, many cafes, especially that at the Metro Centre Hotel was converted into class reunions of participants' whose faces were all aglow with happy reminiscing of days and (looks) gone by. Talks would rotate around silly fisticuffs between the boys and the comfort rooms that had seen better days. It meant recalling past loves and crushes who now have their own joyful families.

Reunions are great equalizers - there are no price tags on one's successes in life - simply kids reverting back to those times when innocence was everyone's middle name and every one was easy to please. Eyes would moisten whenever they speak of their beloved departed teachers who had molded their character and intellects like no one else could have done in this lifetime.

Some reunions were simple - red wine over dinner and a dance thereafter - recounting how the poundage found its way into where it does not belong today. Pictures on video of then and now - were incontrovertible pieces of evidence. Single children - male and female were mischievously matched by those parents interested in improving the human race.

Other reunions lasted days - they spending days on beaches and touring the wonders of Bohol - wonders that assume new dimensions in one's eyes as the years moved into decades, it would seem. There were reunions where participants wore their old elementary uniforms. Some of them actually looked cute in them; others we reserve comments in the interest of mercy.

We look at former classmates and friends with a different eyeglass now. One has become a judge with his integrity intact - an achievement considering the workings of our justice system. Some married rich, others married problems - but all hopefully married for love, ah that great poison! Some aged beyond their time but others seem to have found the fountain of youth - yet both are happy in their little worlds. But in most, it was always the children that added spice and spunk to their lives.

Many have taken religion and God more seriously now than ever, others become agnostic and atheists. With the passing years, many of the boys became more macho and the girls more feminine but wily - but still a few others switched sex - surrendering to the folly of forever hiding behind the closet. But during reunions, no one makes value judgments. In fairness, a few became nuns and priests - a pool of prayer warriors to intercede for the wayward.

Reunions allow people to watch the massive transformation that modernization and urban living had affected positively their towns or city. All recount the easy days of yesteryears - all wanting to return to a bit of that bliss but pinching oneself that we are in the 21st century with bills to pay.

But most of all, reunions are about families. It allows brothers and sisters to share the deepest secrets and yearnings with one another, knowing that the support will be total and unquestioning. But the greatest persons to come home to are parents - they who broke back and piggy banks to send us to good schools and who spent sleepless nights when we got sick, who cried in our triumphs and failures - they are the glue that holds together reunions.

Reunions rekindle likewise bittersweet memories as together they visit the graves of their departed loved ones - and this makes their absence more pronounced. But we do also hear of joyful stories of faceless men and women who gather every All Saints Day at the graves of departed parents and stick candles around their tomb - in gratitude for a help or favor extended to these folks when the parents were still alive. Then memories of their goodness flood one's mind as if a hundred candles have been lighted in the dark.

Reunions allow them to appreciate the strides Bohol has made in almost all fields of endeavor - as they exchanged great stories and statistics that make Bohol a province they can all be proud of.

To be sure, every one who comes home - goes back richer in memories of a golden past and enjoying a lingering feeling of inseparable bond with those one came in contact with.

Everyone who had touched any one in his homecoming to the place he calls home can only be called enriched, loved and humanized.

Of what a feeling!