Childhood died yesterday

Photocredit:1Qfood

For all the times I had to break my sweet Sunday sleep to drive my boys to the church for their catechism classes I would remember how mother would be taking her Sunday nap while we walked to the church for Cathechism and Benediction without disturbing her.

In those days, we saved some coins for Sunday and bought the coloured water called iced cream tied in small transparent plastic bags yet we never got sick.

We bought kpof-kpof and asked for extra sugar on top and we never got sick. We ate elewa, the sweet hausa candy that looked like sugar cane and also ate kwili kwili but never got sick.

Kwili kwili
Photo credit: pinterest

There were a couple of  popular events in Enugu that the young people were always a part of,  church bazaars are right on top of the list.

We had our money ready for lucky dips and special bazaar delicacies from the different church zones. A lot of boys got their first chances at wooing girls and some girls were also toasted for the first time.

For the generation before mine, they attended extra morals were all sorts of mischief happened in place of what they were really enrolled for and the afternoon jumps (parties) were a must for everyone.

Photo credit: pinterest

I remember sitting with the rest of the family to watch the soul train not forgetting other TV programmes like the Tales by moonlight, New Masquerade, Sura the Tailor,  Ichoku, Willie Willie, Cock crow at Dawn, Mirror in the Sun and later on Checkmate.

The foreign ones were a hit too, soaps like Another Life, Falcon Crest, The Love Boat, The Brady Bunch, Dynasty, The Colbys and the Cosby Show.

Our children may never enjoy clean action movies like the Knight Rider, Get Smart, Our Man Flint, or Hawai Five O. They don’t know Django, Chuck Noris, Cynthia Rothrock, Bruce Lee or James Bond and also Jackie Chan or Indiana Jones.

There will never be classics like The Sound of Music, The King and I, Chitichitibambam, Wizard of the Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Grease, Seven Brides for Seven brothers, My Fair Lady, Hello Dolly and Singing in the rain, Westside story -  when women were fully clothed and still looked good. Decency was the sexy then.

I recently saw a clip from a popular Indian “film”  from back in the days with the theme song “janimahun janitige eh janitimana ajani lelele” (Lol!). That made my stomach turn in nostalgia. It reminded me of many others like the Burning Train, Sunita and Amah, Akbar Anthony and the one of the girl who was also a snake and had to avenge the death of her snake husband.  I doubt Indian movies of these days will be as captivating as they used to.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

What will our children talk about when they grow older? What childhood stories will they tell their children? Will they teach them how to jump the ropes or how to make okoso from bottle tops and pen covers?

When someone farted and wouldn’t own up everyone would have to go through the strange way of finding out the culprit; a broomstick would be pinned on each person’s jaw one after the other and the person whose turn it was  would be asked to say certain things.
If the broomstick fell off that person was the culprit. Lol!

When things were lost, a certain portion of the bible would be opened, a key tied to it and the passage which started with return return would be chanted by the self imposed diviner, the bible usually returned at the mention of the culprit’s name. Strange!

Flying kites made from paper and garri and riding a borex were among the favourite things to do. Children also used the borex which is loaded with a lot of ingenuity from its makers to run errands for their homes especially fetching water in gallons.

A tupical Nigerian kite
Photo credit:PBS

Little boys made boats from paper and raced them in the flowing drainage after a downpour. I also remember skipping ropes where we had to jump on singing songs like "January February March, April May June July......"

We played with thread using our fingers to create all sorts of images and made big circles to create space for our games. Oh how nostalgic I feel right now!

We read more in those days and at every stage in life we had books to read, Sweet Valley High and Pacesetters and Mills and Boon will forever be close to my heart. Chike and the River was the book I read the fastest, I just couldn’t put it down.

Photo credit:goodreads

Chinua Achebe lived in every home and the trials of Brother Jero brought Wole Soyinka into our homes in Enugu.

Photo credit:Amazon UK

Who will tell the kids about horror movies of those days that terrified us ike Frankincense, Jaws and Nightmare on Elm Street or I spit on your grave?

This generation do not write love letters laced with one's favourite perfume or a lipstick sign of kiss. They may never understand what it means to be the only sugar in someone's tea. They will definitely not understand how precious postcards were to us. "No vacancy here, try next door"

Oh what a life we lived then! We survived without phones and only watched television at set times.

There’s a medical report now on how looking at the phone a lot is causing back/spine diseases in individuals. This is something to worry about considering that our children do everything on and with their phones.

I worry about such diseases caused by this present day living, going from air conditioner in the home to air conditioner in the car. In those days we used our vehicles without air coditioners. No walking or other daily physical activities. We go from watching television to using the phone, little wonder more children wear glasses these days.

There's a lot to talk about on life from way back but I'll rest my thoughts here for now and think of this generation who may never have real childhood memories for the real childhood died yesterday!