I remember waking up on Saturdays, smelling omelettes frying in the kitchen, Bournvita or Milo, Belle Hollandaise condensed milk, which used to consumed in unhealthy volumes, much to the discouragement of my dad.

Being a child was fun, things were easy, and simple. No responsibilites, you were supposed to be courteous to your elders, finish up your food, sleep on time, and that was about it. It is when you reach the ages of 10, 11, 12 that responsibility comes in, you become more accountable for the tidiness of your room, you are chastised for not waking up on time, if you have younger ones, their wellbeing is your responsibilty, to the extent that sometimes you are more conscious of the sibling than they are of themselves.

Tidyness was always a major issue in our house, me and my older brother shared a room, and we subscribed to the maxim: "Tidy-up only when absolutely necessary"...My dad, being a Virgo, is obsessively tidy, and his phrase was "Tidiness is next to Godliness", so it was his job to make his little imps spotless, a task he found to be very...tasking. Of course, there were countless times when my brother and I decided, independently, to clean up our room when we woke up in the morning, however, my dad would constantly beat us to the alarm, we would then be shouted out of bed, and spend the morning sweeping and picking up litter, with tears streaming down our cheeks!

Dinner time, or food for that matter, another big deal in our household. You see, I had, and still have an enormous apetite, to the delight of both parents, and the annoyance of my siblings, as I would usually get a bigger share of the food.

Upon seeing the pile of rice in my plate, they would sometimes lodge complaints, knowing full well that they couldn't dispatch that plate if it was given to them.

My dad used to come back from work after we had eaten dinner, so if anyone was still hungry, the best thing to do was hang around him as he ate, and give out signals that you could do with some more food. These signals usually were subtle: long stares at his plate, while making sure he observed you observing his plate. If that didn't work, there was the more desperate method, this was done by rubbing your belly coupled with a misrable look on the face, this would lead to my Dad asking the question: Are you alright?...leading you to reply: No! the key was not to sound too forceful, make sure all the questions were asked by him. After you reply No, he would then ask: "what's wrong?"...then you reply slowly, but firmly: "I'm hungry"...this method won you sympathy points, and some rice and meat.

However, if that method did not work, desperate measures were called for, this would usually involve standing very close to him as he ate, forcing him to ask: "What do you want?"...without hesitation, you replied: "Food!"..or if you wanted to be polite, you could answer: "Are you going to finish that?"...this method was crude, and did not get you sympathy points, and it only got you rice, but no meat.

Speaking of meat, I remember as a child acknowledging the paradox: My dad used to tell us to eat our food, because we needed to grow, have muscles, become tall etc. However, when it came to quantities of meat, he always got more. This was odd, as surely he had peaked in development, and the folks who by his own admission, needed the food, were getting far less that he did. I guess I accepted it as one of the complexities of society.

Sundays, oh yes. Sunny days. Everyone woke up early for church. I remember running to my parents room to get my shoes tied, or my buttons buttoned (it's amazing how helpless a five year old still is) the room smelled of after shave and talcum powder. We were always in a rush on Sundays, no one wanted to get to church late.

Honestly, as child, church could be very very boring, sitting there as a robed man spoke for what seemed like an eternity, as you looked around, your parents and others nodded in agreement, while you had a puzzled look on your face, wondering what was so good about this 'church thing' that people got dressed and came out in droves.

One way of not going to church was to feign illness, an illness that suddenly hit you in the morning! Another way we as kids thought would get us off church was to pretend to have lost our Bibles, we figured that by misplacing the key ingredient of churchgoing we would be exempt from participation...how wrong were we? As my dad kept a stash of extra bibles for such occasions! We were tossed a bible and bundled to church.

Robot  # 1 | 27.06.2008 11:12

I remember waking up on Saturdays, smelling omelettes frying in the kitchen, Bournvita or Milo, Bell...Read the full article.

pappilo  # 2 | 27.06.2008 13:09

=Robot;4295061684>Speaking of meat, I remember as a child acknowledging the paradox: My dad used to tell us to eat our food, because we needed to grow, have muscles, become tall etc. However, when it came to quantities of meat, he always got more. This was odd, as surely he had peaked in development, and the folks who by his own admission, needed the food, were getting far less that he did. I guess I accepted it as one of the complexities of society. This is very true. We needed the meat more than our parents yet we only got one piece while they had loads. I also hated going to church and was always glad if my parents had been to a party till late the night b4 and we didnt have to go to church the nxt day. The best part of the church service for me was the procession of the choir and reverend leaving the church (Anglican) This signalled the end of the service and ice cream time! Thanks for the piece, a nice one to read at the start of the wekend

philipikita  # 3 | 28.06.2008 01:10

Good old days. As the son of the "village headmaster" we didn't lack the goodies enjoyed by Julian during breakfast. But it soon fizzled out! I remember I had this little puppy, I would run in and open the large tin of powdered milk, dip my bare fingers and just fetch milk to dilute for my heaalthy looking fat puppy. Dad would say "I want puppy to have the milk, but at least, try to measure and track the quantity of milk you fetch, use a spoon...don't waste...some people around us don't have, you could find yourself as one of such tomorrow...". It did not take long before the government started rationing "essential commodities" including milk! Papa's left over food is really sweeter. For me, I waited for Papa's left over not because I did not have enough (even if I left over my dinner portion), We must struggle for the little left over by Papa and Mama would scream, "Is it not you that just abandoned your food now?!!!". It is a custom in my community...the kid(s) must enjoy the little left over. Hmn, church...it was really, really boring to me as a kid. Up till this day, I love short, 15-30 minute sermons/messages/lessons that just hit the nail on the head. I cannot be a passive listener to somebody delivering a monologue for more than 1 hour. Once church goes beyond 2 hours, I leave.

mulan  # 4 | 28.06.2008 04:11

Nice piece, had me laughing out loud a few times especially the more and most desperate measures of getting dad's leftover food. Brings back good memories too. Thanks for the article...

Agidimolaja  # 5 | 29.06.2008 02:18

Good old days. Yes indeed! You however did not tell your readers when and where you grew up. We probably did not grow up around the same time nor in the same area.Nevertheless there are some similarities about those good old days. Those days were so good as well as somehow funny too.Do you see it so too? Do some things you did in the past looked funny or even stupid? Dinner is ready around 7pm.By say 8pm every one must have ate except Dad who was either attending the village's evening meeting of men or just having good time with his friends around kegs of palmwine. At about 8pm he would return home and to dinner. We already ate but were still lurking around, waiting for his left over.We were actually not after the food but the meat that accompanied the food which as usual was in excess compared to what we were given. As soon as he finished eating,we shall all emerge to clean the table and start to scramble for the left over meat. Sundays?Yes,I loved Sundays.I loved to go to the church then.Moreso,it was the only day of the week when kids were allowed to wear their pairs of shoes. My grandmother took custody of all our shoes.She would release them to us only on Sundays for the purpose of going to church and would duely collect them back as soon as the church was over. There was no wearing of shoes to evening church service because according to my grandmother God had already retired to His inner chambers;that we are only going in the evening time to say goodnight to Him. Funny! For quite sometime I had problem with wearing my shoes. I used to put the left foot on the right foot.Thanks to my junior sister who always point out the error to me. Rice was not a popular food in the village.Rice was considered as ceremonial food. It used to be prepared during notable festivals like Christmas,New Year and Easter. Amala,Poundedyam etc were the order of the day and there were plenty of them,quite enough to feed everybody. Children ate together and slept together and {where there is big river}, bath/swim together. Bread was not also popular as food. At first in my village,bread was available only on five-day market.Who ate bread regularly then?The School teachers and the Pastors. We were of the Baptist and its Pastor was a distant relative.It was in his house that I first drank Ovaltine.Therefore,whenever I visited him my grandmother would force me to drink a glass of very bitter herbal liquid{agbo} because according to her the Pastor must have given me Ovaltine that was prepared with sugar{whiteman's salt} which may make my stomach to start rumbling.