Before Now

I remember childhood, and then I was one of the best Civil and Mechanical Engineers, without a degree though. My mud house, which I constructed without any foundation but my foot was usually the last to fall, and my car, which I constructed with mostly ply wood and small wheels was second to none when it came to the street Formula One, then I drove faster than Hamilton can on a Mercedes. My airplane was faster than any airline, and was stronger than any fighter jet, with just a nylon polyethylene and broom sticks or even a piece of paper, I constructed the best plane ever, except mine had no division of class, and wasn't a passenger aircraft anyway.

Louis Figo was usually my captain; his prowess when it comes to accurate passes was second to none. Raul Gonzalez, Oliver Kahn, Jay Jay, Kanu, though from different countries and clubs, always made my first team, because as kids in that soccer game of Canter, we were at liberty to place any player anywhere. Thanks to Pepsi for giving us crown corks that had pics of those legends on it. How glad I was when I picked a crown cork of any of my legends. I wonder how those crown corks went into extinction.

Goal posts don't change positions these days, in our days, they were made of sheet of paper torn out of our school exercise books or the paper bag of St. Louis Sugar and we always changed their positions whenever a free kick was awarded against us, it is allowed as long as your opponent doesn't catch you.

Canter games then were our Xbox and PS4, there were no computer tricks, we manufactured the tricks ourselves, and anywhere could be used as a Stadium, our veranda in most cases was my Highbury stadium, as long as my parents weren't at Home, our balls were often the rollers of any old radio cassette or any small rounded stone that can move about freely.

We tried all form of sports, and even created many that had no names. What would you call 'shooting of rubber bands'? I think IAAF should include that as a game in Olympics, and maybe should also be included into the Military training, that game made us Grade A snipers.

Whot and Ludo were mostly for the females, each time they were done cooking those tasteless watery soup they prepare with any green leaf, even poisonous ones and sand, I always wondered how a tin of tomato could serve one person, talk more of the whole family in the street play we always acted.

Well, judo and Karate were my favorite games; I preferred those to running around with guns replicating the action movies we watched. In those war games, our guns were carved with ply wood or anything that had the shape of a gun. If the Nigerian Army had trained us well, by now BokoHaram would have been history, because as kids we were champions in guerilla warfare. Trust me, you can't find me if I dare hide. Our only problem and maybe why I hated the game was that it always ended quickly, nobody wanted to die, we all wanted to be 'Actor' and not 'Boss' always forming 'Odeshi', so whenever you shoot somebody and he refused to die, you too would not die in your own turn, and everybody got upset and the game was over.

But Karate was different, Jackie Chan was my favorite, trust me, I would have had a black belt at 14 if I had continued with Karate, but I got the scare of my life after my innocent kick left a friend profusely bleeding from the nose. From then, I never raised my legs.

Then we were great footballers, I wasn't very good at that sport, but I always had a ball, I had four or more at a time, and even though I was usually kept on the sidelines I still enjoyed the game.

Suddenly, amidst the enjoyment of all those games which could all happen in a day, my friends knew the warning bell, and would shout my name whenever they sighted mum coming home. I had studied her time, and most times would be in my bed already cleaned up and reading before she returned. But when she takes me by sudden, a friend was always on the lookout and would always call out to me.

Trust me, Bolt is still a learner, my speed can be compared to that of light, and my pretence was smarter and faster than a cat's. But Mum, Haba! I don't know if she used jazz, she knew just how to get you.

"You are grounded" was the statement that always came after I had received the spanking, it got worse when I left the chores undone. I was grounded more than I could remember. It became part of me that even when I was finally allowed out, my head was already filled with philosophies above my age; knowledge gathered from the Newspapers, Magazines, Books, Dictionaries that became my company each time I was grounded. Of course anytime I was grounded, my punishment included summarizing 3 novels in a week, at first it irritated me, but with time I began to enjoy it.

Thanks to technology, I remember the pain our television suffered in my hands, I really dealt the hell out of the old carton, each time an interesting match was going on and the reception became fuzzy, thanks to the old buddy, it always responded.

I wouldn't forget the role of technology in fast forwarding and rewinding movies. Then it was VCR cassettes, and you had to rewind with your hands like you were using a manual grinder. I wonder how we would have watched today's series under such technology.

Cyril Stober, I remember that name, because he was a favorite Newscaster on NTA network news, with his Hausa attire you can tell that NTA then preached our culture. I still can't forget that signature tune for the network news at 9pm, even if you were sound deaf you can tell it was Network news about to come on air.

Sunday Newsline, was another favorite, I loved it because it was like a magazine program, and wasn't more of news, but more of stories and they were longer.

I hated NTA then, for some reasons, they always alloted 4 minutes to sports, and it was never enough for we sports fans. But Paul Ogazi always did his best with the 4 minutes.

Recently I tried to recall, Paul Ogazi was a Newscaster, a commentator, a reporter and sometimes a presenter. He was everything in media when it came to sports,

"It's Paul Ogazi reporting for NTA News"

And the same Paul is the one casting the news. Maybe NTA lacked sports personnel then.

These days, African Magic has taken the best of us with the spell of their magic that gets boring at times; I don't even know the channel frequency for NTA...

Each time I think of the joy of my childhood, I feel like becoming a kid again, I feel the role my upbringing played in shaping me into what I am today, and the role it would continue to play in my life. For every Now, there was a Then; for every Present, there was a Past.

Those green memories would forever linger, it is one memory that draws me close to kids, making me understand what and how they feel...

[Abridged Excerpt]

#JoysOfChildhood

#ShareThoseOldMemories

Augustus Bill

©2015

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This work is an excerpt from my unpublished work

[Before the Man]

Coming Soon!

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