When I was small and Christmas trees were tall.
My mum said I was born under a wandering star and I remembered wondering how such heavy metal-bodied things called aeroplanes could fly so high and carry so many people over oceans, seas and skies.
It was many years later before I wandered beyond my house, school and neighbourhood.
Walking was the main exercise for many of us and cars were a luxury then.
Nowadays, owning a car is a necessity and walking appears to be a luxury.
It’s the wheels that denote one’s wealth and the legs which denote the health. We now need the wheels to bring us to exercise the legs.
While I would like to believe that the sun is hotter now than before, it does baffle me how I managed to walk from house to school during my younger days without sweating profusely like I do now.
I can now sweat easily even before I hardly cover more than two hundred metres on foot.
What is happening to my sweat pores, or rather, the weather and sun?
There were hardly any worries then about spending endless hours under the sun flying kites, playing marbles and other games which seemed quite antiquated by today’s smartphone standards.
I used to wipe sweat from my eyebrows. Now I raise an eyebrow after swiping my smartphone – another piece of fake news again!
I ran around chasing butterflies, grasshoppers and ‘that elusive bird’. ‘Angry bird’ and Pokemon would have sounded more like aliens from outer space.
Come to think of it, where have all the butterflies and grasshoppers gone to?
Even the poor bees are now kept captive but as busy and buzzy as ever, producing honey in man-made huts rather than nature-provided trees.
And we are talking about rights and freedom of movement and expression while keeping bees in captivity, and depression?
What else happened during my childhood and younger days? Plenty to be remembered but preciously stored as memories, just as Facebook, Instagram and selfies do nowadays for posterity.
Any boy who owned a football then would automatically have a loyal following of neighbourhood friends gathered at the nearest playground excitedly waiting to display their wizardry with the ball and juggling away trying to impress the passing neighbourhood girls.
We all need some form of motivation, don’t we?
Such scenes are rare nowadays among children in local neighbourhoods, not because balls are getting more expensive or girls are getting less prettier, but fears over safety and accidents may have probably kept them at bay.
Another probable reason is that spacious neighbourhood playgrounds are getting rare and predators are also keeping the children away.
Yet another probable reason is that air conditioning is a preferred option over body conditioning.
Global warming has created more harm in burning skins rather than calories.
And there’s this ‘strumming my pain with his fingers and killing me softly with his song’ hobby during ‘my time’.
‘Those days’, young men with guitars would be sitting on staircases or verandas strumming away in preparation for picnic and party days, where they would attract more girls than those who didn’t know how to strike the right chords or dance the night away.
I once dreamt of becoming a guitarist but my left and right fingers didn’t seem to be on particularly very good terms with each other, though I did have both ears in harmony for music too.
God is kind enough to give me a body which responds quite naturally to music and I saved quite a bit of time and money dancing at home instead of the gym with the same intentions of loosening the joints and tightening the loose ends.
I have to appreciate that my heart and lungs are still coordinating well despite the occasional appearance of a ‘weapon of mass distraction’ to cause them to miss a beat and almost take my breath and life away.
Singing in bathrooms was also a popular past-time and that may explain why songs then were related more to rain, water, tears and imagination.
Modern-day pursuits make it seem more fashionable and professional to sing in karaoke rooms while holding expensive-looking microphones to croon.
I am not really a good singer but I believe I can sing better holding a shower head than a real microphone.
With the shower head, I could hit some very high notes without hitting my head in the process.
It did help to water down my shyness too although I did make the occasional slip on the bathroom tiles to end my performance with an equally loud bang.
I would also like to think that water was so much cheaper then as ‘it rained throughout the year’ to allow me to spend so much time in the shower.
My children may have been influenced by the fast food syndrome to be able to take their showers in record time and they don’t sing in the shower like their father used to do.
Oh how nostalgic, the days of old, when I had joy, I had fun, I had seasons in the sun.
Modern-day children do enjoy themselves too, in ways different from me but the child in me will always like to believe that my childhood was more fun and carefree.
Take for instance…tuition during my days. It was a luxury then which nowadays appears more like a necessity.
That’s precious time missed on growing up with what nature had to offer before I realise that ‘I look tall and Christmas trees are small.’
I still remember my faithful ‘iron horse’ – the bicycle, which enabled me to carry out more activities and discover more places and things.
The wheels of life, so to speak.
There’ll be more to come as I try to share ‘all kinds of everything which remind me of you and I’ and ‘the good old days’ gone by.
Till then, regards and have a great weekend.
• The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
