Books

Hi

It’s your fellow childhood blogger here again as we take another walk down memory lane. As I am challenged every week to bring you something new, it reminded me of things we took for granted growing up. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I grew up in a relatively a full semi crazy house. Basically it was a do as I say and don’t question it.

As I watch my nieces on their days home where the television would go on sometimes as early as 6:30am, which is utter madness in my mind.  Of course I would tell them to take it off due to my upbringing, we weren’t allow to have the television on so early far more to even have it on all day. You would hear the famous words, “yuh sending up the electricity bill, yuh does pay any bill hear.” Good old days!

On morning’s it was to do whatever little chores that it had to do, like sweep, mop and do the dishes. There was nothing like get up and put on the television to keep you quiet in the morning so you won’t bother your mother. It was go brush your teeth and organize yourself and make sure your bed was made before fully getting off and once off stay off. Its’ only now I could laugh at those days.

I am not too sure if the is luck but growing up we had a playroom basically a second living room. I would say more me had a playroom because it was mostly my toys.  This gracious was a three in one room, it was the second living room originally, study room and my playroom. Now in this room of there was of course a wood couch set with brown casing, a table & chair set for studying, the ironing board, the telephone, the vacuum, my toys and last but not least the bookshelf.

As we weren’t a television structure generation, we had books which were passed on from generation to generations. Basically hand me downs. Interestingly enough there wasn’t a shortage of any and even the neighbor would dump theirs on us.  Sadly I was not the one you would have always seen reading a good book that was my sister. But when I did I would always seem to get into trouble. Why? I had the tendency to get caught up and forget about everything else. Why is it I could have never won? Do right I would get into trouble, don’t do anything I would get into trouble and do something well we all know how that went.

Any hew there was one book I can remember in particular that I loved that miraculously disappeared. Back then they were making books with the cassette that read with you and for you. It   became my obsession, if I am not mistake it was call The Snow Queen, am not too sure what I was obsessed with but I was. I searched, rearranged, stripped but still could not have found it and when I enquire about it no one seem to knew what I was talking about. The feeling of insanity hit me at an early age, as I would make reference to the tape and had to play it back to jog their memory which felt like a lost cause.

I grieved and grieved until they started buying replacements which was never the same though, as years after I still had hope it would turn up somewhere, but it never did. After that, my next favourite became one of those books with the popular stories, but it was a compilation of the regular stories with a twist.  The Sleeping beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Snow white, the Hansel and Gretel and so on. Considerably I wasn’t satisfied, as my old brother and sisters books always intrigue me, but I all I would hear was those books weren’t for your level. Knowing me I was always made sure that the books were within my eyes sight until I was of age. Especially knowing that is was there favourite, my brother’s was a Robinson Crusoe and my sister at the time was a Tom Sawyer. There were several others that I did in enjoyed as I kept my favourties favourites in my bedroom, but apart from the bookshelf collections there was a separate bedroom collection. Yes a bedroom collection, this collection consisted of pray books. Little pray books for children, when I wasn’t of the age to read it they read it to me until I was of age. Gradually I used them as short versions of saying my prays when I did not feel like praying.  I really did enjoy those pray books as I find myself reciting parts of what I vaguely remember still to date.

What’s your favourite childhood book memory? https://www.flickr.com/photos/avi7/