I Reminisce…

I spent a good portion of the afternoon reminiscing about my childhood days growing up in St. Elizabeth. Remember when it was okay to be a child and there was no fascination with grown up stuff? A stark contrast from what obtains in today’s Jamaica. The good old days when little boys were gentlemen in training and little girls didn’t have perms but wore ribbons in their hair. I remember:

1. Breaking the coconut and grating the meat so mom could make rice and peas for Sunday dinner.
2. Listening out for the ice cream man on Sunday afternoon.
3. Doing the Uncle Art’s puzzles at the back of the comic strip in the Sunday Magazine.
4. Looking forward to my huge mug of Horlicks in the morning.
5. Stealing sips of Bailey’s Irish cream from the liquor cabinet.
6. Mastering the “pause” and “record” buttons so I could record songs off American Top 40 with Shadoe Stevens.
7. Rewinding TDK 90 minute cassettes with a pen to save my Walkman batteries.
8. Waiting for TV to sign-on in the evenings. Remember when TV would actually sign-off? Oh the horror!
9. Wondering how many times I’d hear Dennis Hall’s dry cough in today’s episode of Schools Challenge Quiz.
10. Wondering why my parents would bring umbrellas even though Roy Forrester clearly said it would be sunny.
11. Spending hours in the library doing homework. Back then Google was known as the Encyclopedia Britannica.
12. Greeting everyone and I mean everyone with Good Morning, Good Afternoon or Good Evening, lest it be said that Mrs. Clarke’s son nuh have no manners. An offence punishable by beating.