Greetings my dear people of the @cleanplanet community.
Today is another great day for everyone to interact and share ideas. I just came across the #cleanplanet writing prompt this morning and I love the prompt so much.
My childhood entertaining moments. These are my unforgettable memories of life.
MY TIMES WITH DAD
Being the last child of the family, I enjoyed a lot of benefits my other siblings never had a chance to be part of. My eldest siblings left for the city while I stayed in our hometown with my parents. When my mom was around, she always did the cooking and most other house chores leaving me to enjoy "last-born freedom", freedom from certain house chores. But everything changed when my mother left us for the city, she had to do so. It's a tradition that whenever a woman gives birth to her first child, the mother is expected to visit and her out with some child care practices like child bathing, petting and others since the woman is new in the "business".
During this time of my mom's absence, I stayed alone with my dad.
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My dad was a wise man, though he is no more, he still occupies a space in my heart. I can never forget those days he used to tell me stories of his business experience with wild animals when he was working as a wildlife guard in Ondo State, Western Nigeria. His stories were my best entertainment at that time as a child. I believed everything he told me, even though I doubt some now I have grown. He used to tell me how he fought with a snake underwater, incidents when he caught a tortoise and sold it for a high cost, and how he assisted his fellow guards in bringing down a wild buffalo. His descriptions often took me back to time and I often view him as my Jackie Chan. He used to tell me these stories before I went to bed, and that always made me have sweet dreams.
MY DAYS IN HIGH SCHOOL
I finished my Primary Education in my hometown, meaning that I schooled with my old-time friends. I had friends with different attributes, funny, fighters, explorative types, playful and quiet individuals. The quiet ones and the funny ones were the most intelligent, I was among them too.
We had cute girls in class too. Girls who would never want to approach us, they always wanted us boys to approach and chase them. Our usual football games and cricket hunting games were my best entertainment then as a child. Hanson, we tagged him as "The Chief of play", was the most playful of us then. He saved his pocket money to purchase a football which we always played with every leisure time. Our leisure time back then in primary school was noon. Whenever it's a few minutes of leisure time, there is nothing the teacher says that enters our ears. Our minds are in the field. Ring ring!!!!, that's the sound of the bell and all the playful boys would rush out of the class straight to the field. "Pass the ball to me!! No pass to me !!" Everyone would shout for the person in possession of the ball to pass to them. Playing football wasn't just a means of entertainment, it was also a way to draw sexy girls to us. Despite our age, each of us still had a crush. We often tried to play football with all our energy and skills to impress the female audience, no one cared about impressing the usual male audience, the "quiet ones".
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Playing football during leisure time in primary school was the greatest joy we had at school then. It was more important than learning to us. But the sad part of this act of entertainment was that we were banned from entering the field after one of my friends sustained a serious injury during regular sports.
But the ban never ended our acts of entertainment in school. What did we do to keep ourselves entertained?
The "playful ones" now joined the "explorative ones" to engage in cricket hunt. During leisure time and school over the period, instead of trooping to the field, we would move to the grassland or school farm in search of cricket holes to dig up. We often jubilated anytime we made a successful catch. We often use these crickets for several purposes. We used them to fly out kites. We often tied a rope to the cricket's feet, and when the cricket flew, our paper kites soared. We also used these crickets to chase girls who feared them. This cricket hunt was our one-time big entertainment but it was also banned by our school head. Why was it banned?
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"I have seen it, I saw it's tail!!" Exclaimed Joel one of my explorative friends. Without hesitation, Hanson thrust his fingers into the hole to pull out the dark-skinned insect which we mistook to be the cricket. Unknown to us that this was a very mighty scorpion which had hunted the cricket at night. "Oh my God!!!!!! I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, someone should help me out!!!!!! Hanson screamed vigorously shaking his hands, while we tried to understand what was going on, we saw the scorpion fall from his hands. "Joel the "quiet one", who joined us for the first time removed a pair of his shoes and killed the scorpion. Hanson was rushed to the school clinic and we were very happy he recovered from the pain though he stayed out of class for some days. We were banned from this game and warned finally to always spend our leisure time in our classes and whenever school was over, everyone was expected to go home immediately. That was how our acts of entertainment in school were brought to an abrupt end.
Those are days I can't forget and I won't miss to also tell my children. Some days seemed they would never end.
If I had the power to control time, I would love to go back in time and make those events happen again and I would also stop those incidents that brought the ban. I miss my dad so much, may his soul rest in perfect peace. I wish I could bring him back because I know he has a lot of stories he didn't tell me.
Thanks for reading, this is my entry for the #cleanplanet writing prompt. To know more about this contest, check it out here:
@nwothini335/clean-planet-writting-prompt-fnp
Everyone is welcome to join this contest. I would love @marynn, @kingsleyy,@fashtioluwa and @fexonice to join me here @cleanplanet.