Those were the days, my friend. We thought they would never end. But they did end. They were our formative years. The kids of today don’t know what it was like back then.
Like I always say, it amazes me to see fat little kids misbehaving and bawling at the top of their voices in supermarket aisles. Demanding exotic things like chocolate and ice cream.
Hey, we never even had refrigerators back then. I look at them wearing a fresh pair of undergarments everyday. Really? It surely is out of this world for kids who don’t work to be changing underpants as they wish. I mean it’s not as if there is a guarantee they will turn into anything useful.
Imagine buying your child a fresh pair of underpants everyday only for them to turn into a prostitute or criminal later on. But that is how life works nowadays. If you don’t pamper them, they can sue or report you to one of the child welfare agencies.
And before you know it, you will be standing before a stern faced judge, with your child as star witness.
We used to marvel at television. Today’s kids just take it for granted. They cannot believe there was a time when there was no television. They wonder how we went through our lives without television or pop corn. These are kids who don’t speak any vernacular language because they spend so much time watching the box. At least on that score I support them.
I am of the view that vernacular languages are absolutely useless. Don’t blame me. Don’t shoot me. I am simply a messenger. Show me anyone who ever achieved world wide fame and repute on account of proficiency in a local vernacular language. The languages that matter are those spoken by white people.
As blacks we can scream and whine all we want but we are not in power. It is the whites who are in power. To survive, we must speak their languages. Those who don’t feel like it can move back to the village. But even back there, the only people who enjoy a good reputation are those that can demonstrate they speak English. That is why many a village idiot can gain respect because they can string together a sentence of broken English. Everyone would marvel at their brilliance and pronounce that the only reason they are crazy is because of too much education.
Many of our people still believe that too much education makes people mad. But the kids of today are clued up. That’s why they have no time for useless languages. Either they speak English only, or, if they need a second language, they go French or Spanish. Very soon with the rise of China they will be going Chinese. That, I believe is the way to go. If I were not too old I would stop speaking my vernacular and take up Chinese. Anyway that is not the point.
My issue is the rising cost of everything. Although there are many things I don’t like about the past, equally there are certain things that I hanker for. The cost of everything is astronomical. For instance, because it is no longer affordable, I eat meat only on rare occasions. I have taken to taxis to get to work because I cannot afford the fuel. In terms of drink, I want to downgrade to the cheaper variety that kicks like a mule. Now with the seventy percent levy looming, the sooner a man makes a move, the better.
All I am trying to say is that life, my friend, is not what it used to be. Take the cost of power. Not only do we have to live with frequent outages, but this utility is so expensive. Imagine settling down to watch your favourite blue movie only for the power to give up. Frustrating.
Nowadays it happens all the time. And don’t tell me you never watch blue movies. Actually, in the entire history of mankind, no one has ever admitted to watching porn. But again in the entire secret history of mankind, everyone has watched porn.
Alternatively those who haven’t wish to but just cannot get hold of the stuff. What am I coming to? My issue is utility costs.
At the rate things are going, it is no longer affordable to watch things like porn. Heck, it is no longer possible for a man to cook a nice meal. Look at it this way. When we were growing up no one owned a stove that used electricity. It was all charcoal or firewood.
Then, as things improved, came gas. The more affluent families ditched firewood and charcoal in favour of gas. You would visit the home of the gas users to be greeted by the pungent but sweet odour of liquid gas wafting from the kitchen. The gas cylinders would be displayed outside the kitchen for all to see. More often than not the graduation from charcoal to gas was accompanied by a new stove. Out went the old and trusted charcoal stove and in came the new.
I always used to think the newly affluent who graduated to gas were ungrateful. The moment they became gas people they would discard the old charcoal burner like it had never cooked them hearty meals. You would see the tried and trusted stove, looking sad and lonely, in many a backyard now reduced to kids playing home with it. Playing mummy, daddy and child.
I am reminded of the old stoves because I am no longer able to meet the rising power costs. I grew up in an era of charcoal and wood stoves. And like many others, when my family achieved marginal affluence, we ditched our old stove in favour of gas. It was abandoned, and left feeling sad in the back yard.
As the affluence increased, we switched to an electric stove. Those were the days my friend. We even had television.
Unlike the first batch of affluent families who bought black and white sets, our relative affluence came during the era of colour television. I have always said the day will come when we will remember where we came from. That day is now here for me. I can’t cope with energy costs. I am now reminded to go back to a charcoal stove. I have been shopping around for one. Perhaps I should just retrieve our old charcoal furnace that has been leading a sad life in our backyard since its glory days ended with the coming of gas and electricity stoves.
In these tough times, I miss our old stove. Then, there were two big names in stoves. Magical names. Now, I want to go back to my roots. I am thinking of getting either a Defy or Welcome Dover!
