Childhood Memories

  CHAPTER TWO

           Some of the few things I could remember about my father in those days as a little kid was how my elder brother, Chimezie, Adaobi, my younger sister and I used to rush out of the house to welcome him home each day when he returned from work. 

At the honk of his car, we would dash out of the house like starved dogs reaching out for a fatty bone. How we used to discern his car honk from that of others remains a mystery to me till now. 

       All our neighbours had cars of different models and make, but we never mistook their car honks for our father's. We always rushed out with outstretched arms from the three storey building where we lived to the frontage, suspending whatever we were doing. Nothing mattered more than welcoming father: It was more important to us than our meals.

     Mummy would try to make us sit back and finish our meal but she was always unsuccessful as we would all desert the dinning table in a bid to be the first to give our father a hug, hence those calls from our mother to come back and finish our meals always went unheeded. 

  Welcoming Dad meant a lot to my brother, my younger sister and me. It meant seeing our heros face after so many hours since we saw it last before leaving for school. It came with an assuring embrace, hug and kiss from him. He would do a throw-and-catch game with our little bodies. 

         This was one of the things we looked forward to. He would always pet our hair before handing over to us the little goodies he always bought for us. There was never a single day that he missed bringing home to us our goody bag. Apart from the warm embrace, hugs and kisses Dad gave to us then, the goody bag was the treat which I relished the most; it stood tall amongst other things. 

       The goody bag was not necessarily a particular bag. It could be any bag, sometimes a polyethene bag or a paper bag but it contained some sweet edibles and fruits that children craved for. 

These sweet edibles varied each day. But there were still some items that were always present in the bag: Items like Chocó Milo; a small chocolate cube that melts in the mouth and left one with a sweet taste to relish, a ripe bunch of bananas with roasted groundnut that filled a bottle and some peeled balls of sweet oranges.

 Other items like Suya; a special delicacy peculiar to Nigerians sometimes made it into the goody bag. Roasted cashew nut, baked cakes and snacks of different shapes and sizes, packaged fruit juice and yourghurt drinks also made it into the goody bag, but not as often as the Chocó Milo, ripe bananas and sweet oranges. 

I wondered why Dad kept varying the content of the goody bag. I thought perhaps he bought whatever he ran into each day. Little did I know that he carefully and deliberately varied what he bought for us because he was an ardent believer in the saying Variety is the spice of life. Truly, the act of varying the content of the goody bag made us to look forward to each days pleasant surprise.  

  My mother would always be at the entrance of the door, with a smile-flooded face admiring what was transpiring between Dad and us. My father would carry my little sister Adaobi on his bossom and she would cling to him like a drowning man, wrapping her two arms around his neck and her two legs around his trunk while he would hold me by one of my hands which was free. My other hand used to be occupied, clinching to the goody bag as if my life depended on it.

            I was officially the custodian of the goody bag. Chimezie got Dads briefcase at the entrance to the sitting room where my mother, who never hid her admiration and happiness, always stood to welcome Dad. 

         My father would place my younger sister gently on her feet and let go of my hand to give my mum a warm hug which sometimes lasted up to a minute or more; he would then kiss her passionately before we would all enter together into the big exotic sitting room. 

Mum would walk Dad into their bedroom while we the children went back to whatever activities we had abandoned on hearing our fathers car honk.         Though, I was the custodian of the goody bag, I knew the limits of my powers; I was fully aware of the limits of my powers as a custodian and knew how better off I would be if I do not exceed my powers by eating out of the bag before it was shared.

              I was to collect the goody bag from Dad and take it into the sitting room only. I normally kept the bag on the dining table without touching or taking anything out of the bag untill Mum picked it up and shared the contents amongst us.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

   Mum never failed to make ready Dad's bathing stuffs. As my father would be taking his bath, she would warm his food on the gas cooker and set it on the dining table for him. 

             Our gas cooker then could sit four pots at a go; usually l watched with admiration as the blue flames glowed whenever the gas cooker was lit on, especially at night when it glowed the best. It was a square-shaped gas cooker with an oven made by Philips. It was dark-brown in colour.

            I could remember the oven having a regulator which I used to argue with Chimezie, my elder brother that it was a wrist watch imbedded inside the cooker just like our Dad's wrist watches. It was later on that I learnt from Dad that it was a kind of timer like the watches. The explanation ended a series of arguments I usually had with my elder brother over the regulator. 

             I stopped believing Chimezies idea of things since the day he offered to help me do my take-home assignment that I was given at school. I had trusted his judgment so much that I hadnt bothered to take it to Dad or Mum to cross check what I had done with Chimezie. 

      The next day at school, I submitted the take-home assignment with every confidence and assurance. I had always believed that Chimezie knew better than I. To my greatest disappointment however, I failed eight out of the ten questions I was given and that was the poorest mark I had ever gotten in any of my take-home assignments. 

From that day onwards, I began to doubt most of the things Chimezie told me; I would always confirm from Mum or Dad before I subscribed to whatever he said. Though it made me to always be at logger-heads with him, I couldnt help it because there was this proverb that said If the bee stings a child, the pain and the fear of the sting will make the child to scamper for safety whenever he sees the housefly or any other fly that looks like a bee. And another said If an ant bites a child on the buttocks while sitting on the floor, next time he wants to sit on the floor he will check well for ants before sitting.                          

     Our gas cookers and the gas cylinders were so sacrosanct, it was a no-go area for the kids.            

        No amount of excitement or tantrum must make any of you tamper with these items, Mummy would warn us repeatedly as she pointed out to the gas cylinders and the gas cookers, sometimes drawing our ears. This used to be painful as she added a little pressure while doing it, but it always had a way of making us remember her instructions: Some of such instructions were never to collect things from strangers, never to eat anything without showing her first or getting her approval to do so.  

    In those days microwave was not common in Nigeria. It wasn't until the early nighties that it became almost a household item in most homes. I could remember that most of the times, Mum would wait for Dad to come back so that they could eat together. At some other times, she would just sit and watch him eat while they discussed. 

I think Mum enjoyed watching Dad eat. He was a slow-eater and would always close his eyes whenever he munched a piece of fish or meat. I guess that was to allow him concentrate and relish the taste of the well-spiced piece.

       My mother was a wonder when it came to making delicious and tasty meals. Don't doubt me when I say she will beat every contestant in cooking competitions if she enrolled. Mealtimes were one of my father's happiest times that we his children cashed in on to present our requests to him and have him grant them. 

Permit me to say that for my mum, her requests were easily granted during their bedtimes. I guess she was also very good in that aspect. If not how could she hold down my father's attention and attraction for a lifetime as there was never a case of infidelity on his part. Daddy was always at home with her whenever he was not at work, he was always looking very happy and everyone could see that he was proud of his wife as he always made out time for  both of them to be together in their privacy.

             Sometimes, I listened in on their conversations as they talked about how they had each fared at work that day. One of them would definitely have a story to tell about what had happened in the office. Sometimes the story ended with laughter. Other times, it would end with one offering the other a piece of advice on how to get on in the office.

               My father saw to it that we all had self-control and discipline as little as we were then. He would not hesitate to correct us whenever we did not get things right, especially when it came to the area of self-control and self-discipline. 

              His favourite quote read, Self-discipline makes a man. It was one of the quotes I learnt very early in life from him. He would tell us in plain words that what differentiates humans from goats behaviourally is self-discipline.

       I will never forget what happened the day my elder brother Chimezie was tempted and he took some money that my father had kept in his bed chamber without telling him and he even denied outrightly that it wasnt he that took the money. It was so terrible. Trust my father, who got to the bottom of the issue, and in the long run, my brother's lie was exposed. 

                  Dad surprised all his children that day, even my brother, Chimezie too, for, contrary to our belief, dad did not flog my brother, but right after dad's long talk with him, and after serving the stringent disciplinary measures that followed, none of us ever stole anything, not to talk of telling a lie to cover it up.

                  "You will be punished adequately for stealing, my son," Dad had said softly when my brother broke down after he had tearfully confessed to taking the money. "No son of mine will end up as a thief; not under my watch, dear son." Dad had said further that day, pumping further trepidition into the already pregnant atmosphere.

                  Mum had wisely remained silent. She left matters like that solely to dad's capable judgement. Chimezie had ended up washing dad's car for a whole week as his punishment, after which he had gotten the 'gainful' employment of washing dad's car for a token, so that he could always have money on him.

                  We all came off that experience much better; for the idea of stealing what did not belong to us never crossed our minds afterwards. And, my brother always had little cash to spare; this he spent on we, his younger ones lavishly. I learnt an invaluable truth that day that truly, "there is dignity in honest labour."

                  My mum usually woke us up by 6 0 clock every morning and handed us over to Dad who bathed us and dresses us up and made sure we did not forget any of our school materials at home. My mother would be in the kitchen washing our dish boxes, water bottles and preparing the breakfast for the family.

                  When the meal was ready, she would serve everyone their meal and package our lunch in our lunch boxes and fill our water bottles. Then she would dash into the bathroom to take her bath with Dad while we had our breakfast. On her next appearance, she would be dressed up for work. 

                  She would shepherd us into her car after she had hugged Dad and wished him a lovely day at the office. Mums car was a reddish brown Volkswagen golf. She would drop us at our school gate in the custody of our school teachers, who usually stood at the gate every morning to receive their pupils. 

            She would then continue to her office which was not too far from our school. Mum was a Secondary School Principal at Idaw River Girls Secondary School in Enugu, the state capital of one of the Eastern states in Nigeria. 

 Uncle Nnamdi, my Mums youngest brother lived with us for a while when he got admission into University of Nigeria, Enugu campus, popularly known as UNEC. He was in his first year in the university then. I could remember Uncle Nnamdi sweeping the compound and washing the three cars, even when they were not dirty. He was very nice to us. 

            Most times, he would buy things for us on his way back from lectures. He helped Chimezie, Adaobi and me to do our home works and often times he would call us together to tell us some traditional folktales and to teach us songs either traditional or contemporary ones. I wouldnt forget one of the folktales he taught us, tittled  ‘Who will be my friend.’

        He made us sit in a circle as we sang and clapped. One of us went round the circle, behind the rest with an object, usually a flower or a stone, looking out for who would be his or her friend as the song went on. Once the person decided on whom to choose as a friend, then the flower or stone would quietly be dropped right behind the newly chosen friend. 

          Immediately the object was dropped at anyones back it automatically became the persons turn to walk round the circle and choose a new  friend while the former person circling sat in the just vacated space in the circle. This would go on as long as we wanted it. It was usually a very engaging and enjoyable past time. One of the rules of the game was that one was not allowed to pick back the person who had picked him or her.