Sunny Days Sweep Clouds Away

Ahhh…the ol’ days of yore. My Sesame Street childhood. Those days when computers and cell phones and iPads belong to sci-fi movies (or have they been even imagined at that time yet?). Our only source of entertainment was the black-and-white screened, wood-boxed, four-legged television. We got acquainted to our first boob tube friends like Ernie and Bert, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Grover, Cookie Monster, and Mr. Looper, er Hooper. At the strike of 9:00, we kids were mesmerized at the cute American children and muppets singing, “Who are the people in your neighbourhood, in your neighbourhood..?” or “Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?” At that age, these ubiquitous characters became our best friends and first teachers.

Rubber duckie you're so fine

and I'm lucky that you're mine...

(http://www.sesamestreet.org)

This is how we played
patintero back then---barefoot!!
 (http://images.palarongpinoy.multiply.com)

After spending an hour with the SS gang,  we ran outside to play, yes, under the heat of the sun. We met up with our neighbours to play patintero, tumbang preso, piko, and monkey-anabelle. We climbed the alatires trees around our house, stayed on top of their branches eating and collecting the juiciest, reddest fruits, while singing on top of our lungs--until our moms called us for lunch. Come afternoon, we rode our BMX bikes and raced around the subdivision. When it got dark, we switched to playing hide-and-seek. The unluckiest ‘it’ sometimes found himself tricked because he didn’t know that everybody already ‘hid’ in their homes to eat dinner. By the end of the day, we smelled like rotten guavas. By the end of the summer, we were unrecogizeable and negra. Until now, I can still see the ugly scars on my legs. But betcha by golly, was I the happiest kid ever.

MNG shirt
Forever 21 sweat pants
VNC wedges

Funny because while I can enumerate all my teachers from kindergarten to high school (Ms. Turla, Mrs. Jimenez, Ms. Lacambra,…to prove my point), I can’t freakin’ recall who my teachers in college were. While I can recite to you word for word all the nursery rhymes and star scout songs I learned in my elementary days, I can’t squeeze my brain to blurt out what I’ve learned in Anthro 1 or Humanities. I may never be a psychologist, but common sense tells me that this is because I had the most fun-filled childhood a kid could ever dream of.

Now, my children only play with their virtual friends in the Nintendo world. If I nag them to get some exercise? They turn to WII Sports for some tennis or bowling. If they need to talk to friends, they chat with them on Facebook. When I sing "Bahay kubo...", they think it's an obscure OPM song. I don't think they even know what patintero is all about.

Sigh...I could only dream of my Sesame Street childhood for my children.