7 Things I Don't Miss from My Childhood

I have shared so many things about my happy childhood, but I still feel I have many joyful moments to share about it. But not everything is a bed of roses though, no siree. I also experienced a lot of things which, if they had been erased from my history, would have made my childhood a perfect one.

1.       Maling in Catsup. Cocktail hotdogs in catsup. Fish in catsup. Admittedly, my mom was not a good cook. Plus the fact that my father’s meager salary had to be divided into 7 mouths, and some of our relatives who used to live with us. Thus, the maximum use of UFC as a ubiquitous ingredient in our dishes. But the curious thing was that, we never complained about the food on the table.

I thought delicious food was synonymous to Maling;-)

2.      Kuto. I know. Eeew, right? Try playing under the sun the whole day in summer with a bunch of yagit playmates, then let’s see if your hair would be lice-free. My mom used to call us every morning to “de-lice” us by using a suyod. Tapos, back to the playground!

3.      Riding a crowded bus or jeepney. My siblings are veterans as far as riding buses and jeepneys are concerned--especially crowded ones. Since we were in elementary, we were used to sprinting after a running bus, elbowing our way through the crowd, and standing for an hour all the way to our destination.

Only in da Pilipins. Pero waz naman ako nakasakay sa ganyang kapunong dyipni noh!

4.      Gashes. I climbed trees, rode a bike, played patintero on the streets, (and even rode a carabao!) and yes, I had a lot of scars to prove it. For us, kids, getting hurt was an unfortunate part of the game, but the wounds didn’t stop us from coming back to play tumbang preso again just the same. Of course we would be more careful the next time; else, our playmates would tease us as lampa.

Buti hindi uso sa tatay ko ang ganitong style ng belt!

5.      My Father’s belt. My father rarely got angry at us when we were kids. But when he did, hell hath no fury. We would tremble at the sight of his thick leather belt. He had an unfair (or fair?) way of punishing us. If one made a mistake, everyone got the Belt. Later, we learned to cover each other’s mistakes, so as not to be spanked. And the belt remained wrapped around his pants where it should really have belonged.

If my shoes had talked:
"Parang awa, lubayan mo na ako!"

6.      Old Shoes and worn out socks. Aah, school shoes. Due to limited stocks of school shoes (hehe! limited daw, o!), we didn’t buy shoes every time the school year started. Shoe life was maximized, either the shoes were hand-me downs, or they had already made frequent trips to our suking shoe repair shop. I can’t forget that time when it was my field demonstration, and it was raining. My shoes had holes on both soles, but I continued to dance. After the dance, my socks were drenched wet with mud. I went home with soaked feet.

Our car was similar to this junk

7.      Austin Cambridge. Naks, parang ang sosyal pakinggan. This was my father’s first car. Although it was an old car, (even during those times) it served the purpose of bringing us back and forth to school. Finally, we didn’t have to ride buses anymore. However, the inconvenience of the bus sometimes seemed to better since there were times when the Austin suddenly conked out in the middle of the road. So we had to use the available resources, right? If you had seen four uniformed elementary girls and a mother pushing a vintage car on Roxas Boulevard, I would vehemently deny that it was us. Hindi kami yun!

Come to think of it, these things made me more accepting of other people and more appreciative of what I have now. So I take my words back, I don’t want to erase these from my past.

My childhood is perfect as it was, thank you very much.