Hey REMEMBER THE RHODESIAN CHILDHOOD

Think I can add a few as well - how about you?

Let's reminisce my friends.I thank God that I had such a wonderful childhood in such a beautiful country..Close your eyes... and go back in time……………When milk and newspaper were delivered to your back door. The grocer used to deliver your groceries to the house and in brown paper bags. Doctors would be too happy to visit you at home at 2 am, not only that they became personal friends.Petrol cost 4/3d a gallon. The "hot dog stall" near Bogies clock in Gwelo served the best burgers in town.Before the Internet or the Apple Mac... Before semi-automatics, AK-47s and crack cocaine...But pellet guns ......… BSAs were OKBefore SEGA or Cartoon Network... Before Playstation and MTV, and CD's and DVD's... Way back then..………I'm talking about the time of Drive In cinema’s, Hide and Seek in the park or the dark.The garage down the road, the Gremlin, Palace Cinema.Mom dropped you for morning matinee for 1/3d of Tarzan, Batman and Robin and swapping comics too.And Nicks Café, Mermaids Pool, Dandy & Beano annuals,French skipping, swimming till your feet went wrinkly,Jumping the river, building a swing from a piece of rope tied to a tree, tennis on the street or picnicsin the backyard when Guy Fawkes was cool.The smell of suntan lotion, hot tar and Mazoe Orange Juice.Dandy bubble gum for a cent, and ice cream from the Dairy Den on the corner. Wait, can you still remember.………. When around the corner seemed far away and going into town seemed like going somewhere, and your mother made you "dress up" for the trip.A million mozzie bites and peeling skin in summer,Sticky fingers and sand in and on everything. Wag-‘n-bietjies, stingers & climbing trees. Walking or riding your bike to school & friend's houses - no matter what the weather. Playing in the Makabuzi was such fun, but the 21 Bilharzia injections which followed were no joke.Running till you were out of breath laughing so hard that your stomach hurt. Jumping on the bed..... pillow fights, spinning around, getting dizzy.. falling down. Huga bugs and Hoola hoops. Being tired from playing ... ...Remember that? A piece of card in the spokes held by a clothes peg transformed any bike into a motorcycle.I'm not finished just yet………….. Can you still taste and smell.……. Eating raw jelly or Tree-Top from the packet, Ice lollies made from cold drink in plastic holders in the freezer.Eating Willard's Peanut Butter on the fattest slice of fresh Lobel's bread? Fresh cream doughnuts from Bake 'n Take after church on a Sunday.Boiling tins of condensed milk to make caramel - took hours! Roast Beef on Sundays and Ox-Tail too.Remember when……...……There were two types of takkies - Tommies and North Stars, and the only time you wore them at school, was for "PT".Wearing shoes with the toe caps cut off was accepted by all.Slip slops to wear were just a ball.How hard you tried to swop your hostel sandwich for a day Skie’s (day scholars) lunch…no luckThe skin on the boiled milk at the hostel?It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends;Nobody owned a pedigree dog.Sixpence could buy you a coke, Wilsons toffee, nigger balls, and Wrights bubble gum. 25c was decent pocket money and your house boy was also called Sixpence. Sixpence, would fetch you from school on his bike and you would ride the bar or the carrier,and hang on for dear life through the bush paths home.When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for 5 cents and feel lucky. When nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got there. Remember when………….It was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb or make 10 cents appear from behind your ear?When it was considered a great privilege and very unusual to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant or in a proper hotel or even better at Haddon & Sly, or Meikles.Remember when………... Any parent could discipline any kid, or feed him or get him to carry groceries and nobody, not even the kid, thought a thing of it.When being sent to the headmaster's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited you at home. Basically, we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of muggings, drugs, gangs, Aids etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat... and some of us are still afraid of them!!!Didn't that feel good just to go back and say, Yeah, I remember that?!!!! Remember when..………….. Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo." Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Ninger!" Or revulsion was just “Siss Man”!"A race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.Money was handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly",The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was germs. Having a weapon in school, meant being caught with 'BIC' pen, paw-paw branch pea shooter or an eraser catapulted by a 30cm ruler, or the catapult made from golf ball elastic twisted on your leg to shoot bits of orange peels.Taking drugs meant chewing on 'Cafenol' chewable vitamins or cod liver oil...(yuk).Colcom Ham, Flings, Willard's Chips, rock-hard marshmallow Easter eggs and best of all …..kudu biltong from Uncle Scotty’s farm.
Shopping at Barbours, Greatermans, Sanders, Haddon and Sly, TM, Bon Marche and Lucullus, Phillips Central Cellars and the Carlton Gift Store. The Book Centre and Kingstons. Clothes from Karls or Elle et Lui, Ramjis in Byo.
Watching racing at Borrowdale Park or Ascot, rugby at the Police Grounds or cricket and tennis at Salisbury Sports, polo at the Polo Grounds, athletics at the UniversityCoke was considered a basic nutritional requirement (and don't forget Tomango Tomato Sauce) and Hubbly Bubbly.Coke top collections got you plastic animals elephant and sable, baboons and hyenas.Good times were always had at the following places - any evening of the week... Blue Gardenia, The Gremlin, The Yellow Orchid, Bamboo Inn, Pink Panther and the Egg and I, Fritz in Byo, across the Border at Maria's, or Merna Brown's place, or Machipanda, and don't forget the Little Swallow.Hiking in the Chimanimani’s, Vumba, Troutbeck, the Honde Valley, Pungwe Gorge, Birchenough and Hot Springs. Trips to Troutbeck or the Montclair, Vic Falls, Kariba, the ferry to Mlibizi, Fothergill Island – remember Operation Noah, Bumi, Wankie, Dete, Fort Vic, Lake Kyle, strip road to Zimbabwe Ruins, Gwelo and Kwe Kwe from the sound the frogs made, Gwanda, West Nicholson and the giraffe at Tod’s Hotel on the strips and how about how easy it was to cross the border at Beitbridge and use your Rhodesian dollars all the way to Pietersburg.
Weekends at Mermaids Pool, Lake Mac, the Lion and Cheetah Park, Larvon Bird Gardens, Domboshawa, Beverley Hills Motel and the Oasis. Swimming at Borrow Street or Les Brown.Game parks were the best Wankie, Chirundu, Gona re Zhou, Matopos, Bumi and the rest.And what about an afternoon at the following places... Matopos Hotel, Rhodes’ Grave and World’s View, Mazoe Hotel and the Dairy Den, Rusape Dam, the Botanical Gardens, Centenary Park, the Natural History Museum.
Or Saturday mornings with the mates in First Street, Salisbury, Main Street Bulawayo, pie and gravy in Meikles or a mixed grill at Helen’s for 7/6 in Umtali. Window shopping at night without fear of being harmed.Skills and courage were discovered because of a "truth or dare" Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors.Remember when..………….. Flame Lilies, Kaffirbooms, the Jacarandas, Flamboyants and Msasas bloomedAfternoon tropical thunderstorms rained cat and dogs, then the sun came out.The smell of the first rains and the flying ants that followed by the zillion. If you can remember most or all of these, then you have LIVED!!!!