The Simple life

A few days ago, I got a broadcast message on BBM, and it got me reminiscing on my childhood days. The content of the message was simple:

if you didn’t watch Ultimate Power a.k.a, Agbaranla or Ayamatanga;

if you didn’t say ‘stop lying on my head ooh!’;

if you didn’t wake up 7am on Saturday to watch Cadbury breakfast Tv;

if you didn’t sing NTA 2 channel 5, ela oju kan;

if you didn’t play Suwe of ten-ten;

or eat Nasco wafers, okin biscuits (both okin & shortcake), baba dudu, or drink fanta chapman

if you didn’t watch tales by moonlight, village masquerade, or even chorus to the Planta advert, ‘children its breakfast time, planta....’

The list goes on and on......well, if you didn’t do all this when you were young, you were a deprived Nigerian child. After reading the message, a flood of memories flowed in. Mehn!, that was the simple life. Those were the days when you would rush home from school and wait in front of the TV till 4pm when the rainbow coloured interlude stripes would wipe off and NTA 2 channel 5 would hum their intro music for the day and give us our afternoon dose of cartoons ranging from; teddy ruxpin (come dream with me tonight...), the little prince (the little prince from outta space can catch a shooting star and sail away....), Groovy goolies, or most importantly fraggle rock (dance your cares away, worries for another day....) Whoa, thinking of all that would put a smile on your face, and possibly a tear in your eye.

But that wasn’t all, after 7’o clock news, there was a promise of TV dramas, you dared not to miss. Even if your parents sent you off to bed, you just had to sneak back and watch ‘Jake & the fat Man’ or how else would you explain to your friends in class the next day how you dulled yourself by being sent off to bed. There was ‘Moonlighting’ as well, where we got introduced to Bruce Willis for the first time. And after that, there would be ‘sledge hammer’ who would intrigue us with his unethical police tactics. Oh yes, how could I have forgotten ‘Super-force’ (super-force would be right back!) I’m shivering in excitement right now,....that was truly the simply life, until technology ruined my childhood.

You see it started with the introduction of Cable TV. I went visiting some of my primary school friends at their home, and they were humming ‘I want to be a Care bear...’ Care bear? WTH? NO!, I want to be a muppet baby, I want to be piggy! And that’s how it all started, from cable TV, it became DSTV, and all the other TV’s.......hmmm and then blackberries and apples were no longer just fruits, but became devices...and now, our young kids have missed out on the simplicity of life, and now instead of table soccer, they have X-box; instead of Voltron, they have Ben-ten mschewwwww...... Ahh well, we can only make wishes, those days are far gone, and I just have to move on, but those are memories to be cherished forever.