Of ponds and poetry

I am reading this magazine and there is this article about childhood memories and six people have written these ghastly, flowery pieces about sunsets and walks in the park and gamboling in rose gardens and treks to some flipping hill station and babbling brooks and the shade of old banyan trees and their first little pet called Rover and loving relatives and even more loving cousins and the one who has written about the most purple prose you can imagine (my childhood days were spun from gossamer thread, each skein a personal memory, precious and as special as the dew kissed tulips in the garden where the fountain tinkled its own symphony and we sat around the pond where goldfish played tag and recited poetry) has won first prize of a free air trip for two.
Ugh. Ugh again.
This Emily Bronte piffle was your childhood, what utter nonsense, pretentious rubbish. Poetry by the pond is your most vital memory of childhood, give me a break. How do magazine editors allow such drivel to pass as the real stuff. And then give awards for it. It is pretentious, contrived and corny.
I had a great childhood. Remember bawling my head off the first time that I went to Mrs. Donahugh’s Tiny Tots and I didn’t want to be tiny or a tot. Memories of eating plasticine and tying Carol Lynley’s pigtails to the chair and hitting Teach with those rubber band darts. Now, that was childhood. Plotting to catch Ninan Oomen in the morning and swipe his algebra homework and working on that huge lock he had on his schoolbag and him snitching to Princy and Princy promising an Assembly caning which meant the whole school and you better not let the House down by making a sound when that cane swished six times and being a hero after that. That was childhood. Of sitting in exams and wondering why other people were asking for more sheets of paper when you couldn’t figure out enough to write on the main form, of school reports and parents’ signatures, of getting into a scrap with the class bully and the challenge thrown of a fist-up on Green Flat at 4 p.m. after school and everyone forming a ring and egging you on and bleeding noses and torn shirts and scraped knees and Mom screaming when you got home and dad asking if you got a few knocks in, then the torn shirt was all right.
Of secret societies and friends forever and a day and meeting the gang and hating girls and refusing to play with some cousin who was staying a whole week and having to dress up for some special dinner and being polite to adults and playing cops and robbers and exchanging ‘coms’ like Little Lulu and Archie and Roy Rogers and Zorro and reading Enid Blyton and Billy Bunter, sneaking into an adult movie and feeling bold and brave and very adventurous. That was childhood. Of scoring goals and making runs and doing the honorable thing and never sneaking on classmates and deciding to be a jet fighter pilot or captain of a submarine or at least an astronaut or a trapeze artist. Of being misunderstood and running away for ever or at least till dinner, of sisters who were impossible and sibling rivalry at it finest.
Of jumping into lakes and having a secret spot that no one knew about, of acne attacks and convictions that you were horrendous looking, of clumsy, groping adolescence and checking out how much toothpaste was in a tube, of chemistry sets and train sets and Makkahno sets and your first long playing record and eating popcorn in movies as the Lone Ranger hi yo’ed Silver and you sat on the edge. Of declared enmity with fallen friends and high revenge, of aunts and neighbor’s broken windows, of levels of wanton cruelty that only boys can reach in air gunning little birds and nicknames and appetites that just wouldn’t be satiated, of holidays to grandparents and money gifts from relatives, of measles and mumps and chicken pox and soup and spoiling, of a time that we thought would never end.
Except it did.