When I Was Young!

Life as I knew it then was simple,we had little or almost nothing,but we were content, better still they were content...,I was not,i wanted to be in the next house with the glorious aroma of chicken stew, I wanted to be the kid at school whose parents picked him up in nice cars and wore neatly ironed uniforms with no torn part, I wanted the toys i saw displayed at old Tony's store and the candies at Bail's mall..., every sunday at church I prayed a little harder than the others, but all for the wrong reasons. my sole prayer point was "lord please make me wake up as the neigbor's child"! And the lord thought it best to ignore me. Home was a one room apartment where we slept on the bare floor, an excuse of what mama called a foam was no different, and on rainy nights we lost sleep, because the roof kept playing pranks with its leaks and my father never stopped blaming the landlord, but we knew better, my father, his memory awakes terror in my tender now old heart, his voice means "play is over" and when he was around, you better bury your nose in your school books, he was strict and so we never joined the street kids to ever do anything. My mother was also a strict one  and a stricter christian, she on so many occasions  flogged the hell out of me in the name of saving my soul, but above all this I loved her so much, though she died some years into my teen,tears formed a great fountain and overflowed the walls of my heart but through my eyes that day they refused to fall..., I grew up knowing hunger and learning wisdom, I can almost see little me sitting at mama's feet listening to her words of knowledge "may God bless her soul"...I remember my first love Mary, we were amongst the very few blacks to go to school back then, for it required courage and the art of great tolerance to be in school amidst the white kids, so it was natural when I and mary began,from walking home together and the little glances we shared in church to the first peck at Regy's farm yard then few days later my first kiss...my first kiss I would remember for days to come, a memory that can not be burned out with the so many pains I have had over the years, my soul companion during the war, yes I became a soldier when it became eminent our great country needed us, and in the desperation to get recognised and accepted in a nation that harboured us just because they could not simply ship us out to another farm, we jumped on the band wagon and went to war, a tale I would tell on a later date...early 1947 some years after the war I moved down to New Orleans, with vigor and so much energy to set the ball of success rolling, a young black boy set to make a difference in a world that took no notice of his existence, with time I learned it was easy and better trying to be myself and not trying to be someone the world would expect for it is being yourself that develops that innate quality in you to easily reach out and attain greatness... October same year I met Mary yet again, she was glorious like the morning. We had always loved each other back from the days of yore when our love ended with a peck and that was as much sin as we could commit for a whole year. We did ignite sparks, and simply made the world look small, our love drove us deep into the halls of the church where we said our vows....(to be continued)