The Good Old Days!

I got to Kamina Barracks and the thick crowd dawned on me that it was Easter Monday. A day for the observation of picnic across the length and breadth of the country.

As I move on completely unexcited, I was gripped with nostalgic feelings of yesteryears. The days I were called Hanan Dzeridzeri. I just couldn't believe a whole Easter Monday could elude me someday. I was so preoccupied into utter oblivion about the whole cacophony about the event.

At a point of my reminiscence, the saying, "there is time for everything" came to settle my befuddled thoughts. Nonetheless, I still find it difficult to overcome as one time aficionado of Easter Monday Picnic.

I used to wait for Picnic with so much alacrity. I used to keep a countdown on Easter. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing that could derail my very presence on any Easter Picnic. I celebrated the Picnic as though I was a Christian. Seriously, one would've thought I was part of the mafia whose stratagem got Jesus killed. Once, I thought I could be a great grandchild of Judas Iscariot without whom the story of Easter Monday is incomplete.

Those days, three months to Easter, I will look for milk tin and create an opening in one of its top circular portions. That was my money box for saving every available coin that comes on my way. My target was to get the milk tin full by Picnic. When my target was far from attainment, my stomach will bear the brunt of starvation. These were periods my mum believed coins have legs and if wrongly placed could walk away to a hideout. On the contrary, my dad never believed coins could possibly have legs - so I never played with his coins even though he was a coinnaire. My money box was that accommodative: it accepted all coins without needlessly subjecting them to scrutiny.

A week to Easter, I will buy a blue dye for soaking my faded jeans. Then, I will wait for Tamale market day within the week to visit Aboabo market and get myself a nice top. I will go for any T-shirt marked Rock Café. There was some unexplained respect for guys who wear Rock Café branded T-shirts.

On Picnic day, every imprisoned coin will be transferred into the pocket prison for onward execution at the picnic grounds. When I remove the coins from the milk tin, I will wash it very well and then count it. Sometimes, I will count and recount it several times. The recounting moments also made me feel coins indeed have legs. Sometimes, the three month long saving could only buy a sachet of Fanyogo and a bottle of Coke.

An hour to kick start of Picnic, I will set off with my dyed jeans on foot. The money was not saved for transportation. With my friends, a conversation whiles trekking shorten the distance. If the weather was hot, then I would soiled anyone who gets closer to my dyed jeans. Many a time, some persons who had their white outfit soiled attempted beating me up but Issahaku Mohammed Baba (Aluta) was always there to rescue me with his imposing muscular height. Meanwhile, Aluta and I are same day borns. But I take solace in the Kenyan proverb that "a short man is not a boy".

First, the venue for Easter Picnics was Tamale Training College until the school could no longer withstand the sporadic violence and vandalism of college's properties. I've witnessed many ding-dong fights where the college's furniture was used as weapons.

The violence kept growing each year until the venue was moved to Holy Cross Cathedral. After three years of Picnic at the forecourt of the church, it was moved to the current venue, Kamina Barracks. Holy Cross was very small for the salmagundi of activities characterised by the event. Another reason for moving it to Kamina Barracks was to send a word of caution to bad boys that "man pass man". Go and misbehave at the Soldiers' Barracks and your ribs will never forgive you.

Lately, I hardly keep track of Easter. If it even comes to my mind, I think about how I'm going to spend the holidays resting rather than engage in the benign and short-sighted activities of the youth.

Indeed, there is time for everything!