Five things I miss about my childhood, etc.
As promised, having been tagged by Magda, I'll try to write about five things I miss about my childhood.
1. The time I spent with my aunt and grandmother in Bacau. It was a small apartment, but it was home away from home. I remember spending summers and winters there, making friends, playing soccer in the park or in the alley, getting together for cards with friends, having other kids knock on the door and say "Can Petrisor come out to play?" and doing the same with them. In the winter it was always fun to go out and play in the snow. I remember one particular attempt at building a large snowman... It turned out to be rather larger than we could manage.
My grandmother's cooking somehow remains in my mind. I can't put my finger on what it was, but just thinking of the meals there always brings back wonderful memories. I don't remember that much more, just that it was a happy time.
2. Playing soccer around our apartment building. It was on cement. It was in the interior of a U-shaped building, with stores on the ground level, stores whose workers were not very happy when balls repeatedly slammed into their walls and loading doors. It was fun.
3. Reading. My parents introduced me to a variety of good books and we still have a few Jules Verne books lying around. I still remember being sad when I reached the end of the "Ciresarii" series (The author had one of the characters say something along the lines of "But I don't want this to be over, there are so many other things to do, places to see." And the last line, given by another character was "Don't you understand? We're not in a book any more.") and shedding a tear at the end of Selma Lagerlof's "The wonderful adventures of Nils Holgersson" (where Nils walks with the geese, both reminisce about their past adventures together, but they can no longer understand one another). One situation I find very interesting (looking back) is that other seemed to have the same sort of interest. I read the Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, but I only skimmed The Vicomte of Bragelonne. One day, as I was walking home from playing outside, a couple of kids had something (water baloons?) and wanted to start a fight. Since I was going in, I didn't want to be a part of it. When they asked who I was, I said, Marshall D'Artagnan. They let me go, but one of them said "You know that he got killed immediately after he became a Marshall?" I did know that, and at that time it didn't strike me as strange that someone else would too. Looking back, it seems a lot more impressive.
4. Basketball. We had a coach who kept practices fun, while still teaching us the game. The games at the end of practice were fun. Being little (8-9 years old) and playing with full height rims, baskets were hard to come by. I still remember a rather outrageous 15-foot sky hook that ended up being the only basket in one of those games, and another instance where I drove for a lay-up, got shoved forward (under the basket) but somehow managed to score.
5. Being a troublemaker and finding out ways to get away with it. Well, okay, so maybe I don't so much miss that as look fondly back to a foundation upon which I have built. Locking the teacher out of the classroom during break because she *always* came to class before the bell rang still makes me chuckle. There was no ill-will against the teacher, I just figured I'd try to make a point...
On an unrelated note, today I sent out most of the paperwork for ordination. There are still a couple of things I need to take care of next week, then I just have to wait. Please pray for me, the sinner, that I serve God and His Church in a manner pleasing to Him both now and when, if God so wills, I will be ordained.
1. The time I spent with my aunt and grandmother in Bacau. It was a small apartment, but it was home away from home. I remember spending summers and winters there, making friends, playing soccer in the park or in the alley, getting together for cards with friends, having other kids knock on the door and say "Can Petrisor come out to play?" and doing the same with them. In the winter it was always fun to go out and play in the snow. I remember one particular attempt at building a large snowman... It turned out to be rather larger than we could manage.
My grandmother's cooking somehow remains in my mind. I can't put my finger on what it was, but just thinking of the meals there always brings back wonderful memories. I don't remember that much more, just that it was a happy time.
2. Playing soccer around our apartment building. It was on cement. It was in the interior of a U-shaped building, with stores on the ground level, stores whose workers were not very happy when balls repeatedly slammed into their walls and loading doors. It was fun.
3. Reading. My parents introduced me to a variety of good books and we still have a few Jules Verne books lying around. I still remember being sad when I reached the end of the "Ciresarii" series (The author had one of the characters say something along the lines of "But I don't want this to be over, there are so many other things to do, places to see." And the last line, given by another character was "Don't you understand? We're not in a book any more.") and shedding a tear at the end of Selma Lagerlof's "The wonderful adventures of Nils Holgersson" (where Nils walks with the geese, both reminisce about their past adventures together, but they can no longer understand one another). One situation I find very interesting (looking back) is that other seemed to have the same sort of interest. I read the Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, but I only skimmed The Vicomte of Bragelonne. One day, as I was walking home from playing outside, a couple of kids had something (water baloons?) and wanted to start a fight. Since I was going in, I didn't want to be a part of it. When they asked who I was, I said, Marshall D'Artagnan. They let me go, but one of them said "You know that he got killed immediately after he became a Marshall?" I did know that, and at that time it didn't strike me as strange that someone else would too. Looking back, it seems a lot more impressive.
4. Basketball. We had a coach who kept practices fun, while still teaching us the game. The games at the end of practice were fun. Being little (8-9 years old) and playing with full height rims, baskets were hard to come by. I still remember a rather outrageous 15-foot sky hook that ended up being the only basket in one of those games, and another instance where I drove for a lay-up, got shoved forward (under the basket) but somehow managed to score.
5. Being a troublemaker and finding out ways to get away with it. Well, okay, so maybe I don't so much miss that as look fondly back to a foundation upon which I have built. Locking the teacher out of the classroom during break because she *always* came to class before the bell rang still makes me chuckle. There was no ill-will against the teacher, I just figured I'd try to make a point...
On an unrelated note, today I sent out most of the paperwork for ordination. There are still a couple of things I need to take care of next week, then I just have to wait. Please pray for me, the sinner, that I serve God and His Church in a manner pleasing to Him both now and when, if God so wills, I will be ordained.
posted by Virgil Petrisor at 9:23 PM
3 Comments:
Some things never change... like the basketball coach and the kids that play football and the store workers.
Some things do change. Nowadays Romania is a "democratic" country and the kids and teenagers today hear or have heard about D'Artagnan from tv (movies and series). If you'd tell them he became Marshall, they wouldn't believe you!
Oh... a... did you know that my brother writes pretty good poems?!? Keep writing 'em bro! By the way... you Notre Dame web page is STILL there!
Just wanted to comment on your profile - I went to Romania a year ago. I was in Murighiol, at the dig site in Halmyris volunteering on an archeological dig. I don't know if you heard about the dig site, but a few years back, they found the relics of Epictetus and Astion, and now they're building a monastary there.
I had heard about the site and I knew that I.P.S. Teodosie was planning on building a monastery there, but I didn't know whether they had moved ahead with it. My brother would probably know what's going on - he's usually pretty up to date with what happens around that part of the country :)
I hope you enjoyed your visit.
in Christ,
vp
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