HANGING OUT FOR MEMORIES LIKE THESE

While I was in primary school, Ansar Ud Deen , Okepopo, Lagos Island, I was ambushed by some boys who knocked out one of my front teeth. They felt threatened not only by my coming first most of the time, but that it was starting to get into my head.

Anyway, the tooth was saved because our headmaster, Mr. Abaniwonda, my aunt, Mrs. Oketola, who was then a staff nurse, and the family Doctor, Dr. Randle, insisted that a missing front tooth would kill the self esteem of an eleven year old boy.

I remember that it was the month I not only won the Island wide debate organised by the City Hall, it was around the same period I became the Head boy of the school.
Anyway, the dead tooth neither affected my self esteem nor my self worth, since my values were not built around superficialities.

Why the psychobabble? Well, I was oblivious to the fact that Journalist's Hangout, a programme I had appeared on a couple of times, has now gone international, as it now appears real time on the international platform of TVC.

So, because of that, one of the boys who ambushed me, forty two years ago, now living somewhere in Europe, thought I looked familiar, so he googled the name on the screen, and according to him, a whole profile came up listing articles, opinions, TV and movie appearances, in short, everything that I have uploaded or uploaded about me.

He then called the number on my Facebook page.

It was a reunion of sorts, he remembered that he and the three other guys were suspended for a year, and only came back after we had left, but somehow my image stuck, years of struggle, triumphs and betrayals, including multiple tragedies, obviously have not tampered the fire burning inside. He could still recollect the stubborn Isalegangan boy who had an answer for everything, including his insistence that Sikiru Ayinde Barrister was the best musician that ever lived, and was ready to beat up anybody who disagreed.

That was when boys were boys.

All of these because a TV station decided to put a local programme on its international platform.

Oh, well......

My Ten Kobo.