Slumbooks And Autographs (Blast From The Past)

My autograph is open
Come and see
What?
Won’t you waste a line on me?
Share but a thought
A word or two
That memory may revert to you…

These  were just a few lines that I vividly remember written on my first autograph book that Mom and Dad gave me one Christmas in 1968.  Back then, the first thought that came to mind was, I could have my grade school classmates sign it before our graduation the following year.  I didn’t know that Mom kept it together with assorted toys, plastic dolls and other paraphernalia so dear to a young girl’s heart. The book was about 8′ x 10′ in size, with an inch-thick pages and the cover was  of a glossy material that easily attracts the eyes. At the center was a picture of…guess who….Susan Roces!

I was then quite excited to show it off to my classmates. I am sure you know what a typical autograph looks like, you write your name, address, age, school, ambition, motto in life and see questions like, ‘who is your crush?’ and such things like ‘define love’.  On the second page is where you put your dedication together with a small photograph if you have one.

A few years ago, I got the chance to get re-acquainted with it. The pages were quite frayed at the edges and some part of it were eaten by termites.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
May some forget you
But never shall I…

I could not help remembering James Patterson’s books with similar titles, Roses Are Red and Violets Are Blue. Do you think he got the idea of using such from some childhood quotes?  Going back to answering the question, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ A lot of them answered, ‘to be a nurse’ or ‘to be a teacher’ and most of them wrote under ambition, ‘to go abroad’ Why not ‘to be a writer”or probably the more facetious answers like ‘to be a beauty queen’ or ‘to be a Philippine president’ ? Forty years ago, being a teacher was I think the most noble ambition for a child of eleven or twelve. And going abroad was the ultimate dream of every family.  Remember the saying, “the grass is greener on the other side”.

Define love.  ‘Love is sweet’, ‘love hurts’, ‘love is a nice feeling’. Corny, you might say but those are definitely what we feel at times, right?  We were psyched  from early childhood how to give love back – be it in simple things like hugging our parents, kissing our younger siblings, making those paper flowers for our moms thinking that they are the best flowers in the world, helping them with household chores, etc.  Love is simply manifested in every gesture but probably in a subconscious way.

Back in high school during our senior year, we had those slumbooks  (is this word in the dictionary?) as we called it then. Remember those cute little notebooks  with Hello Kitty designs?  Almost every girl in class had it and we were quite “kilig to the bones” seeing our high school crush sign it.  What was important was, the complete address, birthday and the short accompanying note which we treasured.  Nowadays and luckily for our batch, we regularly keep in touch by way of frequent get-together, once in three years reunions, via our batch’ e-group and such social networking site like Facebook.

Yes, the college years  – those were the days where you probably experienced being in love for the first time.   Really, how time flies!   Slumbooks and autographs, do they still have that now?

(photo courtesy of  Witty  Will Save The World Co.)

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