How many childhood memories have you forgotten? Let me share with you some interesting things from your childhood.

Earliest memory

I was born on September 12, 1948 in the lunar calendar. I can’t remember when I started remembering things. My earliest memory is that I had a sore on my chest. The so-called sores on the neck are two symmetrical sores, one on each side of the neck. This kind of sore is very dangerous because it happens to grow on the neck, is surrounded by veins and blood vessels, and is relatively close to the brain. If not, it will spread to the brain, causing adverse consequences and even life-threatening.

The medical conditions at that time were very poor. My family hired local doctors for me. Their general treatment method was to use a knife, burn it on the fire, and then disinfect it with a knife. Open the abscess, drain out the pus and blood, apply a homemade Chinese medicinal powder, bandage it, and it will be cured after a while. This treatment method is very effective and basically cures everything, but it is very scary. In today's terms, it is just surgery without anesthesia.

My mother hugged me, and the doctor coaxed me: "Come, let me take a look, it doesn't matter, it's almost healed." He took a knife and opened the swollen pustule with a "chi". , thick blood suddenly flowed down my neck, and the sudden pain made me break away from my mother's hand holding me, and ran into the kang, crying and cursing the doctor.

Later, my father often joked about me scolding doctors, and the whole family was surprised: How could such a young child, who had just learned to speak and never cursed, scold him so easily? It seems that this kind of surgery is very painful!

My father said that I didn’t remember anything at that time. Looking back, I remember the moment of the operation very clearly: It was in the east room of our old house, and I jumped from the edge of the bed during the operation. When I got to the kangtou, I didn't dare to go back.

No matter how incredible the elders think it is, this incident has become the earliest memory in my life (probably because children’s memory will be enhanced when they are stimulated). Since then, those beautiful stories from my childhood have been imprinted in my mind scene by scene, and they are still fresh in my memory.

Beautiful home

In Qizhuang Village, our home is in a good location.

Xiqizhuang has only one east-west street, and there is a short street parallel to it to the north of the east-west street. People are accustomed to calling it a back street. The other streets are all north-south. The western end is Lijia Street, and from there to the east are Wujia Street, Zhangjia Aisle, Songjia Aisle, Weijia Street, Tianjia Aisle, Dongjiagang, etc.

The Wei family is a large family, occupying half of the village in Xiqizhuang. Weijia Street is located in the middle of the village and is the largest street in the village. Our family lives on the south side of the T-shaped road where Weijia Street and Dongxi Street meet, that is, the southernmost end of Weijia Street. Further south, there is a small passageway connecting it. My house is located on the west side of the small passageway, with an area of ??more than an acre. At the base of the village, there is one of the largest courtyards in the village.

Our family divides the huge yard into two parts. A small part of the northern part is used as a yard for family activities, and the southern part is used as a vegetable garden, accounting for two-thirds of the entire courtyard. All courtyard walls are made of dry-cast earth walls, and the northern and southern courtyards are also separated by the same earth walls.

The vegetable garden is divided into four sections from south to north, and is planted with cabbage, leeks, radish, onions, garlic, pumpkin, prune, cucumber, tomatoes, sesame yam, lettuce, kidney beans, Various vegetables, etc., and due to the large area, some crops such as wheat and barley are sometimes grown. There are also more than a dozen peach trees of different varieties planted in the gaps between the vegetable beds. We can’t tell them their true names. We just call them white peaches and red peaches based on the color of the fruits. Although they are all raw peaches, they taste very good. Whenever it rains, my sister and brothers and I will pick up the peaches that have fallen to the ground. They will fall to the ground when they are ripe, and the thin skin will come off easily. What is exposed is the white meat. The peach core does not stick to the meat. It is broken open by hand and falls to the ground automatically. It tastes noodles, sweet and slightly sour, which is particularly delicious.

In addition to elms, Chinese toon trees, locust trees and other trees used for growing talents, apricot trees and more than a dozen jujube trees, including large jujubes and small jujubes, were planted around the vegetable gardens and residential courtyards. . It is known as the red circle of jujubes on July 15th, and the jujubes fall from the pole on August 15th. Every time it is the jujube hunting season, the whole family goes out. We children climb up the tree and beat them with poles, while others pick them up below and eat them while beating them. Our favorite food is the crispy dates that have just turned red but not yet soft. Children don’t know when they are hungry and full, and they always get stomachaches from eating them.

After harvesting the dates, pick out the crispy ones and make them drunk with wine, and eat them fresh in the winter. The rest are dried on the roof, and then put into the store. In addition to eating them yourself, they give them to relatives and friends.

There is a well on the southwest side of the vegetable garden, and a windlass is installed for irrigation of the entire garden. The water level at that time was very shallow, usually only one or two feet deep, and the water quality was also very good. When you drank it, you felt a slight sweetness and a refreshing feeling in your mouth. In the hot summer, no one drank hot water, and faced the water bucket for watering the garden. , Gudong Gudong drank a breath of well water, which relieved the heat and quenched thirst.

When watering the garden, the water from the well flows into the border through the ridges and valleys (canals). The adults use the windlass to water the garden (carry water), and the children change the border (that is, after watering a field, the mouth of the border is blocked. , diverting water to another border). Both sides of the long ridges and valleys are covered with water lilies, echinacea (yellow flowers), sunflowers and various aquatic plants.

Our vegetable garden is more like a flower orchard than a vegetable garden. Spring is the season when various fruit trees, flowers, and vegetables bloom. Birds are singing and flowers are fragrant, and the garden is full of picturesque scenes. I have been proud of having this beautiful and unique farmhouse in my family since I was a child! (To be continued)