Having been away for half my life, I am no longer a teenager; although time passes, memories will last forever.

The further the age is from the past, the deeper the memory of the past. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older. In recent years, I’ve been thinking about the past. Although they are all scattered and fragmented shots, they become clearer and clearer with the passage of time, and they are framed into pictures one after another. , slowly unfolding in front of my eyes and in my mind... That happy and carefree childhood life, a poor and fulfilling boyhood, a hard and rich youth period, as well as a green and sweet first love, a marriage built from scratch, bit by bit, trivial, Now when I chew it again, I feel that my mouth is full of saliva, and I can taste the rich flavors.

My memory probably started when I was five years old!

That year, my younger brother was born. My father worked as a branch secretary in the village and was often too busy at home. My mother had to work in the fields, do housework, and take care of the children. She was really busy, so I just Full Moon's grandma picked up my sister, who was only two years older than me. My sister left, and I had no playmates at home before I was six years old. Because I had a younger brother, I was no longer a child under Chenghuan’s mother’s lap, so the pear tree in the house became my own paradise. All my toys are made from local materials: three small bricks to build a stove, tiles to use as pots, bowl pieces to use as bowls, two short pieces of sorghum stalks or corn stalks to use as chopsticks, and a few hay sticks to top the firewood. Ingredients are even more abundant. Mud, stones, leaves, wild flowers, etc., plus water dripping from the eaves into the bucket when it rains, can be made into a "delicious meal" of a mixed nature. Then, I will play the role of three One moment, I acted as a mother serving food to my father and children, and the next moment I pretended to be a child and called my father and mother to serve food. I had a lot of fun the whole morning and afternoon. When I got tired of playing "playing house", I would sit under the tree, fold butterflies with various leaves, talk to myself, sing to myself, and have fun alone. My mother said that I was very good when I was a child and never bothered her, so she could do housework and look after my brother without any worries. She also said that I was very smart when I was a child. I could be inspired by the radio speakers installed under the eaves and write books and jokes. A song of its own. Once I was singing and dancing at my grandma's house, which made my grandma laugh so hard that she fell off the kang to the ground. I even boasted proudly: I just want to sing until you die of laughter...

Sometimes, my father would have a rare moment of free time. He would sit on a small stool under the grape trellis, and I would squat between his legs. My father would hum in his mouth, "My daughter has flowers to wear, daddy, I have money." You can’t buy it...", while using a red headband to tie my braid upwards. This is the warmest and happiest moment in my childhood memory. This shot is engraved in my bone marrow like a chisel and will never be forgotten. My father’s young, resolute and loving face is as clear as yesterday. Although my father died young and was separated from us for nearly thirty years, time has passed and the pain is still deep and severe. Every time I think of him, I can't help but feel my heart twisting and burst into tears.

My sister was eight years old, and when she reached school age, her parents took her back from my grandma’s house. At the age of six, I also clamored to go to school with my sister. My father went to the principal to plead with me, so I He was admitted as an exception and became a first-grade elementary school student in the same class as his sister.

Our primary school curriculum was very simple at that time. The textbooks for the first to third grade only included arithmetic and Chinese. Politics and nature were not added until the fourth or fifth grade. No one asked teachers to make up lessons, and there was no homework after school. Every time we take the exam, my sister and I can easily get first and second place. At that time, I don’t know why, but my family was always busy, and when my mother couldn’t handle it, she asked my sister and I to take my younger brother to school, so that we could take care of the children while going to school. During class, my younger brother sometimes slept under the table, and sometimes cried loudly and made noises. At this time, the teacher asked us to go out to play. So, my sister and I took my younger brother to watch sparrows on the threshing floor of the school, or pick plows on the playground. The jiujiu flowers beside me are teasing my younger brother. Most people born in the 1960s have the same experience. The adults are busy and there are many sisters. It is not uncommon for older brothers and sisters to go to school and take care of younger brothers and sisters at the same time. Although the school does not promote it, it does not oppose it very much. The teachers are also very special. The care is really very humane.

In the next year, it was time to advance to the second grade. My father interceded with the principal again. This time, he wanted me to repeat the grade. He said that I was too young and promoted too early, so I was restricted.

I was anxious and went to the principal crying: I am second place, and if the second place is not allowed to be promoted, then will the classmates behind me not be able to be promoted? "It's quite reasonable!" The principal was amused and laughed: "Okay, okay, little one, you can be promoted, as long as you can keep up!" In this way, I became the youngest student in the second grade again, and my sister and I were still Classmates.

In the winter of my third grade year, the weather was extremely cold. My hands and feet were severely frostbitten, with bruises all over. At night, my heels were so itchy that I couldn’t sleep. My mother boiled water from eggplant roots and washed them for me every night. It didn't help. Later, the little finger of my right hand was cracked and bleeding frequently. The pain was so painful that I couldn't bend it and couldn't even hold a pen. I had no choice but to take a long leave. I missed a whole winter semester and had to repeat a grade. The relationship with my sister's classmates also ended.

My sister wants to make progress, for fear of falling behind. Under her guidance and supervision, I don’t dare to be lazy, so my sisters and I in the first to third grades are unbeatable. As soon as I separated from my sister, I couldn't do it anymore, and my partiality towards subjects became increasingly obvious. I was ranked first in endorsements, and my essays were often used as examples. I wasn't interested in arithmetic at all. The courses in the lower grades of elementary school were simple, and I was forced to do the questions by my sister. I didn’t find it difficult yet, but when I was in the fourth or fifth grade, my simple brain became confused and became more and more confused when I came to the fourth and fifth grade. My grades were always far ahead, but my arithmetic was either just passing or failing, which seriously held me back. This situation lasted until I graduated from junior high school.

Speaking of playing, there is another thing that remains fresh in my memory. I was in fifth grade that year. One day it started to rain at noon. Several of our classmates who had finished memorizing books early were dancing squares and kicking buckets on the steps under the eaves of the temple. While laughing and joking, I was accidentally pushed down by a classmate. When I got up the steps, my mouth and face touched a big stone, and it immediately swelled up like a pig. I was just about to graduate from elementary school. As a result, I failed to take the exam and was suspended for another grade. It was like the tortoise and the hare. I ran so early, so Although we were far away from each other, I finally caught up with my classmates who went to school two years after me. This was the most embarrassing thing in my study life, and I was ashamed to mention it for a long time.

There is another thing that we are ashamed to talk about, and it is also what we are passionate about, haha, and that is catching lice. Children today have no idea what lice are and what they look like, but at that time, lice were probably He is our most loyal and caring partner. He follows us all year round and cannot be shaken off. Especially in winter, when you wear thick clothes and don’t have the opportunity to take a bath, it is most likely to breed lice. You see, after class, the girls are in groups of three and five, piled up under the windowsill of the classroom. Whoever has a lot of lice on his head is the most popular. Everyone is like a hero, rushing to get there. She leaned forward, and some people couldn't squeeze through and would get so anxious that they would start arguing, with five or six hands on each head. Sometimes it's like "monkeys exploring the moon", strung together in a line, you catch me, I'll catch you, and when I catch them they are even fatter and thinner than the big and small Sai, they are chirping, shouting and laughing, it is really lively. As for boys, they sit down on the ground and can easily and quickly find a few fat guys from the folds of their clothes and pants, then draw a circle on the ground, trap them inside, and instruct them to fight. . Haha, in the innocent and carefree era, we didn’t know how to fight against the world, let alone people, but fighting against lice was also a lot of fun!

The carefree school life could not make up for the poverty and hunger of family life. At that time, there was basically nothing to eat, and the main meals were mostly potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, With miscellaneous beans, pumpkins and other cereals, the number of times in a year that one can have a meal of white flour and rice is very rare. So what we looked forward to the most at that time was the New Year, because only during the New Year could we eat some meat, taste some meat, and if our family was well off, we could buy new clothes. There are also snacks, such as locust flowers, elm money, red dates, mulberries, reed roots, willow leaves, etc., which can be eaten casually by picking them from trees or pulling them out of the ground. With a little processing, they can even become "delicacies" on the family table. Use your cold red mouth to blow away the floating soil on the surface and wipe the mud on the surface with your dirty little hands. Then you can eat with confidence and taste the mellow aroma of pure natural food without worrying about being killed by profiteers. Compared to now, although materials are extremely scarce, the safety factor is much higher.

The whole family, old and young, has worked hard for a year. During the Chinese New Year, they still lacked food and clothing.

There are many brothers and sisters, and the eldest brother wears the clothes of the second child, and the second child wears the clothes of the third child. The youngest cannot wear a new dress for several years. It took another three years to sew and mend. Moreover, all the clothes, socks, shoes and hats were sewn by hand, stitch by stitch. Therefore, housewives at that time had an even harder time. In addition to going to work with the men, they also had to use their leisure time and evenings. Time to run a family outfit. In my childhood memories, my mother seemed to never sleep. When she woke up in the middle of the night, she would always lean on the window sill, use the dim oil lamp to pick up shoe soles, knit sweaters, and sew clothes. Cooking in clothes. As for food, the rations allocated to the teams with a small population were barely enough to eat, and they had to eat vegetables and vegetables for half a year. The teams with a large population had to eat a liter of rice in the East and a bowl of noodles in the West in less than half a year. And because there is an extreme lack of oil and water in our diet, we are always hungry. We often eat one meal and look forward to the next, and we don’t have any snacks. The steamed buns left in the morning are not allowed to satisfy our hunger in the morning and afternoon, and we have to give them to the family at night. Their labor is used as solid food. Therefore, we look forward to the most mature season. At that time, whether it is from trees or growing in the ground, it will become the object of our "search" and become the "delicious food" in our stomachs before it is ripe. "More harmful than mice!" Adults often scold us with hatred and pity.

Like all children, my sister and I learned to cook at an early age. When my father is away and my mother is on the ground, my sister is my direct leader. The task she assigns to me is to hold firewood for the fire, while she takes over many aspects such as washing vegetables, cutting vegetables, kneading and wiping noodles, etc. Although In this way, when my sister was ready to wipe the noodles, I hadn't boiled the water for them. There were probably two reasons. One was that I was too stupid and could not light a fire after almost using up a box of matches; the second was that I was too stupid to finish a box of matches. The reason is that I am so obsessed with reading that as long as I have a book in my hand, I forget to do anything else. This often made my sister angry. When she was extremely angry, she would pull my pigtails and kick my calves, causing goosebumps to appear on my scalp and bruises on my legs. Later, my grandma finally found out and severely criticized my sister. It gave me a breath of relief.

In addition to cooking, we dig wild vegetables in the spring, collect wheat in the summer, grain in the autumn, and cinders in the winter. We also hunt apricots, dig medicinal materials, collect sheep dung, etc., etc., we are there all year round. work. Speaking of hunting mountain apricots, one experience can be described as thrilling. It was one summer when my sister and I followed my grandfather to hunt apricots in the mountains more than thirty miles away from home. When I went there, the wind was warm and the sun was shining brightly when I was harvesting apricots on the mountain. But the weather in May suddenly changed, and soon there were dark clouds, lightning, and thunder. Grandpa saw that the situation was not right, so he quickly got down from the tree to pack things and say hello. Let's go down the mountain quickly. Unexpectedly, while walking slowly, heavy rain suddenly fell from the sky. Before we had walked a few steps, we heard a "buzz" of thunder above our heads. We were so frightened that my sister and I crawled into grandpa's arms without raising our heads. Grandpa held us in his arms and remained motionless for a long time. When we came to our senses, he turned around. Look, yeah! It’s so scary! I saw that the apricot tree that grandpa climbed just now was cut off in the middle, and only half of the stump was left bare! The three people stood in the dense rain. Although they couldn't see each other's faces clearly, they seemed to be able to hear each other's heartbeats. It took a long time to calm down. Grandpa carried two half frames, and my sister and I carried half a small bag. The apricots were turned into mud by the rain, and we were turned into drowned rats. The three of them walked on the rugged and muddy mountain road, falling and falling every step of the way. By the time they reached the bottom of the mountain, they had rolled into clay figures. Coarse cloth clothes and hand-made cloth shoes are particularly easy to absorb water and mud. When walking, it feels like dragging something weighing hundreds of kilograms. You can’t move your feet and drag your legs. After taking a few steps, you have to stop and pick off the mud on your shoes. , twisting the water on the clothes, walking like this, walking more than 30 miles for nearly five hours, and did not return home until dark. By this time, the house was in a mess, and grandma and mother went to the village entrance to visit After dozens of times, when we finally came back safely, my mother quickly changed our clothes and made ginger soup for us, while my grandma was so angry that she scolded grandpa for a long time. My sister and I both had colds for several days, and my grandfather never took us to hunt apricots since then.

In winter, my sister and I would go to the garbage dumps of various government agencies to pick cinders. Dad used wire to give us hooks for the net, so we could dig deeper without hurting our hands. We also got a dustpan or a small basket. When you get home from school, you throw away your schoolbags. You don’t need to be told by adults or supervise each other. You just grab your tools and set off on your own. In order to gain more and be more efficient, my sister and I usually go separately according to the agreed routes, and then compete to see who can pick more and come back early.

In one winter, my sister and I picked up enough cinders to seal the fire at home at night. Sometimes when we were picking cinders, we would dig out one-and-a-half cents or a piece of plastic thread or a piece of wool rope. They are so excited that they feel like they have found a treasure, showing it off to each other, and then carefully storing it in their own little box, opening it from time to time and looking at it. This simple happiness will last for a long, long time.

At that time, the school offered work-study programs and also farmed a lot of land. Sometimes I use my spare time to work, and when the farming season is busy, I just stop working. Carrying water to irrigate the ground, carrying manure to apply fertilizer. I remember that rice was planted in the school, and the curious children directly rubbed the rice ears and dug out the rice grains to eat. Corn is planted every year, and breaking corn cobs and pulling out corn kernels is a job that needs to be done every year. During the summer and autumn harvest seasons, the teacher led us to help the production team collect wheat ears, harvest crops, and sort grain. All year round, whether at home or at school, there was always work to do, and leisure was rare. Every child was a young adult and had to Take responsibility for part of creating and building your life.

Of course, children are children after all, and life will force them to be clever and cunning even at an ignorant and innocent age. That summer, the school assigned us a task, requiring us to cut twenty kilograms of cocklebur seedlings every day. The cocklebur seedlings had thorns that pricked our hands, making it difficult to cut. In addition, the whole school was mobilized, and there were more wolves and less meat. We really couldn't complete the task. What should we do? ? Several of our close friends got together to come up with ideas. Some suggested that when bundling the cocklebur seedlings, stuff them with bricks to weigh them. Some said that the cocklebur seedlings should be wetted with river water and weighed. Everyone has used this method. , I don’t know whether the teacher really didn’t notice, or was sympathized with our difficulties. Anyway, we got through it, but not many times, only once or twice. When helping the production team to pick wheat, we would sometimes hide quietly in the uncut wheat fields and pick handfuls, which was much easier than picking in the fields that had already been harvested. When the school was collecting manure, we took advantage of the lunch break to steal from the livestock pen of the production team. One or two people looked out for the wind, one or two people quickly shoveled out with shovels, and one or two people loaded it into the frame. The cooperation was perfect, and we used our own The actions truly fulfilled the slogan on the school wall - "Unity and tension, seriousness and liveliness". At the same time, I was uneasy, mixed with a little pride and satisfaction of success. Now that I think about it, all the hardships have disappeared like smoke, and the excitement in my heart is Just full of happiness and deep interest.

When I went to the countryside to help the poor a few days ago, I saw that in the toilet of every farmer's household, there was either a delicate small box on the ground, or a small platform nailed to the wall, and a roll of toilet paper was placed in the toilet. Most of them have been built into houses, and the squatting pits have been turned into toilets. They are very clean and safe. This small detail also reminds me of the toilets in various houses when I was a child. It is really sad and funny to think about it. How can I have toilet paper when I go to the toilet? If there are children in school at home, you can tear up the books that the children have used and use them as scrap paper. If there are no children in school at home, there is not even a piece of paper at home, so you have to use stones, tiles, dirt, garbage, etc. to go to the toilet. Wipe your butt with leaves or corn stalks, and some even scratch it on the edges of the toilet wall. "Every house has shit on the wall, don't envy other people's tiles to clean it." Now it sounds like a joke, but this phenomenon is still It was common in rural areas at that time. Moreover, the toilets are all dug into a deep hole in the ground, with three long stones built up over the pit. The hole is long and wide. From time to time, children fall into the pit and are smoked to death, which brings tragedies and hidden dangers to many families. . Small toilets solve people's problem of defecation, reflect the poverty and backwardness of the times, and bring us all bitter memories.

Indeed, busyness, poverty, hunger, and material scarcity can be said to be the most profound imprints of our generation’s childhood life, but ease of study, rich spirit, and joyful mood are also what that era left to our generation. The best, cleanest and most interesting memories, and more importantly, we who have come from that era will not panic when faced with the difficulties and setbacks in life, let alone be depressed. The storms we have gone through along the way have been Having cultivated our child skills, we can calmly and calmly face all bitterness and sweetness, crying and laughter, sadness and joy, as well as all good and bad, smooth and unsatisfactory.

My past, my ignorant youth, has stored the most precious spiritual wealth in my life. She is happy and interesting, she is true and innocent, and is the most worth recalling and savoring in my life. It’s a beautiful stage, I really hope I can stay here forever and never grow up!

(Note: All impressions are in the mind, and all memories are in words. There is no TV, no radio, and no mobile phone, so I can only borrow some pictures from the Internet for support.)