23-VIII-1960.: 5th birthday
My 5th birthday. It being a tuesday, I guess they got me up earlier, or perhaps did this two days in advance. Because I remember it was rather early in the morning (and the angle of the sun on the pictures confirms this) and we're all on the pictures, my parents even in the unofficial combination of pyjamas or housedresses, as they used to do on sunday mornings. That was their way of feeling relaxed, to not change dress until lunch.
They set up a small blanket in the back of the yard and laid up the presents on it. I got a dining set - real knife (dull), fork and spoon, with plastic red handles where the middle third of the handle was hollow and transparent and there were three dice inside of each. This set stayed in the drawer along with the main cutlery for a few decades, and eventually our children used it. Can't remember exactly where it ended. The metal part of the spoon fell out, but was successfully glued back (Oho? the yugoslav clone of the german Uhu glue) and stayed so. Also there was a half liter pot, enameled somewhat creamy, color of thin white coffee*, with a clown with round hat, red nose, parasol and oversized shoes, juggling a few balls. That was my measure in the following years - half a liter of milk with each breakfast. Dad insisted, as an educated cattle grower, that I be given lots of milk. He also insisted that I should nurse as long as I can, which lasted almost a year and a half („for breeding“). So we always had milk in the house, and he was pleased to see me developing a habit.
Then it became the official coffee pot (it being metal and fitting the hotplate better than any džezva). The little spoon that was assigned to it never got separated from it, and it got so used up with the task of stirring the coffee that it eventually wasn't round at the tip - the tip was shortened - as the enamel on the bottom of the pot wore out as well, so it lost molecules daily to frictttion. Eventually it was 2-3 mm shorter.
The glass ball on a stick was yellow. There was another burgundy red and a crimson one, all of them slightly metalized inside. They were the favorite garden decoration. I've seen, later, people sticking long neon bars too. Don't quite remember whether we did those too. [yes we did, found a photo with Zvojko a few years later, posing with me between two of those]
About that "back of the yard". The yard in Banat is traditionally split into three parts. Front part is a kind of a park, with flowers. The middle part is for the chicken. The rear part is vegetable garden. Fruit trees anywhere. The lot being on the corner, it wasn't big, so it had only two parts, the rear one being dedicated to chicken until about my age of seven, and then it was used for just about anything until the seventies, when they planted strawberries. The strawberries migrate, so they gradually propagated from the left side; by the time that side was taken for the garage, they were already on the right. They finally vanished when the sweet cherry got big enough to make shade all over.
On the pictures there's nothing growing, so it must be the chickens' still, but I guess they weren't let out while this little ceremony lasted. Nothing grows in chickens' yard.
On the stool behind there's a vat, where I'd waddle during the summer, but it would be on the ground for that. Thus raised, it served for laundering. Behind it a handle sticks from a low barrel, so granny must have been whitewashing the house. Some yellow dye, earth color aka štricla, mostly yellow, would be dissolved in fresh lime, and granma would paint the whole house with that. It's quite a job, as the house is long, being on the corner and with no windows on the backstreet side, that's lots of wall.
Had it been springtime, I'd think she was whitewashing the trees.
In the shed the outhouse can be glimpsed, next to the pillar. It was often built so - it's under a roof and yet outside. So if one craps in the dead of winter, at least doesn't get rained on. A plum was planted right where the barrel is, years later, and while it was mostly in shade so it didn't bear much fruit, the plums on it were huge and meaty.
----
* I guess what we called 'white coffee' you'd call 'hot chocolate', which I couldn't get into my head. I've seen hot chocolate, it's when mom would melt the cooking chocolate to glaze a cake, it's scalding hot and still not liquid enough to drink.
Mentions: Zvonko Darišić (Zvojko), in serbian
11-VIII-2019 - 17-VII-2024