Twentythird. "I have rested from the road already and we are all in good mood, because it's my birthday today. I have several friends and their parents as guests. From mom and dad I got a record player as a present. I am very glad for the present."
It was in the living room, with the great window, because I don't remember the radio being anywhere else at the time, not even during the big chaos of 1963. And this old 1957 radio had a then standard jack, i.e. two pins identical to those used for 220V, into which the portable Emona plugged in. It was powered from the mains, and required an amplifier, but it still came with a rather stylish case, which had a handle so you could carry it. Not that we ever did, that radio was furniture. The lack of its own amplifier and speaker made it that much cheaper, which meant I got it so much earlier.
Amazingly, this old radio had a proper pre-amp, so it played the records great. It will be only some seven years later until I hear about hi-fi and what is that stereo thing.
Over the following months we kept bying a single or two every now and then, mostly the current pop (Radmila Karaklajić, Olivera Marković etc) but also the double single (!) with the booklet from "Na slovo, na slovo", but that was a couple of years later, when we had a TV.
From time to time, specially later, dad would buy one of the parody singles, which were popular (in a different way), churned by comedy actors every now and then, specially from Radivoje Lola Đukić's stable (i.e. Mija, Čkalja). They were funny to me first few times as well, but he didn't get it that it's still a lower kind of humor and that it loses over time. After a while these records got to the bottom of the stack. Sometimes he'd ask why am I not playing that or other anymore, which made me feel almost guilty for not appreciating the gift, but it soon sank down to "don't buy those comedians again, nobody listens to that later". The albums would take five more years to start appearing.
He kept pulling the record sleeves into the typewriter (which we didn't have, but he kept bringing a semi-portable from work) and would type the date when each was bought. The singles are all still present, so perhaps some day I'll see about those dates and insert them here.
He did a lot of work at home, keeping very tight books of whatever he was in charge of, which later helped several people who could have gone to jail as they kept sloppy evidence and someone else stole something - his paperwork was trusted and complete. He kept the nail on his right hand pinky finger a few millimeters long, the easier to turn the next leaf. It was a custom held by various paper pushers at the time.
In regard to his trusted paperwork, it nearly came to court a couple of times, and the innocent sloppy operators weren't wrongly sentenced, but whether it was used for finding and sentencing the real culprits, I'll never know.
Twentysixth. „Today we unexpectedly went to relatives in Bačka. I just watched them play cards, played, read and watched television“. This'll be Teja, Jaca, Deska and the uncle.
Twentyninth. „All three days passed the same. Only shooting the air rifle brought some diversity. We'll tra[ve]ll tonight, because mom goes to work tomorrow“.
Fourth of september. „Yesterday dad also went to work“.
13-III-2021 - 28-XI-2024