Letters, Booze And My Dollar
Saturday September 19, 2009
By Merari Alomele
I used to look forward to receiving letters.
Week after week, letters of fans of Sikaman Palava poured in and it came to a time when I got tired of reading letters and kept tossing them aside.
Drinking beer had become more enjoyable.
In the good old days, a glass of cold beer was the acid-test of one’s happiness.
If after the first glass you didn’t get the kick, then the day was obviously not yours.
It meant you made a mistake. You should have laid a foundation with three tots of Kasapreko Gin to see your way clear.
For those who were loyal believers of local gin otherwise known as sub-diesel, only two tots was enough to save them from cold turkey.
Sub-diesel is reputed for its ability to give momentum to the metabolic drive of the human anatomy. Big English! But there were those who took quarter quarter two and spent the night in a nearby gutter.
And they slept rather soundly. No shaking!
Yes, when I was engaged in national service, I drank beer once in a month; that was when my meagre allowance came.
My brother knew I was paid whenever I was tipsy and seemed happier than normal.
When I got a job, he became confused. Too often I came home in the mood and he wondered why.
He had forgotten that I was no longer on allowances.
Sometimes, I felt free to read my letters only when I was tipsy and seeing some of the characters in duplicates and triplicates.
It was indeed great to be young, unmarried, full of life and romance. I read letters from the young and old, men and boys, women and girls.
Those were the days letters came through the post. Today, the postal service is dead and probably waiting to be buried.
As a young student, exchanging love letters with the babes, it was sheer joy going to open the post box to pick letters.
We were so eager that we even started reading some of the letters right at the post office before getting home. Today, that thrill has been usurped by almighty email.
It comes in some variety - hotmail, yahoomail, gmail, whatever.
In days past when postal communication was booming, people also received dollars, pound-sterling and other foreign currency by post.
It was illegal though, but because there was no established and quick money transfer system, the only convenient way was through posted mail.
Tragically for most people, dollars sent to them ended up in the back-pockets of some unscrupulous postal workers.
Some of them developed electronic eyes and knew which letter had currency in it and which did not.
I lost a couple of dollars in the mails and I have still not forgiven the crooks for doing me in when I was a student.
One journalist I’d always respect is Tom Dorkenoo, my former editor.
When the stealing of mails at the post offices became so rampant, he decided to do something about it. He arranged and got employed at one of the post offices where he observed the activities of the criminals and documented every bit of it.
When he came up with a full report in the Ghanaian Times, it was explosive.
He painstakingly narrated the methods of stealing mails and mentioned the culprits.
Of course, some of them were investigated and given the sack.
It was from that time that Uncle Tom began wearing a cap and dark spectacles, because those he had exposed wanted to capture him and give him a beating he’d always remember for the rest of his life.
Of course, one of them once met him at the gate and asked to see Tom Dorkenoo and he (Tom) directed him to the newsroom where he was told that the only Tom Dorkenoo was the man he had just met at the gate. The man bit his fingers because he had missed his quarry narrowly.
Before Anas Aremeyaw Anas there was a Tom Dorkenoo, a very courageous investigative journalist who was once honoured as Best Journalist and is now on retirement.
In the prime of his career, he also took environmental issues seriously and ran an environmental column in The Spectator.
He also edited the Ghanaian Times and is one of the few journalists that deserve awards at the annual GJA awards.
Now, the postal system is dead but there is ample evidence that it can be resurrected to play a more modern role i.e. delivery of parcels nationwide and internationally like the EMS and DHL.
The internet is also a threat to the newspaper industry but newspapers cannot die out for the simple reason that readers find them either an addiction or very convenient, rather than going to source the internet, scrolling up and down to get something to read.
Newspaper sales have plummetted in several countries and some papers have folded up.
But even in the most advanced countries where sourcing the net is as easy as ABC, a good number of newspapers are still enjoying some good patronage.
In Ghana, the threat is real and the trends have been pretty daunting. However, Ghanaians love their newspapers and want to read them hard copy.
The internet, yes! But what joy it is to have a set of the Spectator, Ghanaian Times and Sporting Times to enjoy while having your breakfast of hot coffee and toasted bread! Oh boy!
Email: merarix2001@yahoo.co.uk Website: www.merarialomele.com.
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Sikaman Palava
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