Sharing memories from childhood is something that puts both my husband and me into our respective elements. Even if that means, listening to the same story for the hundredth time, those dreamy eyes and an almost involuntary smile on the narrator's face, does help the listener keep the "yeah, yeah, i know!" attitude at bay, at least for a while. On one such nostalgic evening, out of the blue, my husband asked me if I remembered " those fudgy stickers that we used to get back then"...... and once again my eyes got all dreamy and that involuntary smile spread right across my face......
Chocolates to us as children essentially meant Cadbury's dairy milk and Five Star for the most part, interspersed with the occasional supply of "foreign chocolates" like Toblerone. "Fudgy" was a new entrant into the market at the time...... with an obviously successful and shorlived marketing strategy , of giving away stickers with every bar purchased. Stickers of the most famous children's hero of the 80's, if you will- "He Man " and all his friends and foes. I don't quite remember how the chocolate tasted, well I 'm guessing it must've tasted, like its name suggests, fudge ..y........ however, that didn't quite matter to me......the stickers were all I cared about..... specifically those of He-man and his girl, Teela. But as one might guess, the odds of running into a he-man sticker were miniscule,.... just to make sure that children continued to try their luck by buying more.......
The He-man show was what made our sundays the way they were....... I remember waiting for a whole week to see the super hero pull out his magic sword and say something like.... "by the power of the Grey Skull"........and outsmart the evil Skeletor and his gang week after week.
This was something the whole entire class was hooked onto ......We would religiously watch every episode and go play HE-Man at school....... well our own version of it, ofcourse.
Another reason for my added interest in the show was this guy....... ok now its not what you're thinking.....I was in preparatory for Christ's sake....... lets just say, I was really quite fond of him. Now , this guy that I liked.... always,......and let me repeat .... always.... played He-Man. He was a natural charmer and obviously the one who got to designate the other lesser beings with their roles. I think it would be safe to assume that he was also kinda fond of me cuz I got to play teela......always......ok, almost always.... well, except for a couple of rare instances when the silly girl gang managed to come up with games that interested me........
So here he was .....with his wooden ruler tucked in behind his shirt..... which he yanked out from time to time as he-man's all powerful sword while running around, chasing his enemies ....... and since teela, got to run around with a sword too, my wooden ruler, all of a sudden became the most important piece of stationary in my school bag! ..... His best friend, who was not quite what one might call heavily- set, got to play He-man's faithful lion - Cringer......which meant, the poor fella had to get down on all fours and bear "he-man's" weight for the most part !!....
There were other characters in the show too, which were played by other boys that did'nt have a problem letting my He-man take all the lime light........ like this little ghost that floated around without legs and wore a red pointed hat........ Orko.... and the evil Skeletor which was always played by the naughtiest, most evil kid around!....... my mom's absolute favourite from class, cuz he managed to make her otherwise superlatively naughty daughter seem docile!
So now, having successfully established the importance of those fudgy stickers in my life, at the time, the question arises as to what I did with them..... Did I like most collectors hold on to them without ever peeling the guard off and letting it go to waste? Not quite the case..... I did have something else in mind for them actually.......
I used to live in the same town as my grand parents at the time. There was this cabinet in my grand dad's bar that I was completely fascinated by. It was your typical 70's, art deco' piece of furniture, with glass sliding shutters, a wooden body with a slight taper towards the top that was covered in formica, slender truncated cones for legs which reminded me back then, of stilettos or "high heals" as we used to call them (my fascination with stilettos goes a long way..... they were used as a bribe, to make me top my class!!), and most importantly, this was the only piece of furniture around that I could reach .......
My favourite pass time was to stare at, and occasionally take out, all the different glasses the cabinet held.......glasses of all shapes and sizes, the short and stocky cut glasses for scotch, the tall slender stemmed ones for champagne, the fat stemmed ones for wine, the huge mugs with handles for beer and so on....... and not to forget my absolute favourites ..........the shot glasses :) ...... they were shaped like miniature beer mugs with propotionate handles ....and for a long time, made me think that they were infact beer mugs for us miniature adults at home ..... So when I did start collecting my stickers after all, it was almost instinctual that I use them to adorn my favourite cabinet ..... and so I did ...... and the best part of it all was that, my grand dad didn't really mind :) ............
What happened to my little "puppy love" story, you might ask.... well, we were quite sweet together actually ..... we dressed similarly to our class christmas party (which was a coincidence btw.) ...and I even fell in love with this kennel he had at home, for his golden retreiver.......it looked like a miniature house, oh i meant the kennel..... T'was all so perfect....... when, just like in the movies, this evil seductress walks in and tries to take my he-man away! ..... well....there was this new girl in class, with lovely long locks ....... and then, one fine morning, my he-man comes over and asks me if this new girl could be his teela "just this one time" Hmmmm, MEN! ........ and the rest is history........ the brave teela fought for her he-man and managed to win him back too ...... only to realise the subsequent week that........... she, with her family, had to move out of town...... for good! ....I know .....that was a bit of a bummer, frankly ! ....
And as far as the cabinet goes..... it still does exist ....... having been ripped off of all its past glory,
is now being used to store all sorts of "have to keep, though seldom used" things....... thanks to all the built-in woodwork with glass panels and fancy focus lights!
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