I really don’t have much to do today, so I decided to go ahead and write my own version of the “where it all began” posts.

I’ve always wanted to write this sort of posts for a very long time. I do have a somewhat ‘colorful’ history, subjectively of course, so I guess maybe I should just write this down, just to get it out of my chest.

This is the Part 1, the very early years, let me know if you’d like to hear more of it.

OBLIGATORY NOTICE :
This turned out to be a very long post, devoid of ANYTHING related to magazines. No images either.
This post covers my very early life, so it’s really tame with no action / drama / jacking off whatsoever.
If you’re not into this sort of reading, that’s cool, please carry on. If you still want to read, have a seat, a warm tea, and please enjoy.

Alright here we go :

Let me take you back to my younger days. We’re talking very young, pre-elementary times. I was still a kid, barely able to speak. You see, I used to play this sort of thing, where I would build a tent in my bedroom using bedsheets, blankets, pillows, and newspapers. Pretty much anything big enough to be spread out as a tent. I would spread the newspapers on my bed as carpeting, and lie down on it. It’s noisy, but I do believe this is my first exposure to newspapers, something that I would hold dearly for my life.

Back then, logic didn’t apply. I loved to lie down on newspapers, wrap myself with them, etc. Why? I don’t know. I mean, I was a little kid with far-fetching imagination. It just happens.

Soon enough, the sound of newspaper crinkling was burned into my memory. I’d become so sensitive to them. I used to spread newspapers on my bed and jump around on them, playing the quite literal trampoline, until they got destroyed. Nobody ever asked about it, hey, at that age I used to swing random stick as a sword, use a piece of string as a snake, and other childish thing. Jumping on newspapers weren’t a weird thing for my age.

I used to have my favourite newspaper. It was a page with an ad for Sustagen formula milk. It was around 3/4 the size of a page. Why did I liked it? I don’t know, I was so young, remember? Logic didn’t apply. My world was small and that ad was all I knew.

All was going well, then we had to move our rent. Probably because our rent ran out or something, not my business at all. So, my parents packed our things. They used some newspapers to wrap all the things we had, including that particular newspaper with the Sustagen ad. I still remember vividly, my dad just relentlessly ripped it out and wrapped it on a clothes hanger. The sounds, the visuals, the experience, still sends shivers down my spine, even decades later.

So we moved. My memories is somewhat spotty at this point, this was long ago, how many of you remember what happened during your early age? So, yeah.

Warning : next paragraph includes some vomit scenes, so if you were consuming something, kindly pause for a while. Sorry to bring this up, but this is pivotal so I can’t just skip it out.

Now, there were some notable things during this part of my life. At one point, I was sick. I have no idea what sort of sickness had befallen me, but I couldn’t stop vomiting. After vomitting so much, I would ran out of any material to chuck out, so I just uncontrollably spit and salivating. My parents brought me some type of small bucket for me to spit in. But, eventually, the bucket would go full. Then, my mom grabbed a newspaper, ripped it in half and just placed it at the base of the bucket to absorb it all. The sounds of the newspaper ripping, and the looks of the newspaper slowly getting wet with a mix of spit and vomit material, stuck with me to this day.

Alright end of vomitting-related part of the story.

Not only that, I used to wet my bed almost every night (who doesn’t?). Even using that “baby sheets” on the bed to prevent the bed from getting soiled, was just not enough. The thing would eventually seeped through it into the bed. So, my parents decided to just put some newspaper under the bedsheets to solve this problem. The bedsheets could be washed easily, and the newspapers discarded., but man, the sounds of the newspapers crinkling under my body was…. divine..

Also, a bit of a sidenote, we had a computer with an office chair. Fact is, I used to play on that computer for so long I would just peed myself on the chair, leaving it wet. My dad would use newspaper to, uhh, clean the seat. He would use the page to absorb the marks. Sometimes, it was so bad that he just left the newspapers there overnight. I would sit on it and continue playing. Again,, felt divine..

If you’d like to take a break, this might be the best time. We’ll move on to a new chapter after this.

Alright, moving on. Now I’m on my elementary. I didn’t wet my bed anymore (more or less), and we already moved to a new home. Our home this time instead of a rent. My parents decided to subscribe to a newspaper. We’ll just call it Newspaper A (don’t want to attract unneeded attention by calling out the brand). It’s a regular morning daily. They also subscribed to a sport magazine (it was a rally racing magazine) , which I indeed liked to read. But, like every other child I only read them for the pictures.

At this point, my interest towards newspapers was already set in stone.

It was quite a slow phase actually. Not much happened. I started to collect my favourite newspapers. It was sporadic, I didn’t know the editorials or even the pages. I had this small drawer where I put my toys and other things. I used that drawer to keep my favourite newspapers.

There wasn’t any clear criteria on what goes in there. Looking back, most of my favourites from this era had one thing in common : they were colorful. Some of my favourites were one with a Peugeot 206 ad on it (I saw the car on that sport magazine, so I guess it was cool), a GAP fashion ad, and one with disney ad. The disney one was my favourite, it was colorful, and man it was disney, those are the things I used to watch as a kid. I also kept some random pages that had many colors on them.

I kept my favourites tidily. I didn’t jump on them or wrap them yada yada like the other ones. Those are my treasures. My life hinged on those pages.

Then, one day, disaster.

You probably could see already what was going to happen. After around 3 years of living on that house, my parents decided to expand the house by building an entirely new wing, and some fresh coat of paint. So, work began. My dad didn’t call up a contractor and just called his friends and a few neighbors (of course, I learned about this contractors thing later in life, I didn’t know jack at that point). I didn’t care though, they left me alone, and that’s cool. It wasn’t my business anyway.

I could see outside that they used some newspapers to do the job. I didn’t really mind, the important ones were safe with me.

Until it wasn’t.

One of the painters (a close neighbour) was planning to paint the inside of the house. He brought a ladder, but its ends was dirty. So, he had to wrap the ends of the ladder with something to prevent it from ruining the paint after it was set. So,, he pulled one of my precious newspaper from that treasure drawer and ripped it in two, then used it to wrap the ladder ends. Of all the newspapers he could’ve used, he chose that disney one.

I cried. I was seething with rage.

My parents asked me what was going on. It was so bad I couldn’t speak. They thought I was bothered by the noisy environment so they put me to sleep. For a moment, I forgot about it. When I woke up, I was determined to find that ladder and “rescue” the newspaper, whatever it takes I knew the newspaper must’ve been ruined, probably covered in paint. I don’t care, I had to get it back. But, the ladder was nowhere to be found. They took it with them when they went home. Sucks, but nevermind, they’ll probably return the next day with the same ladder right?

And they did return with that exact same ladder, but the newspaper was missing. I walked around the house, couldn’t find it. That painter probably trashed them.

At that point, that seemingly innocuous wall painter became my sworn enemy. I cursed him (silently of course), wished failure for him. Hoped for disaster and malevolence to him. I was a little kid, but boy, you took something I held dearly.

Now, whether you believe in coincidence or not, something interesting did happen. My dad ended up, uhh, “cutting the contract” with him due to some disagreement about pay and plans. He was my neighbour, with this house several blocks from ours, so we could still see him. Sometime later, his house was burglarized. From what I heard from my mom, the burglar literally walked through the main gate, and even said hi to the security guards. What a madlad. A year after that, he lost his job at a factory, and his house caught fire. At that point, my parents already cut any ties with him due to, yet, pay disagreements, so we really didn’t help him.

You know what I said? “Serves him right”.

In hindsight, I was probably too harsh to him, but back then that newspaper was all I have. Logic didn’t apply here. Eye for an eye, as I said.

Then, I finished my elementary, and was ready to take on to junior high.

Junior high was where the real deal’s at. The era of freedom, tale of two subscribers, myself learning more about different types of newspapers, and the most blazing of all, that was the time I went through puberty. You know how it is., first attraction towards the other sex, know what I mean? Yeah…

But I guess that’s another story for another day (that is, if this one got enough attention heh). That one’s probably for Part 2 if I ended up making it.
Let me know in the comments below whether you like this story and you’d like the continuation of the story, or whether this long winding paragraph really is just something that put strain on the server and therefore better off discontinued.

As always, have a beautiful life