Date Published: 01/25/10
Sixty Seconds Make One Minute ... By Oghene Omonisa
Hello folks,
It is another New Year Day!
On New Year Day in 2000, I sent to close friends and relatives New Year hand-made cards that contained the same message. I had wanted to cultivate the habit of doing that every New Year Day. But for personal reasons, I could not continue it. When the use of the Internet began to spread and more people secured e-mail box, the thought of sending the same New Year message to multi-receivers returned to me, and since 2008, I have been sending the same New Year message to friends and relatives who I have their e-mail address.
Sometime in February last year, I met a friend who I also included among the receivers of my 2009 New Year message. He had a female companion and he introduced us, adding to my introduction with excitement, ‘the man who sent me that New Year message which I forwarded to year box’. The excitement and admiration in the woman’s eyes certainly made my day as she expressed love and appreciation for the message. Nothing more could have proved to me how much I am appreciated!
Incidentally, it is exactly ten years today since that idea of sending the same New Year message occurred to me, and remarkably, it is the beginning of a new decade today as well. So, I am enclosing the two previous New Year messages unedited. I hope resending them will not be of any inconvenience to those who had received them then.
I titled this year’s message Sixty Seconds Make One Minute ….
Sixty Seconds Make One Minute…
Every human being holds fond memories of his first day at school. My first day at school was in 1979, exactly thirty years ago this year just gone by. Though hard to believe, I was not officially a student. My elder brother was. I was going to six then, while my brother was going to seven and naturally, he went to akara school before me. Akara school? Yes, akara school! For my folks who grew up outside Warri, Delta State, or those who were too elitist to have experienced akara school because they went to the modern nursery school or kindergarten, akara school was the name of the first stage of school then. According to one Warri folklore, akara (bean cake) used to be shared during lunch hour. And the words or songs or rhymes which the children sang became known as ota akara (meaning akara word in Urhobo language), from which ota akara school was derived, which was later shortened to akara school. I last heard of akara school more than ten years ago.
Well, my elder brother was my closest playmate, and seeing him leave for school every morning naturally made me lonely and sad. And when he returned, he would tell me exciting stories of activities at school. A few days after he started, I insisted I wanted to go to school, too. The proprietor of the school was an elderly man simply known as Teacher and his akara school was just the next street. He normally went around the neighborhood every morning collecting the kids.
One particular morning, I dressed like every akara student would dress, clean shirt and shorts and a pair of slippers, and waited as Teacher came in his usual round collecting children. (Uniforms for akara schools would be introduced later.) I cried and cried that I wanted to go to school, too. Teacher took pity on me and asked that I come along as well, but with a promise that it was only for that day. I was thinking about it as I was about to compose this message. Did Teacher ask me to come because of pity for the crying boy, or because of the money (two kobo then, I am sure) which every kid brought along each day for the small slice of bread and a little cup of water that was shared to every kid for lunch? I concluded it was out of pity!
My first day at school was fun. We read ABC to Z, and 1, 2, 3 to 30 in very loud choruses. Every student wrote from the blackboard, but I did not write because I was having neither chalk nor slate, the old wooden frame painted black with ABC to Z, and 1, 2, 3 to 30 at the reverse. But I enjoyed the singing of rhymes and poem and songs. One of the rhymes we sang frequently that day and which I took away home in my heart was Sixty Seconds Make One Minute …. I cannot vividly recall the details of what happened the next day or why I agreed to remain at home without putting up a fight. Nevertheless, I endured one full year without going to school, waiting for my own turn.
In 1980, I started my official akara school. Unfortunately, my elder brother was no longer at Teacher’s school for he had started Primary 1. I do not known why, but I believe my mum thought it would not be proper for me to go to Teacher’s school alone and she decided I should go to a closer akara school, and I ended up in our female neighbour’s akara school at an adjacent street just down our street, even with a corner-corner short route. Unlike Teacher, we called her Miss, the general name every female teacher was known then, as if a female teacher is not a teacher as well.
At my official first school, many rhymes, poems and songs were sang, but Sixty Seconds Make One Minute … was not sang. And I did not encounter it again until two years after. In 1982, when I was in Primary 2, I was one of the few students who could read. The ability to read then was actually the ability to cram very well. We would claim to be reading when we were actually reciting what the teacher had often read from the English textbook while we followed in our own textbooks. Then after reading the passage for each chapter for a couple of days, each student was then asked to read. Then the recitation would begin. Wherever you skipped a word or pronounced it wrongly, the teacher would help you. But being asked to point out a particular word from the passage was a major task -- we would have to start from the beginning, counting each word until we would get to that particular word to identify it, except if the word was a short and simple word like it, go, is, etc. which we would just scan through the passage to locate. Of course, there were exercises and accompanying options after each passage, which the teacher read to us to choose option for. But by Primary 3 or 4 upwards, most students were expected to be able to read and it was only in few instances the teacher read to the class during examination. Nevertheless, by our standard then, being able to read well was being able to cram, with the accompanying pictures for each passage serving as guides to differentiate one story from another!
But an experience changed all that for me that year: 1982. I can recall everything. Our school was playing host to another school in the annual primary school football competition -- Headmaster Cup. Before the match, there were different groups of students gathered around the pitch, some from the host school, others from the visiting school, a few others from other schools there to watch the match, few of whom were not putting on uniform as our school was afternoon session and they must be morning session students who had closed and had gone home to change to mufti.
In the group among which I sat, the older boys were discussing reading and one big boy, he should be in Primary 5 or 6, said there was a Primary 2 boy he had seen that day who could read everything, even Primary 6 Reader, as we used to call English textbook, which is the correct name. They then went to call the boy. He was in mufti, so his school was not identifiable. But he actually looked like a Primary 2 student. Then the small boy started reading. Whatever passage in any reader he was given to read, he would read it. Not all the words were he able to pronounce correctly for the senior classes, though.
The senior boys wanted to see any Primary 2 student who could challenge the boy in reading. I have always been a very bold and showy person, especially showing off my knowledge. But I can recall my instinct had held me back as I definitely could not read half as well as the boy. More students gathered around our group and the challenge began to grow.
Then my class monitor arrived at the scene and, learning of the challenge, stepped forward to challenge the boy. Our monitor was a big and powerful boy who was very intimidating. Not only that, he was also very brilliant, with elder siblings who taught him at home. Most times, he read passages our teacher was yet to even teach us, because he was taught at home ahead of the next chapter.
The senior boys then opened a passage from a copy of the Primary 2 Reader and gave our monitor to read and he read it fluently. The senior boys knew he was reciting it as was the usual practice among students in the first years at primary school. They gave the same passage to his opponent who also read it. Then they brought a copy of the Primary 3 Reader, opened to a passage and gave to our monitor to read. His bold defense was that we had not been taught because that was Primary 3 Reader. Then the same passage was given to his opponent who read it, though slowly.
Our monitor, never one to give up easily, insisted the boy had been taught that passage at home. The senior boys then brought a copy of Primary 6 Reader and asked our monitor to choose whatever passage he wanted the boy to read, and our monitor chose one which the boy also read. But when he was asked to read that same passage, he boldly insisted: ‘Them never teach us’.
One of the senior boys laughed and laughed, but our monitor held his ground. And to most of us, our monitor was right. It was natural for most students in the first couple of years at primary school, at least in our time, to be able to read the reader he had been taught, and not that of a higher class. But privately, I had thought if the boy could do it, then any Primary 2 student could also do it. I too wanted to be able to read like that boy.
When I got home that day, I asked my eldest brother who was then in Class 1 in secondary school, to teach me how to read. Then he began to teach me the rudiments: understanding how sounds could be formed from letters and how letters are combined to produce sounds or syllables and how to join two or more syllables to arrive at the pronunciation or the reading of a word. It took time, of course. Eventually, I soon discovered that reading was very easy. I was able to read very well for my age and by our standard then.
Like every new discovery, I started reading everything I came across: signboards, street names, children pictorial storybooks, in fact, everything written in words. It was during this time that I was reading the typed words at the back of my exercise book when I was surprised to come across my favourite rhyme: Sixty Seconds Make One Minute …. It was unbelievable! But it was written both in words and figures and using the mathematical symbol for equal to (=) in place of make. It was truly unbelievable! My favourite rhyme had always been at the back of my exercise book and I did not know. I started reading it often, though we were eventually taught that rhyme and other rhymes as lessons.
As I grew in age and became wiser, I came to understand the rhyme more. I can recall in a J.S.S. II class when our integrated science teacher told us that the human heart normally beats at approximately one second per beat i.e. every second, except when we run or engage in physical activities or when we are scared or are frightened, causing the heart to beat faster. So, I calculated that in one hour, our hearts normally beat at three thousand, six hundred (3,600) times, the exact number of seconds in an hour. And in a day, our hearts beat eighty six thousand, four hundred (86,400) times. In a common year, our heart beat thirty one million, five hundred and thirty six thousand (31,536,000) times. 2010 being a common year, our hearts are expected to beat thirty one million and five hundred and thirty six thousand times from 12 midnight this morning to 12 midnight in the night of Saturday, 31st December 2010!
Are you wondering how Sixty Seconds Make One Minute … came to constitute my New Year message for this year? It all began in the evening of Sunday, 27th December 2009, last month, when I learnt of the death of Dr. (Mrs.) Maryam Babangida, Nigeria’s former First Lady. It was a shock and I was deeply sad, not because she was married to former President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, one of my lead role models, but because she was admirable in her own rights -- exceptional! And I like exceptional people -- positively exceptional people!
As I pondered over her death in the night of that sad Sunday, I thought of the seconds, the minutes, the hours and the very few days -- five days -- left for her to survive the fading year, but which her heartbeats could no longer count. If only she had survived the fading year and had achieved the symbolism of a new year!
She reportedly died at about 12 noon that Sunday, 27th December 2009. From the time she is believed to have died to 12 midnight this morning, her heart was supposed to beat for about three hundred and eighty-eight thousand and eight hundred (388,800) times to survive the year 2009! As I thought deeply, my favourite rhyme came to me and I went down memory lane:
60 Seconds = 1 Minute
60 Minutes = 1 Hour
24 Hours = 1 Day
7 Days = 1 Week
4 Weeks = 1 Month
52 Weeks = 1 Year
365 Days = 1 Year
366 Days = 1 Leap Year
12CalendarMonths
Or 13 Lunar Months = I Year
Then my muse came to me and I knew the New Year message I am to share with my folks for 2010.
Now, let us pray this prayer:
As our hearts begin to beat from 12 midnight this morning, may they beat for thirty one million, five hundred and thirty six thousand times for this year.
Amen!
And may our hearts beat for the corresponding number of times for many years to come.
Amen!
If our hearts beat faster than normal, may it be because of physical exercise or games and not because of the race of fear or the fear of what could make our hearts stop beating.
Amen!
And may we not be the cause or be responsible for somebody else’s heart to beat faster than normal, or for somebody else’s heart to stop beating.
Amen!
Happy New Year! And welcome to 2010!
Cheers,
Oghene.
PS: Below are my 2009 and 2008 New Year messages:
Happy Birthday, Happy New Year! (2009 New Year Message)
Hello folks,
It is another new year. And as always, a happy new one. New Year Day is important. But is it so important? Let us find out. Most people hold that the three dates that are most important in a man’s life (and a woman’s life, too) are the day he is born, the day he gets married and the day he dies. Significantly, it is only the day he gets married that he is consciously aware of, and knows what happens thereafter. The day he is born, he does not know what happens or how his arrival is celebrated. The day he dies, which most times comes suddenly, but which some other times may come in anticipation, as in terminal illness or government-sanctioned execution, he does not know what happens afterwards or how people react. But not the day of his marriage: the planning, the execution and the moments after. That is why it is the happiest day of a man’s life. Of course, there are some exceptions. A few people never get married because of one reason or the other, others get married more than once, due to religious or cultural tolerance, while others is due to the death of a spouse or due to divorce. Nevertheless, marriage day is still the happiest and the most important in a man’s life.
Every year, we remember our birthday and celebrate our marriage anniversary, but others hold our memoriam after our passage to the great beyond. And we hold fond memories of the birthday and marriage anniversaries, but not the memoriam we never witness. But with time, people forget birthday, marriage date and memoriam because both the celebrant and his well-wishers or mourners have left the earthly stage for their eternal rest. However, few survivors still celebrate the birth or hold memoriam for long dead relations. Or religious doctrines can make some people celebrate the birth and death of a religious icon, for example, Jesus Christ, whose birth and death are celebrated annually on Christmas Day and Good Friday respectively, by Christians. Or a nation can celebrate those of a national hero. But expectedly, such celebrations are not world-wide or are not celebrated by every person or race.
Do you know that the birth of the 365 or 366 day year is the only birthday and the only festive day that is celebrated world-wide by every race and by most religions? Tens, hundreds, thousands or millions of years after us, humanity would have forgotten we ever took this earthly journey. But they will know that years gone by, people did live in our
generation or age. And that, indeed, we the people also celebrated the annual remembrance of the birth of Year. In the arrival of every year, let us celebrate. It is our common human heritage. Most human birthdays, marriage dates and funeral dates have come and gone and long forgotten. Ours will follow the same way. The birthday of Year is the only date that humanity will eternally celebrate. Today is one of the many we will witness in our lifetime. Today is the birthday of Year. Let us be happy and be glad in it. Happy New Year!
Somebody, pop the champagne, pass it round. Let us celebrate. Happy Birthday to Year! Happy New Year to us!
Cheers,
Oghene.
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