Dr Freaks Journal - First Lesson In Honesty

"No legacy is so rich as honesty" -William Shakespeare.

Growing up, we (cousins, siblings and I) were raised in a mini "prison" because we were only allowed to go to school on school days, and church on Sundays.
Yea, lest I forget, I was allowed to go for "choir practice" on Saturdays and I think on Wednesdays. However, there was a particular destination my father never said no to! His father's house. We had an unrestricted access to Grandpa's house at the time under reference.


How we looked forward to that short but memorable trek to "Aba" (Ekiti word for father or one who is old enough to be one's father) L's place (L... was his chieftaincy title). 

The distance was slightly over a kilometre or less but who cares now, there were houses everywhere and the "excursion/trip" afforded us the rare privilege of taking a break from that mini "prison".


Grandpa was a carpenter, a farmer, an entrepreneur, a socialite, a great dancer, a drummer, a native court judge, to mention but a few, in his hey days.
He gave politics a shot but I think the 1966 "Operation Wet-i-e" gave him a good scare to the extent that he was compelled to abdicate his "throne" and five (5) wives and seek refuge in my parents' home for some months. This is a story for another day.


In the twilight of Grandpa's life, he set up a local "supermarket' (in partnership)  with his 5th and last wife, his beloved "EA". Grandpa stocked almost everything under the sun, but of particular interest is the confectionery section. If my memory serves me right, I cannot remember ever eating anything at Grandpa's place because we were raised never to eat outside our home and I still observe that unwritten rule till date. 

After our usually short visits which we made not out of excitement to reunite with Grandpa, but driven by the desire to get out of the house, Grandpa who was in his late 90's at the time would order all of us to gather around his table (where he forever kept his broom that was dedicated to housefly hunting) for a routine check. He would ask all of us to open our hands (so that our palms may be exposed) and empty our pockets, just to be sure that we had not "made away" with his sweets and biscuits.


To say the least, as young as we were at the time, we found Grandpa's act a bit embarrassing because we were not thieves. After all, our parents could afford to buy us sweets as one was going for a paltry sum of 1Kobo at the time. Each time we went through that humiliation, we would go home to register our protestations with our Mum. For strange reasons, my Mum never condemned Grandpa's acts.

 She would simply advise us to keep on being without blemish whenever we visited. For stranger reasons, I later gathered that she never escalated our "kitchen talks" to my Dad who would have confronted Grandpa at the time on the ground that he was accusing his children falsely. Thank God she never did. That man -Dad was indeed a "terror"!


Today, Grandpa, Dad and Mum have gone to be with the Lord, but that lesson is still fresh in my memory.

If I may ask, what values and ethos exactly are you instilling into your children and wards today?

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." -Galatians 6:7-9.

Its Kunle