Text/Ma Lingjun
Now people call it Shou Nian, and when we were young, we called Chinese New Year's Eve.
Adults tell us that from staying up late Chinese New Year's Eve to the first day of the first day and calling it Chinese New Year's Eve, staying up is equivalent to staying up for a year.
When I was a child, a few of our neighbor children would eat dumplings in the evening of Chinese New Year's Eve and take the initiative to get together to stay up for Chinese New Year's Eve and wait for the Arrival of the Spring Festival.
To be honest, at that time, it was really not easy to stay up Chinese New Year's Eve, unlike now there is a Spring Festival Gala to watch, there are mobile phones to play, or to watch night movies, at that time, there was no such thing, we needed to really stay up Chinese New Year's Eve, and it really made us taste the taste of "boiling".
In my memory, when I was a child, the Spring Festival often snowed, Chinese New Year's Eve the morning the weather was still sunny, but in the evening there were snowflakes, the snow would get bigger and bigger, and the next morning there was snow on the eaves and on the road.
Because there were not enough houses at that time, when we Chinese New Year's Eve, we often wandered the streets on winter nights.
One summer, the father of one of the companions felt that the child was too old to live alone, so he vacated a hut for him to live in, which became our place to stay Chinese New Year's Eve every year.
To say that the house, in fact, is a shock shelter transformation, surrounded by single brick walls, the roof is made of stone and cement with thin board, the door of the house is made of many pieces of wood, with uneven size of the seam, sometimes wind and snow will blow in through the door gap.
We already feel very satisfied and happy to have Chinese New Year's Eve in such a place.
When we Chinese New Year's Eve, five or six of us were crammed into this hut, which had a bed made of mud and bricks. We sat around the bed, and because it was cold, we wrapped our bodies tightly in the quilts on the bed, and whoever had the strength to do the quilt would naturally wrap more.
To save money, the lights were not pressed in the room, and under the dim kerosene lamp, we stayed up for time by playing playing cards.
Playing cards are made by ourselves, and playing cards were not available in stores at that time. Making playing cards is not easy to say. Find the cardboard box, open it, cut it into pieces of paper of the same size, you must cut out 54 sheets, write the numbers with crayons, paint them into various colors, and then use red and blue to distinguish the main and deputy commanders.
There are many tricks to play poker in the hours, and those who lose will drink cold water or wear shoes on their heads, or stick notes on their faces.
Playing poker during the Spring Festival to win is naturally a firecracker.
We broke up the whole firecracker and put the little firecracker in our pockets, and whoever lost took it out to the one who won. In order to win firecrackers, we often fight to get red in the face and not give in to each other. Because the kerosene light was not on, someone put his hand in the pocket of the person next to him and stole the firecracker, and then put it in his pocket, and once he was discovered, the crowd would laugh. Some people hide their cards and steal cards after catching the cards badly, and some people do not have this card but cheat the cards...
Childhood fun is such pure affection, without the slightest impurity.
One of them always lost firecrackers because of his bad luck, and angrily threw his playing cards to the bed and swore: "I will never play cards again, who fights again is not a person!" He said angrily and flew away. Fortunately, we didn't remember the revenge, and everyone's voice of ridicule did not stop, and he pushed the door in again and continued to participate in the poker battle.
After a long time and tired of playing cards, we went out and sneaked from East Street to West Street, from this alley to another alley.
At that time, Zaozhuang City was really small, and a bag of cigarettes was finished.
At that time, we were too young to understand things, and we often did some pranks, setting off firecrackers in front of other people's homes, and sometimes putting the lighted firecrackers in other people's yards. Someone knocked on a neighbor's door and said, "Fellow, open the door!" We are Chinese People's Liberation Army..." This is a line from the Peking Opera "Wise Tiger Mountain". Coincidentally, the neighbor Su Laoye was woken up by us and shouted from the house: "Who! "Scared us and ran away.
We also ran and laughed. At this time, the wind is blowing, and the wind is getting stronger and stronger. It's snowing, and it's getting heavier and heavier. With nowhere to go, we had to come to zaozhuang coal mine, wandering in front of the zaozhuang coal mine aircraft building, I don't know who came up with the idea, said that the mine bathhouse is warm and warm. As soon as it hit it off, we immediately ran to the bathhouse.
At that time, as long as there was a festival or a major event, zaozhuang coal mine would hold a festival gift activity, requiring workers to scramble to create high yields and see who dug more coal. From time to time, the radio horn from the mine sounded the news of the creation of high yields. We came to the mine bathhouse and saw that the bathhouse was steaming hot and crowded with workers who had just come up to the well to take a bath.
The man who looked at the bathhouse was an elderly man, who saw that we were all frozen, pointed to a corner for us to warm up, and told us not to make loud noises.
The bathhouse was really warm, steaming everywhere, and there were beads of water wafting around. After a while, we felt hot.
After a long time, we could not sit still and began to speak loudly, one of them took out a firecracker, took advantage of the fact that people did not pay attention to the point and put it up, although the sound was not loud, but the bathhouse was closed, the firecracker sounded particularly loud, causing the workers who were taking a bath to be restless, many people "pounced" and climbed up from the pool, mistakenly thinking that it was a cannon placed under the well, and ran naked and panicked to the changing hall.
Uncle Watching the bathhouse was very angry and drove us out of the bathhouse.
Outside the bathhouse, we felt cold and uncomfortable, one by one shrunken their heads, some people complained about the firecracker people, this person did not care at all, pulled his throat and shouted a song: "The members are all sunflowers, the commune is an evergreen vine, the members are all vines on the melon, the melon is connected to the vine..." At this moment, a shout came from not far away: "Little classmate, you come and help!" ”
Hearing this shout, we rushed over. In the past, I learned that a canteen worker pushed a row of cars to deliver food to the underground workers, because the road slope was relatively large, a person could not push it, and after seeing us, he was busy shouting for help.
A few of us ran to the ground row car, separated on both sides, and everyone slammed together, and the ground row car flew over the big slope. We continued to help push the cart. The ground row of cars ran like flying on the road, we talked and laughed while pushing the cart, and after a while we came to the wellhead, and we also sweated.
Only then did we notice that there was a basket of steaming buns, a large pot of egg soup, and a pot of hot dishes on the car. We helped carry meals off the car. The master of the canteen was very touched and praised us as good students who studied Lei Feng.
Coincidentally, a propaganda correspondent at the mine came up from the mine to interview us, and after seeing this situation, he immediately wrote a draft praising us. Soon, this manuscript sounded on the mine horn and broadcast many times, and each of us was happy in our hearts.
I really didn't expect that we were praised for staying up Chinese New Year's Eve that year.
After the winter vacation, the class teacher got the news from there and praised me in front of the whole class.
Honestly, I'm so embarrassed, blushing.
Since then, we have understood a truth, no matter what we do, we must do good deeds, do good deeds, help others for pleasure, and never do things that harm others and benefit ourselves.
(Image from the Internet)
【About the Author】Ma Lingjun is a member of the China Public Security Writers Association, a member of the Shandong Provincial Writers Association, a member of the Zaozhuang Writers Association, and the vice chairman of the Shizhong District Writers Association. He has published literary works and novels in national provincial and municipal publications.
Sponsored by the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Society, Contemporary Prose is a bimonthly prose journal, which mainly publishes the works of members of the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association, and welcomes Shandong prose writers to apply to join the Shandong Provincial Prose Association. The Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association holds various prose activities throughout the year to provide book publishing services for writers.
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