KAWASAKI
CEM
(Publication
Date: May 11, 2007)
—What happened in Dallas yesterday? Tell me...
—What do you think? ‘JR’ did something bad again.
***
Childhood memories never leave you alone throughout your life.
Especially if those memories date back to the single-channel era, you are never alone!
I wonder what today’s children will have in common when they grow up.
Whenever I get together with friends who are more or less the same age as me, if we talk about the past, the conversation follows the same pattern: — Do you remember Voltran?
—
How could I forget? Voltran, Voltran, Voltran…
Or:
—
Did you watch He-Man?
—
By the power of Grayskull, I am He-Man…
—
Those were some cartoons!
And so it goes...
It was the single-channel era, and every child watched the same cartoon.
I don’t know who today’s children will reminisce with about the cartoons they watched among dozens of channels when they grow up; but I think they’ll have a very hard time with that.
I guess today’s children will mostly talk about the games they play on computers and critique them: “I’d made it to level 15 in that game,” “The graphics in that game were really bad,” that sort of thing, I suppose.
In conversations with the same crowd,
pictures that came inside gum packets also feature prominently; in particular, the pictures of cars and motorcycles from ‘Turbo’ gum are unforgettable!
We used to show off to each other with those pictures when we were children.
Some of our pocket money went on that gum, which we chewed only until the sugar was gone, so we could collect pictures of the vehicle models inside.
Another important thing I remember from my childhood is this: as a result of the older neighborhood boys egging us on, we little kids would race and/or fight among ourselves.
The fights usually started with me hitting Uğur in response to one of the neighborhood boys saying, “Cem, you can’t beat Uğur.” Then, with the older boys egging us on, the fight would get completely out of hand.
In the end, Uğur and I wouldn’t speak for two or three days, and then everything would go back to normal.
Anyway, what I really want to talk about is our races, which were prompted by a phrase that was always put the same way.
“Cem, you can’t beat Uğur” was like the starting pistol at the Olympics for us.
As soon as we heard those words, we would start running.
Uğur always beat me, so he was Honda Uğur and I was Kawasaki Cem. In the races back then, Kawasaki motorcycles always came second, which is why I had that name.
Also, I really liked the Kawasaki pictures from Turbo gum.
Our games in the neighborhood consisted of racing, playing marbles, and fighting.
We only ever saw the cars from that gum in pictures.
Even the idea of owning those vehicles was a fantasy for us.
In other words, we didn’t even dream of it.
*
Today’s young people own the very vehicles that we didn’t even dream of owning when we were children.
We blame young people for owning the latest-model cars, driving them fast, and causing accidents.
Should we blame them for having access to these things, or should we blame those who gave them the cars when it was plain to see they weren’t ready for them?
How justified are we in looking for someone to blame?
When someone is found to blame, can accidents be prevented?
Or are we all—possibly—potential culprits?
I think none of those things!
I don’t think any of us is to blame.
Unfortunately, traffic accidents will always happen!
Because the greatest characteristic of human beings is that they can make mistakes.
The only thing we lack is the respect we fail to show one another in every setting and under all conditions!
The word ‘respect’ that I mentioned, and have added to the end of every column for months, comes from my belief that it can reduce potential accidents to a minimum.
Because as long as we respect one another’s right to live, we can live in safety.
See you tomorrow on the Sinekritik page...
Be respectful on the road!
All texts and other content on this page are original and belong to Cem KAR. They may not be used, even in part, in any way in print or any other electronic medium (CD, Internet, etc.) without permission.