40 years ago, I was a primary school student. The first schoolbag she carried was hand-sewn by her mother with her father's old work clothes, and the second schoolbag was pieced together with rags at the corners.
In junior high school, I went to a town 10 km away from home. At that time, I just learned to ride a bike, and my father bought me a 26-year-old bike at the flea market, which was just right for my height 1.5 meters.
There are only two bungalows in our school to be male and female dormitories, both of which sleep in the same bunk bed and have their own beds. Basically, it is a free combination. Two people sleep in one bed, and about 40 students are squeezed out of three bungalows.
The school has a canteen, but there is no staple food. It is only responsible for heating staple food, making porridge and stews. What I remember most is that we go home with dry food every weekend. Maybe you have seen Mr. Ma Tengchi's "Carrying Steamed Buns on His Back" and "Carrying Steamed Buns as Dry Food to a School Far from Home". Throughout junior high school, I always carry a bun. No matter how busy my mother is, she will make me dry food for a week on weekends. There was no refrigerator at that time, and it was hard to say in winter. In other seasons, our wowotou is often moldy and hairy. At that time, I only knew that food was precious and could not be wasted, but I didn't know that moldy things could not be eaten. I thought it would be ok to put it on the steamer in the canteen.
My mother's scallion oil rolls are still very popular, and a female classmate remembers that the dry food I brought is the best. At that time, materials were still scarce, miscellaneous grains were the staple food, and white flour was a rarity. The family doesn't want to eat white flour, so they can only eat steamed bread and jiaozi during the Spring Festival. The flower rolls made for me have one-third of white flour, which is already very luxurious and often causes dissatisfaction and jealousy among my brothers and sisters. Mother often coaxed them to comfort them: when you go to junior high school, I will also make flowers for you.
With my father earning a salary, the living standard at home is slightly better than that of my classmates. Most of my classmates brought mixed noodles and steamed stuffed buns, and the rolls I brought became sweet cake. We basically share everything delicious, and my scrolls are often the first to share. I also often eat other students' various flavors of Wowotou, including corn flour, bean flour, sweet potato flour, sorghum flour or mixed noodles. In a way, I have eaten "a hundred meals".
Hanging a rope to store dry food was the idea of that era. Rats often haunt the dormitory, so we have to hang dry food on the beam head, which is also a mildew-proof method. Wowotou hangs for a few days, either it is not well ventilated and moldy, or it is as hard as a stone. Girls often ridicule: our wowotou can be used as a self-defense weapon.
The bitterness and joy of junior high school life has become an indelible memory. When my son was in high school, he asked me about my life at school, mainly about accommodation and food. After I described it to him truthfully, he even said, it's good to eat wowotou. We can't eat it at ordinary times. Whole grains are the best for health. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Show him the old house where his father lived in the summer vacation, and he will be dubious: I have only seen it in movies, and there is such an old house in your village. The place where I studied has been renovated, and I can't see the original appearance. It was a pity that there was no camera, no mobile phone and no photos left.
Seeing the "toolbox" left by his father, his son said: My grandfather is really something. Woodworking, blacksmith, cook have all done it. The life of the older generation is what the book calls "self-sufficiency".
My son is right. Young people in their twenties will always regard the past as a legend if they don't see it with their own eyes.
After reading "Let's Go Together-Pay tribute to the 40th Anniversary of Reform and Opening-up", I searched for old photos again and finally found a family photo of my junior high school. I'm only 14 years old. The background of the photo is my old house, three main rooms and a kitchen. I remember my father made his own adobe cover on weekends, and a family of six lived there. My family has semiconductors, so it has become a gathering place for neighbors. Every night, more than 20 people go home to listen to folk songs, such as Biography of Yue Fei and Yang Jiajiang.
At that time, there was no TV, let alone smart phones. I remember that in the 1980s, the village had its first TV set and put it on the street for everyone to see. At that time, families with good economic conditions gave their daughters the highest dowry: watches, sewing machines, bicycles and tape recorders.
The deepest feeling is the traffic. Because my father works in the city, the "Dajinlu" bicycle is his special means of transportation, which was bought with a bicycle ticket. During the planned economy period, food stamps, oil stamps, meat stamps, cloth tickets, etc. It is closely related to our lives and cannot be separated from "tickets". After the reform and opening up, the market economic system was established, and the relationship between supply and demand determined the market trend. With the rapid economic development in China, people's living standards have been greatly improved. The slogan "to get rich, build roads first" won the hearts of the people, and the construction of transportation developed rapidly. The rapid rise of Shenzhen, Xiamen, Zhuhai and Shantou Special Zones has polished people's eyes and hearts.
Nowadays, cars have entered the homes of ordinary people, and traveling by bullet train and high-speed rail has become people's first choice and normal state. In order to build a project in a remote mountainous area, the journey we had to walk for several days and nights has completely disappeared. The high-frequency traffic of trains and high-speed trains at dawn makes the earth smaller and the space bigger, and the convenient traffic shortens the distance between people and cities. This year, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge we participated in successfully crossed Lingdingyang, connecting Hong Kong to the east and Zhuhai and Macau to the west. It is the first large-scale cross-sea traffic project jointly built by Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao under the framework of "one country, two systems", and it is also the longest cross-sea bridge project in the world, which is known as the "century project". As a witness of China's great achievements in development, as a witness and beneficiary of people's life being greatly improved, and as an ordinary builder of beautiful China, I pay tribute to China's reform and opening up!
As a member of China Railway Construction, I am proud.
How can we forget those wandering years?