There have passed 42 years from this moment (update January 2021), and I still laugh looking at the photos and remembering…
It was during the “Plugusorul” (a famous beginning of the year greetings traditional poem) – the moment at the beginning of the year when hundreds of people were organized in a mega-show, at the Central Committee of the Communist Party Building (nowadays, Internal Affairs building in the center of Bucharest).
Children, workers, dancers, actors and God knows what else – we were all freezing on January 1st in front of the steps of the building, for an ode typical for those times.
I have no idea what was the duration of the homage show, I only remember that I was trembling from the cold weather and my mother would always make me wear two pairs of warm stockings and an undershirt and a blouse under the “hawk” or pioneer shirt.
Our greatest joy (at least that of the children) was to get, at the end of the show, a bag with a banana, one or two oranges and some candies. God, how I cherished that bag!!! It seemed to me that was the supreme prize for my performance: reciting the verses or telling “Sorcova” to Ceausescu (Sorcova = another Romanian January 1st tradition, one after which the one the song is sung to is supposed to give the singer money or a gift).
But apart from being cold and from the goodies bag, the first image on the cover of the “Cutezatorii” magazine, some 40 years ago, is terribly funny! Even more so, as two of the magazines of the time “show” what happened. Shock! Ceausescu pulled a “hawk”! J)))
GROUP PHOTO WITH CEAUSESCU
After the homage show, there was a group photo, with all the people there. It was sort of a crowd bath of today… We were organized on levels, the small ones, us, being scattered in front.
As there were then, just like nowadays, fans who wanted to be as close as possible to “the star” of the event, a boy practically hangs on Ceausescu’s arm. (Let us analyze the photo, all right? Hihi…) That was the moment when The Comrade pulled me close to him, to be closer and to make the photo look as he wanted it to look…
I hope you can see him doing that… under cover somehow, while looking elsewhere. This is art, bro! J
On a different cover – the Veac Nou magazine – the photographer catches the scene a few seconds later, when the boy pushed me so that I don’t cover him (which I find perfectly normal…), but The Comrade won’t give up, man! J
I have no idea if the event was a happy-ending one or if the boy and his parents where exiled somewhere (I’d say God forbid, only I realize that, at the times we had then, “God help them” would be better. J) I cannot remember if I had any bruise on the hand… What I know for sure is that if you were in the first line when reciting the poems, you had to be in the first line for the photo, too. The photo was supposed to be the image of happiness, of joy and of the well-being of the people… As can be seen in the photo.
We were so amused while taking this photo, that only someone saying “cheese” was missing from there. (What cheese at that time?… No cheese, no nothing!)
Please notice the two important people to Ceausescu in this photo, that is the ones the hands of whom he holds J)). One – the image of the age unconsciousness, the other – just the image of unconsciousness… Nothing more.
