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Hello Cecil, Its always nice to read your articles, and the humor that goes with it makes one feel great. Especially in this busy world where there is no time for laughter, you do bring one in us the readers of Goanet. Thanks a million. Now coming to your topic, Do kids still have autograph books, I would like to tell you that the place where I work, it’s a bookstore, the first inquiry I got for it was not as an autograph book but as slam book, and I wondered what the kid was asking. Whether he wants to slam me or he wants a book on slamming people. I was totally lost with the inquiry, and it was not the inquiry of only one kid but many especially Indian kids. Wonder when the name of autograph book changed to slam book, which later after explaination I came to know, was autograph book. This was few years back. Kids still come asking for Slam book. Yes kids still use them. Cheers Jerry Fernandes From: Cecil Pinto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Goanet] Do kids still have autograph books? - from Goa Today Tongue in cheek By Cecil Pinto The last time I encountered an autograph book was when my good friend Gordon Lobo married his long time sweetheart Flavia Ferrao some four years back. A group of us male friends were quite enjoying ourselves at our table at the wedding reception, where the booze flow was generous and frequent, when a fancy autograph book, and a pen, made its way to our table. Being the rather uncivilised village folks that we are, we couldn't quite figure what was expected of us. We opened the book and checked what other guests had written. "All the best", "Keep it up :)" and other such totally unimaginative messages to the newly wedded couple. Suddenly my friend Heston had a brain-wave. Before you criticise my choice of the word 'brain-wave' please remember that in the state of intoxication we were in, the ability to even think and converse coherently was pure genius. Heston grabbed the autograph book and, using the side of his tie, as a ruler drew a grid of horizontal and vertical lines on the centre-spread page of the book. Some of the lines were veering towards the diagonal. Stop being critical of Heston! You try drawing a grid using your tie, still affixed to your neck, as a guideline and with about a half litre of whiskey inside of you and let's see if you can do any better. As the rest of us, and most of the neigbouring tables, watched fascinated Heston then proceeded to write the magic headings that we have have all lived our angst filled early teen lives with, "Best Boy", "Best Girl", "Best Place", "Best Food", "Best Actor"... Our inebriated state was just the right setting for a bout of nostalgia specially considering that most of us present had studied in the same school, St. Thomas Boys High School, if not in the same classroom. I recall how in the Seventh Standard, all of twelve years, all of I was totally besotted by this lovely girl in the nearby 'girls' school. Let's call her Samantha, a totally fabricated name, to protect her privacy and her current state of marital and maternal bliss. I spent all my birthday money collection on buying the best available autograph book from a shop in Mapusa. I embellished the first page with a nice sincere sounding rhymed message to all my friends and potential signatories. The heartfelt sincere introductory message of course I had conveniently plagiarised from someone else's autograph book. Then I drew the obligatory centre-spread grid and made the first entries myself. Under Best Girl I boldly wrote "Samantha". After getting a few of my buddies to sign it I sent it through a mutual friend, Francis, for Samantha to sign. I didn't have the guts to actually go across and ask her to sign. What if she refused? Fortunately she didn't refuse. Francis, who, I now recall was Samantha's neighbour, and not her friend as such and not really a good friend of mine either - just a classmate. She asked him to collect the autograph book the next day. That was the longest day of my pre-pubescent life. I prayed. Yes at one time I used to do that too. Next day in school Francis gave back my book with a smirk on his face. My buddies all crowded round me to see if I had hit gold. First I opened the 'message' page. There was a nice enough standard message but nothing that could even remotely be considered as romantic or even encouragement for further interaction. With trembling hands I opened the grid page and my blurry eyes focused on the 'Best Boy" section. Please God let it be me! "Francis", Francis! She had written Francis' name! That vile dastardly double crossing untrustworthy slimy rat! He had used my autograph book to get into Samantha's good books. What a cur. I think I grieved for a month. But I recovered and using the same ploy, albeit with less expensive autograph books, was relatively more successful in my next seven attempts. Well two out of seven isn't bad. The two times that I saw my name in the "Best Boy" section are among my cherished pre-pubescent proud moments. Many, many years later in a spirit of camaraderie and drunken light headedness at a similar wedding function, Francis revealed to me that Samantha had actually written "None" in the "Best Boy" section and that he had then forged his own name there just to get my goat. I could have killed him at the moment but then with age comes a certain maturity - and a certain deviousness. Till date Francis doesn't know how the, totally untrue, rumour that he used to visit prostitutes during his stay in Mumbai originated. But enough about me. The topic is autograph books. We had all types. The cheapest had a thin plastic cover and were about the size of a medium sized cellphone. The best ones had this imitation fur and multi coloured pages and faint pictures of flowers and sunsets in the pastel background. Our autograph books were not meant to get signatures of celebrities. They were only for your friends and prospective sweethearts to sign in. In some rare instances they would be used for advanced subterfuge, like maybe to weasel your way into a passing grade by giving your hated Maths teacher your autograph book to sign. She couldn't possibly fail you after signing your book could she? Of course our autograph messages were rarely original. One found some witty wordings in some other book and just copied them. The artistically inclined would also make some small drawing of a flower or some scenery. And of course there were the enigmatic acronyms all over the place. ITALY for "I Trust And Love You" or HOLLAND for "Hope Our Love Lives And Never Dies" or JAPAN and FANTA but let's not go there now. Some of these acronyms were rather risque but were never really taken seriously. Since Gordon's wedding I haven't seen an autograph book except of the type used to collect celebrity signatures. I wonder if kids of today have autograph books of the type we had or do they have Webpages with Visitors' Books now? And why is it that adults don't have autograph books? Have we stopped making new friends. Or are our new friends really not that 'memorable'? Why does one get a voyeuristic sense of pleasure when browsing through someone else's autograph book? Would a museum of autograph books draw an audience?A worthy topic I think for a proper scientific study.
