These days I got on Instagram the publicity of an event in my city where they were inviting to the first radio marathon. The event would be held for three consecutive days, the weekend before Christmas Eve, and its goal was to collect toys to be given to poor children.
The name immediately caught my attention and launched my memory back to childhood days. I have always been impressed by that capacity of human memory that knows no limits of time or space and is able to take us back to any situation in the past in a matter of seconds. The name had awakened something in me.
I waited for my wife to get up from her afternoon nap and as we sat on our porch sipping our afternoon coffee, I asked her if she remembered a program on TV dedicated to collecting toys at Christmas.
My wife didn't remember the show, she is six years younger than me and was probably very young when it was on. But I remembered it clearly, even its name, it was called Venemaraton. The first two syllables corresponded to the name of the television station where it was broadcasted, Venevisión, which are also the first two syllables of the name of my country: Venezuela.
The Venemarathon was held for three consecutive days, starting the Friday before Christmas and ending the night of that Sunday. The TV station set up a gigantic tent, like a circus tent, in an area of the station's parking lot. That tent was the improvised studio during the three days of the program.
On the left side of the screen they showed a blackboard where they were writing down the amount of the donations, and on the right side the mountain of toys that was being formed as people brought their contributions.
Since Friday morning, a long line of people was arriving at the tent. The entertainers interviewed them, received their contributions and gave a pass to the different artists who came to animate the program.
I would settle down in the morning in an armchair in my grandmother's living room, which was the only one with a television, and I would be hypnotized watching the program, barely stopping to eat and go to the bathroom. Those images occupied all my attention.
Since it was school vacation time, my mother didn't object to me spending the day on the couch. But the best part and the most exciting part for me was when the evening hours came.
When I was ten years old it was exciting to spend the whole night watching television, that was the only program that was broadcast without interruptions. At that time, in the sixties, television programming in my country ended at about eleven o'clock at night and resumed at six or seven in the morning.
My mother spoiled me so that I would feel at ease. Before going to sleep she would leave me what I needed for the long night. On a small table in the living room she would put a large thermos of black coffee and another of hot milk, so that I could choose whichever drink I wanted. In addition, he left a good supply of stuffed rolls and cookies and crackers.
Every so often I would get up from my chair and grab my favorite mug, it was made of pewter, a kind of brass, painted mostly white but with the top edges painted blue. That mug must have fallen out of my hands many times because I remember it with quite a few dents and peeling paint in many places.
I would pour coffee into the cup and sometimes put a little milk in it. I would grab the cup with both hands and take small sips to keep away the cold of the night. Those Caracas nights were sometimes quite cold.
It was inevitable that during the night I would fall asleep, I could tell because I would see the cup on the floor. I would pick it up and pour another cup of coffee, and time would pass until the first light of the morning appeared. During the day I slept a little more, the minimum necessary to have enough strength for the next night.
Sunday was the big day, before the end of the program they showed the blackboard with an astronomical figure in bolivars. On the right side, the mountain of toys had acquired colossal dimensions. Some of the entertainers climbed to the top of a tall ladder so that we, the viewers, could have an idea of the size of that mountain. Thanks to the Venemarathon, thousands of children would receive a toy that Christmas.
I would turn off the TV with a bit of nostalgia. I would have to wait a whole year to repeat that wonderful experience of three whole days watching television, accompanied only by my pewter bowl and my two thermoses of coffee and milk.
Merry Christmas dear friends of @cinnamoncupcoffee.
Thank you for your time.
Images edited in Photoshop.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version).
Logo creado por @themanualbot
