Albert strikes a pose

I don't remember how old I was in this photograph but I guess I was around 9 or 10. The specialty of this photograph is that it is in color. We had made a special trip to a studio, combed my hair meticulously and posed. When I think about our house in my younger days, I remember a wooden, three-story house - just like the house I live in today. In those years, my father had just bought the Kooperatif store, and so, most of the money he made provided for paying his debt. Therefore, we did not live in luxury - even though we had everything. The houses in Yeldegirmeni at the time were similar to the townhouses today (there were no gardens or a family space in between houses). Because of this, my friends and I spent time in the streets, playing. Our toys and games were not luxurious, but we did have a lot of fun. We played marble games and leapfrog [The marble games consisted of the arranging of the marbles next to each other. The player tries to hit all the marbles with the one marble he has in hand, and the person who is able to hit the most marbles, wins the game and takes the marbles he won with him. So, when other children return home, they ask their parents for money so they can buy new marbles for next day's game. These marbles had different names according to their shapes and colors. The models that had uncommon shapes and colors were in more demand, so they were more expensive. The children even exchanged their marbles] [Leapfrog is a game in which children try to jump over each other when the other person is slightly bended]. We did not have bicycles. The streets had paving stones. We were happy.