Write a story, real or imagined, which illustrates the saying “Make hay while the sun shines.”
Explanation
MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES
Amos Inyang and Tunde Lukmon were intimate friends while they were classmates in secondary school. Their friendship started on their very first day at school. Amos' parents had brought Tunde in their car. From there, they started their friendship and this blossomed soon after. They were very intimate when they were in the Junior secondary school. They did things together in the hostel and shared the same desk and chair in the school. Things, however, started changing after their Junior Secondary School Certificate Examination. They were both promoted to the Senior Secondary School class one. After their promotion. Tunde began to exhibit a change in his character and behaviour. His disposition to his studies changed and he started keeping bad companies. He played truant and ran away from classes. Tunde's bad conduct made Amos distance himself from him. He decided to be up and doing in his studies while Tunde misbehaved most of the time and got into trouble with the school authority.
Amos continued to be well-behaved industrious and enterprising. He was hardworking and studious and he believed in making hay while the sun shone. At the end of the year. he was promoted to SS 2 while Tunde was promoted on trial because of his poor performance. When they were promoted. Amos called Tunde and admonished him for his bad behaviour and advised him to make hay while the sun shone and stop wasting his time. Amos' admonition did not have any effect on Tunde as he proved stubborn and recalcitrant. He became more unruly than ever before.
One day, Tunde and his gang stole into the school poultry at night to steal eggs and fowl and they were caught. The second day, they were called out on the assembly and their offence was announced to the whole school. They were flogged openly and suspended for two terms. When Tunde was suspended he refused to let his parents knew about his misdemeanour. He went to hide in one of his friend's houses while on suspension. he always sneaked into the school to cause one trouble or the other. His unrepentant attitude made the principal to expel him from school.
Amos continued to be diligent and hardworking in his studies. He came out of school with flying colours and soon after he got admission into the university to study medicine After seven years in the university, he graduated and became a medical doctor.
One day as he was going round the emergency ward of the hospital where he was working, he stumbled on Tunde, his former classmate and friend. Tunde was abandoned on a stretcher half-dead; he was bleeding profusely. Some hours before this time, he had been wounded in a fight which ensued among members of the transport union in one of the motor parks. He was wounded with an axe. Amos took pity on him and took a special interest in his case.
When Tunde was recuperating in his hospital bed, Amos got to know about his life after leaving secondary school. Indeed, he had wasted his time and he was a tout at Ikeja motor park where he was wounded while participating in a fight with touts from a rival motor park. In fact, he had no money to pay his hospital bill and Amos had to pay for him. When Amos revealed to him that he had paid his hospital bill, he burst into tears, weeping profusely. Then Dr. Amos had to pat him on the back to pacify him and he reminded him of his admonition to him some few years back. He said, "You wouldn't have been in this mess if you had made hay while the sun was shining."