I was a curious Kid
This post is a throwback to the most enjoyable and carefree years of my life. Its true that at certain stages in life, you have moments of joy and prolonged happiness. Like my marriage to my lovely wife, the birth of my 2 sons, the many family dinners and overseas trips throughout the years, they they all gave this lucky guy happiness and joy
However, for me, without even knowing it cognitively, the carefreeness and no responsibilities (not irressponsibilities) of a kid for the first 12 - 14 years of my life were the happiest. Play, eat, get into trouble, sleep, go for gatherings, school with little or no homework,and repeat day in day out . No excessive tuition (like the poor kids of today), no gifted and banding of our IQ levels, just good (not clean, we were mostly filthy from outside gallivanting) fun with zero connectivity. No PC, no portable IPad, No IPhone, No Airpods, No handphone, no social media, no TikTok, Youtube, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, nothing.
Yet, we had so much fun it was incredible. A truly different world.
Wow, I wished those times would have lasted.
It never does. So to look back at the 'good old days' with wonder and smile is a privilege I have. True, times were tough for Singaporeans in the mid to late 60s, our country was going through separation from Malaysia, we were very poor GDP per capita PPP was like less than US 500, the threat of communism taking over the region was real, and there was a lot of gangster activity in many parts of Singapore. It was truly an extremely difficult time to be an adult in Singapore in the 60s.
From Left : Uncle Phoon, Lorraine, Rick, Mum, Aunty Mona, Wendy and May
For us kids, it was the complete opposite, it was an other worldly bliss full of birthday parties, playing daily with the neighbourhood kids, going for piano lessons every Saturday, learning karate at the Palmer Road YMCA, going to Presbetarian Church Sunday school at Selegie road, and later (around 1973) we had regular swimming lessons at the Singapore Swimming Club at Fort Road. My brother and I trained under the legendary Mr. Neo Chwee Kok, the Flying Fish who represented Singapore at the 1958 Olympics.
We did reasonably well as swimmers, I represented my secondary School House as the Swimming House Captain, and swam on the periphery of the school swim team. I was also selected to be the Boys Captain during the 1977 - 1980 swimming days for the Singapore Swimming Club. We swam at numerous meets in South East Asia, competing at the Sanya Samaki Swim Tournaments in
a) Bangkok
b) Jakarta
c) Penang
d) Manila
Those days are etched in my memory for the rest of my life. I will post some of those photos in the later days, weeks and months.
Back to No. 6 Adis Road, where I lived from 1962 - 1978, a full 16 years. What did my brother and I do for fun ? Well, we got creative and made our fun, through real CONNECTIONS with our neighbours.
We did kite fighting, making our own glass string, climbed trees to pluck rambutans, walked around our house and neighbourhood to look for leaves which were pressed together and catch the striped spider to fight with the neighbours, rode our bicycles (we had Chopper Bikes made from Raleigh company in the UK), had fighting games, hide and seek and every manner of nonsense you could think of from sam seng boys we would do, on a dare or just out of plain boredom.
We had a see saw which was really fun
My parents had 3 dogs, Jippy (mother), Mickey (for John) and Scamper (for me). To this day, I still have the bite marks from Scamper (my dog) on my left wrist when I went and tried to pull her from her sleep. She was a temperamental dog, and had occasional mad bouts in her behavior. If I had a time machine, and went back to the late 60s and early 70s what would I change ?
Nothing.
Merry Go Round with 'S' on it
Finally, an event which changed my life. I was about 5 to 6 years of age. We had a black and white TV set in our living room on the second floor of our house. We watched Combat, Beverly Hillbillies, Banana Split and Little House on the Prairie almost religiously - yes we had nothing else to do in the evenings. Another favourite show was the Flying Nun starring Marge Redmond and Sally Field (in later episodes), I actually thought I could fly. That was how naive and dumb I was at 5 years of age.
Botanic Gardens watching the Swans
I remember tumbling down the whole 10 steps and I blacked out.
Next thing I knew was the good tenant Ken Omemori called my father urgently and he came rushing home and transported all of us to Singapore General Hospital. I went for surgery for a cut which took 6 stitches from the legendary Dr. Yahya Cohen, my Dad's then best friend.
I had a brown patch of plaster on my right forehead testament to my youthful gunghoness and stupidity.
The year was (I believe) 1967.
Carpe Diem.
