"Pro-kampong" has landed on bed 18 at HUKM. In fact Taib is quite ill. Mustapha said yesterday that the Sunday operation went ok.
When No.3 Son was in Form III in Damansara Utama and we moved to Seremban, it was Taib, the Principal of KGV Secondary, who admitted his transfer there on the spot when I went there to see him. I told Idah I must visit him at HUKM after being told he's been warded there for the last two weeks.
I pulled Maulud and Ah Soh along, and we went in Dekna's car. We were told earlier that the operation would be on Monday. Zaiton said when we saw them at the ward that they have brought it forward to that day, Sunday.
The last time we played together Taib was clearly not well. He had lost a lot of weight. At the ward on Sunday he looked worse. His face was sunken, and both arms bony with wrinkled skin. We found him asleep and curled foetal-like under the white hospital blanket. Ton said he'd just fallen asleep and I said not to wake him up. But he woke up anyway, and saw Maulud and then Ah Soh and me, giving us a weak smile and a limp handshake.
Taib was a sportsman in his younger days, and golf was a natural sequence. But he played right down to a single handicap in his own way, thus the monicker "kampong pro". His swing was his own, but his game was deadly.
Since his and Ton's retirement the couple always play together, to our chagrin. We always want to take Pro kampong, but without his meddling half, but no, it has to be Ton all the time.
Taib is younger than me, but there's no accounting for health. I don't know what the real affliction is, but we all know that he smokes too much, sometimes teeing off with a lighted cigarette in his lips !
When we took our leave that Sunday, I said "rest well Taib". I hope he comes back soon.
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