73 !
This morning Ahmeng arranged for a foursome, celebrating my birthday. The fourth guy was Richard, but he refused the 3-per- hole wager. So I only managed to make money from Ahmeng and Ahman. Considering Ahmeng carries a 12 handicap and Ahman a former Club Medalist, that was no mean feat.
Other well-wishes also came on whatsapp and fb, from both family and some very old friends. Thank you, all.
This 73 carries many thoughts.
It marks 50 years since I earned my first salary.
That was October 1968, in Alor Gajah, Melaka. I had graduated that year from MU, and this was my first job. I only stayed 5-and-a half months,and bought my first brand-new car there, bought in Melaka town, but registered in Seremban town - NC 8157. It cost me 5,300. 5,000 from the Government loan, which I had to pay back, and 300 from my late mother, which I didn't. It was from my first month's pay. Today a Proton would cost at least 3 years pay !
Then off to KL I moved.Then to back to Seremban. Then back to KL again. Then back to Seremban. Then KL. Then Port Kelang. Then PJ. And finally back to Seremban for the last time, and drew my last pay here end of 1999. That's 31 years, and about a dozen different positions in five different organizations. I averaged about 3 years per job. That, and the repeated house moves, made me almost a rolling stone.
Then the retirement years and all kinds of personal forays into little businesses, for the next 18 years.
That's a 50-year saga of sorts.
Then there is the family.
My marriage at 27, and the four children coming over the next 17 years. The first 3 were planned 5 years apart. The last one came after 2 years, after the haj. That's understandable. The haji couldn't wait 3 more years. It was fortunate. After 4 Idah said "enough !"
The kids had to be sent to kindergarten, to primary and secondry schools, to different universities, both local and abroad. The first went to Hawaii, the second Sydney, and the remaining two to Melaka first, then No. 4 to Shah Alam and No. 3 KL. All made it. There's great satisfaction in their scholastic successes, in their stable marriages. Their careers seem ok, so far. They now have their own offsprings ( 10 of them, to be exact ).
There was the distance travelling. Alone, with friends, and with the whole family. Several long flights. For studies; for holidays; for work, but a lot just for golf, discovered late at 43, but completely hooked till now, 73.
The first plane and helicopter flights was much earlier, whilst in second year at the university in 1966. That was to Brunei for 3 months in a Geography Department's survey assignment. Kota Kinabalu was still Jesselton, and the connecting flight from there to Brunei was in a Dakota aircraft, with the small rear wheels and you walk uphill through the aisle when boarding. And would you believe it, the co-pilot was an ex college mate from RMC. Wonder where he landed after retirement. The helicopter hop was to a rumah panjang.
Flying to attend the 6-month management course at Birmingham University in 1974 was the longest flight ever at that point of time, with stop-over in an undeveloped Dubai airport. Wales was part of the study area. Another 6-month study was at the AIM, Manila, in early 1980. Only 6 months, but a Filipino girl wanted to follow me home. Longer, the mother might have.
Work took me to London, Rotterdam, and Wurth in Germany, and Gottenberg in Sweden. In 1997 an NS State study visit took me to Mauritius ( played some golf), Johannesberg, South Africa, Sun City(watched some golf) and India (no golf, they play cricket). I visited the Taj Mahal, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. We stayed in both Bombay and New Delhi.
A business trip took me by air to Melbourne, and a long trip by road to Canberra, then up the end of the Great Dividing Range where we even had snow, down east to Sydney where we rested, saw some buskers at the harbour side, went to the night-club district before taking the 8-hour flight home.
There were family holidays - in Malaga, Spain, visiting "al Hambra" in Granada, in London, England, with trips to the Harrods, the West End area and Soho, Tower of London etc. We took the fast hovercraft from Dover to Calais and stayed in Paris and went up the Eiffel Tower, and I scratched Kak Mah's name on the steel girder. We went to Disney World in Orlando, and that was one long flight, about 30 hours of it. Cik Ani and Tajri tagged along. We visited No.1 Son in Hawaii in his second year at HPU. On the flight back in the half-empty MAS flight, we were upgraded to business class. Wow ! Both ways we stopped in Tokyo and saw that bit of Japan with overnight stays. But the first US trip, alone, was to attend Calit's commencement in Madison, Wisconsin in the dead of winter. We visited the late Karim Md. Nor from Bukit Temensu, doing his Education PhD, who had his whole family with him, and if you didn't see the children, you'd think they were American kids, with their "awesome" and so forth. Calit and I stopped over in L.A. and went to Disneyland. We also attended No. 2 Son's graduation in Sydney, together with Bang Piei and Cik Ani. And there were road trips to Singpore, and flights to Sabah and Sarawak, also.
There was also my "Lone Ranger" ferry trip from Melaka to Dumai, Sumatra. I travelled overland to Pekan Baru and Bukit Tinggi, visited the Pagar Ruyong Palace, and ended up in coastal Padang, but couldn't find any "nasi Padang"!
Of course a big chunk of the flying was for golf.
We flew to Bangkok several times, to play there, and in Pattaya, and up north in Chiengmai. We flew to Phuket many times, when there were only two courses there. We flew to Perth more than once, and to Melbourne. We went to Jakarta and Bali and Bandung for golf. But the ultimate golf experience was to play at the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland. En route we stopped over in Istanbul and visited several tourist spots like the Blue Mosque and Topkapi, and saw live belly-dancing. Over one dinner our Arab friends from Bahrin ordered beer. "It's not allowed back home" they casually said.
Not to forget the Pilgrimage to Mekah. I did mine at 39, back in 1983. Alone. It was a "haji Akbar" (for those who know), the stay or "wukuf" in Arafah being Friday 16.9.1983, plus it was "haji Ifrad"(again for those who know). 1983 was the last "mua'sasah" year (for those who follow). I stayed in an apartment just across the road from the Holy Mosque, and I could see Baitullah down below from my window. Idah performed her haj 27 years later. Alone.
And the houses we stayed.
In Ampang Jaya, KL(twice, 2 different houses) Murugesu Garden, Seremban(twice, 2 different houses) Damansara Utama, and Taman Shahbandar, Seremban (twice, 2 different houses). The Damansara house was the first house I bought in 1977. In 1995 I bought the present Taman Shahbandar house.
And of course all this time the family expanded, and the circle of friends grew.
Not a remarkable 73 years, but pleasant enough.
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