When swimming in McRichie Reservoir...

· When swimming in McRichie Reservoir could mean getting chased by wardens, and loosing your clothes which were left on the bushes
· When sunbathing on the 17th hole green at Island Club could mean getting chased by caddies and loosing your clothes which were left on the bushes
· Picking the sweetest wild Mangosteens on the Johor pipeline track just when they ripened – 1 day late and they would have all been picked by some other kids
· Newton CharQuayTeow, even better if you took your own eggs
· Ice balls behind Rex cinema and chuck them at passing bus windows when the syrup had all been sucked out
· Catching lonkang fish in Chancery Lane longkang when it floods
· Balmoral Road 'best in world' rojak man, and buah Li juice after
· Old men making cigarette packet sculptures
· Main 'Chatek'
· Aching legs cycling back from Ponggol after swimming
· Wrapping red crackers in greaseproof roti paper and sticking them into yellow, ripe JambuBatu, then lighting them and using them as ‘fragmentation grenades’………poor kampong dogs!!
· Swimming from Changi to Frog Island across the path of Royal Navy frigates - scary
· Spear fishing off the causeway and smelling like a trashcan on the bus home
· Trying to ride all the way from Upper Thompson to town without touching the bicycle handles
· Fashion was once loafer shoes with a patch of goat’s ‘fur’ on the uppers!!
· Pulling the Hacks sweet wrapper tight and place it close to your lips and BLOW!!!......................pheeeeeeeeet!!
· Most after school fights were in the football field, but the ‘serious’ ones were up at the abandoned colonial house on Mount Rosie.
· Attending the ACS senior students Grand Prix on the Saturday night streets, starting at the Cold Storage car park – got busted by the cops a few minutes before the starting flag went down – trouble with the principal the next day!!
· Mr Suppiah’s (Maths / Physics) famous advice to all his students, “Every morning, when you wake up, say this to yourself – every day, in every way, I am getting better and better” Now we realise that it worked!!
· Getting chased at night by Sikh watchmen after throwing 10cent rocket fireworks through the upper windows of the old rubber factory near Adelphi Park.
· Why did we always loose ONE of our flip flops when running for our lives – after successful escapes a crowd of panting lads each with ONE flipflop on!!
· Cooking flying lemur curry (illegal even back then) with Singapore’s self-styled ‘last professional hunter’ Tony Chua – his favourite phrase “you ah!! Like teaching elephant to stand on its prick”
· Watching John Ape’s favourite Python getting killed by the rat we threw in as ‘Python food’.
· Getting bitten by snakes we were catching, and sitting down beside a tree to see if we would die.
· Being towed by one foot while learning to water-ski – thank heavens the ski rope broke before I drowned.
· The first ‘dancing with girls’ parties – friends saying “you look like a farmer pushing a plough”
· Hiding up trees in MacRichie Res at night to watch old hookers ‘entertain’ their clients – one sarong, four legs!!

Green Bus ...

• hanging on to the handle at the door of the overcrowded Green Bus when trying to get to and from school
• arguing with conductor who sometimes insisted that minimum fare got us one bus stop short of school
• cursing at the bus driver who refused to stop because the bus was full
• overshooting the right bus stop on the first day of school in Sec I, showing up late, and ending up in Sec IB when most classmates from ACS Coleman St ended in Sec IA

...............................shahid