Maggie Mason up to neck in water:who's she dunking?

Featured: Winnie (Left, in pool), Anwar (Middle, about to drop), Maggie (in pool) appears to be dunking some poor soul (as yet unidentified) - part of the 1968 Fun Fair.
Photo from Winnie's Archives.

Maggie Mason in swimsuit

Featured: Winnie, Maggie and Sylvia during ACS FunFair 1968 when trying to raise funds for a new Olympic sized Swimming Pool at Barker Road, which alas, we did not get to enjoy while we were there. This prized and treasured photograph was in Winnie's personal collection, and has been scanned and digitally enhanced. This is the latest posting on Maggie Mason sightings!

[ACSians] Maggie Mason in green swimsuit picture coming!

On ACSian Nostalgia Blog on Sep 22 at 3:33 am is scheduled to appear a picture of Maggie Mason in a green swimsuit waiting to be dunked into a pool of water for the Fun Fair. The treasured photo comes from the archives of one of the other two ladies in the picture, and has been scanned, enhanced and presented for your nostalgic viewing.

While there, you may note that there have been some recent contributions by some of our cohorts on travel and gardening . These were added to the initial topic of Nostalgia messages. In response to comments about difficulty in logging in, there is also a section on Web tips and hints . Since there is so much to write about, we will let democracy rule, and publish hints on the most requested subjects and topics.

The blog has grown a lot since we last met, and also included is a slide show of the 2006 reunion of Sec 4 '66 cohorts . The 2008 reunion still so close in our memories will have a slide show based on the set of photos assembled in the now famous DVD put together by Patrick and with names associated with faces in pictures for you viewing convenience.

If you have the urge to write, comment or ask questions, feel free to do so in the comments section after each posting. If you would like a more permanent presence where you can give free rein to your creativity, a special blog site can be set up for you upon request. It has been found that for starters about 10 articles need to be written to make it meaningful; they can be short, but all relevant to a theme of interest to you, and preferably something that can evoke a response in others. Trying to fill an empty blog can be discouraging, and expecting others to contribute to an empty blog may require a long wait. Remember, the direction of this blog will depend on what people write or the material they contribute - and we have many experts amongst our cohorts that have world and life experience in divers areas - from medicine, to the world economy, to travel in strange and wondrous land, to comments on places to stay, visit, and eat - and this will provide an outlet for individual creativity. Photos and videos can certainly be added, and you can certainly get help in publishing the first few articles.

A copy of this message will also appear on the blog since all messages to the mailing list end up there, awaiting approval for publication.

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From Winnie: Answer to Maggie whereabouts

Both my home and work computers have blinked out but we are working hard on the blog which will have a lot of new features. Having met up with the classmates after 40 years, I found we have a lot in common (ie old age commonalities) in that we all enjoy travel, gardening and walking, talk and food. Followed by more food. As a result, we are putting together many articles which will be of interest to all of you bloggers. For those of you who are sole obsessed with Maggie Mason sightings, I have found only one photo of my days in ACS. This happens to be the one I took with Maggie on the spring board (in swimsuits!!!) over the swimming pool back in the days when our pool was once in a lifetime, above-the-ground during the fun fair.

It should be up soon! In the meantime, check out the blog for the new articles.

Re: [ACSians] Where is Maggie Mason...

Wan Fook Weng is right! After looking at the ease with which Winnie and Shahid (and Choon Yong) handle "difficult" issues (dancing and eating included).....it's really going overseas to live and work which provides the cutting edge!

Well done Winnie!


Now we wait! (wonder what it would be like when Maggie does respond!)


Cheers all and good weekend


Noorhayati

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[ACSians] Where is Maggie Mason...

From Winnie Lee

Hi: all these amateurish efforts looking for Maggie.... Yesterday, I contacted the guy associated with the Singapore alumni branch of McGill University and he forwarded my requested to McGill University Alumni Association who responded and also forwarded my request to Maggie.

Now, we wait. A brief thank you to all of you for that Singapore hospitality, AND especially our friend from Daikin AC. I counted more than 20 Daikin units at my brother's home and he says they all work perfectly! Kept me very comfortable.

[ACSians] Re: And here's to the next magical sighting of Maggie Mason

Dear Irene and other ACSians,

Glad to hear your comparative appraisals of the Reunions, and your finding of ACS Class of 68 Reunion being the most fun.

Thanks for the narrative about the meeting between Maggie and Irene in the best Hindi movie tradition in Montreal in 1971.

For enquiring minds who are asking "Where's Maggie Mason" and anxious to find out,
these clues together with the suggestions from Irene can may help in the search. More "magical sighting" reports are definitely welcome and will be published when reported.

Shahid

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And here's to the next magical [MAGGIECAL] sighting of Maggie Mason

From: Irene Hoe

Date: Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 2:07 PM
Subject: And here's to the next magical sighting of Maggie Mason

Dear friends,
Since I got home from a long trip at midnight last Friday, it's been one reunion after another, starting with lunch and dinner to mark Eusoff College 50th anniversary and ending Tuesday when I gathered my sister Mary's closest pals together to celebrate her birthday.
Every party was special in its own way, but without a doubt, the ACS Class of 68 gathering was the most fun I've had this year with clothes on.
Thank you Mirza & Co, for all the spade work, and Chui Fong, for feeding us and letting us mess up your home. And Elvis the Pelvis Liew for insisting that I still belong to the 68ers.
My only regret is that I could not produce the elusive Maggie Mason.
The last time I saw MM was in the summer of 1971 when I was in Montreal. From across a busy street, I spotted her and shouted: "Maggie Mason!!!!" And she responded "Irene!!!! Is that really you!!!" (You can tell we weren't strong on originality).
Then in the best Hindi movie tradition, we ran towards each other and embraced, on a traffic island with traffic rushing by on either side of us. Our hugfest was as intense as it was brief.
When I Googled "Maggie Mason", I found a marathoner by that name, of the right age, from Santa Barbara. Shahid, maybe you could check out "Mason, M" in the online directories, or look for her brother Peter. Or check out the McGill University alumni website if you know any alumnus.
The Quest goes on.

Looking forward to the next reunion,
Irene

Maggie Mason

As you know, Maggie left ACS in mid 1968 during PU-II prior to the HSC exams to study in Canada at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

In 1973, after graduating from the University of Singapore Faculty of Engineering, I had the good fortune to obtain a Ford Foundation fellowship to study Industrial Engineering in Stanford University, California, and found myself there with another Singaporean on the same program - a person who has since returned to Singapore, and being in the public eye, is probably known by name to all of you. In June 1974, both of us went to Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, and after the summer semester, took the road trip back to Stanford. West Lafayette, as you know is east of Stanford, so we started the return trip back heading East and North - which certainly makes a lot of sense ;-) came through Madison, Wisconsin, and met Juzar there at the time. As part of the trip, we went to Montreal, where we visited and stayed with a former lecturer from the Engineering Faculty, who had moved to one the Universities there. (As an aside, he had a young son whom he kept calling Goondoo as a term of endearment, and I am sure some one had given him a bad translation of what it meant.)

On a lark, I found a phone directory of Montreal, and on looking up the M's, came across some Masons, and a couple of Mason M s and don't recall if there were any Maggies among them. So, armed with the phone book and a rotary phone (touch-tone phones were a thing of the future at the time), and several cups of coffee, I started down the list, and hit pay dirt right away. I was pleasantly surprised when she answered. We went for dinner with my colleague, and had a very pleasant visit with her after that.

Around Christmas I sent her a "Snoopy" Christmas card from Palo Alto - at least I thought I did. A few days later I received the envelope I had sent addressed to me, so I thought I must have addressed the envelope to myself rather than to her and put her address as the return address. However, the envelope did not seem quite the same. On closer examination, I noticed that the handwriting was different. It turns out that the envelope was similar to the one I sent, but not the same, and that the card was from her. Our cards had crossed in the mail, and we had both sent each other the same card at the same time!

That is not the end of the story - there was one more chapter. In November 1975, I was bicycling home in the middle of the night from school when an immovable log/beam on the ground had an argument with the front wheel of my irresistable bicycle :-). For those who have been taught that in physics (remember F = Ma) that when an immovable object meets an irresistable force the result is indeterminiate, I found a definitive answer that night. The immovable object won! The bicycle stopped cold. However, Newton's First Law of Inertia (anyone still remember what that is?) did me in. I kept going, my fingers were caught between the brake control and the handlebar. After groping for and finding my glasses which had obeyed Newton's First Law with me and also fallen off, I got up, and dusted myself off. The world looked a little blurry, and I thought I had damaged my head, but it was actually a lens of my spectacles that had popped off, so that was a relief. However, the blurry looking ring and little fingers on my right hand looked strange and had no sensation, and the front wheel of the bicycle did not look straight. With some help I got to the student health center, and next morning was told by the doctor that I needed surgery, and admitted to Stanford Hospital.

After the surgery, I stayed in the hospital one night, too groggy to care, and next day told I would have to stay one more night. Well, that second night, after the effects of the anaesthesia had worn off, I found that the traffic in the hospital room with the nurses going in and out annoying the other patients was so distressing that I could not get any sleep. When the following morning when the doctor came in and wanted me to stay one more night, I objected and wanted to get out of there. While checking out and leaving the hospital, I heard my voice, turned around, and thought I was hallucinating, because, right there ... in the flesh was.... Maggie Mason!!.

Turns out she was checking out the Microbiology program because her boyfriend was thinking of attending Stanford, and she wanted to see what was available, and ran into me most unexpectedly. Subsequently, that afternoon, I had a long conversation with her, but I never got a correct phone number from her, and I did not have my own listed phone, and did not see or hear from her again.

Gentle reader, if you have any later news of Maggie, please post it in the comment section. If there are enough comments, I might be persuaded to look and post that very well composed picture of her taken under the portrait of the Mona Lisa lookalike in that Montreal restaurant by my cohort in crime in 1974......

Maggie, if you are reading this, please make contact with your classmates of 40 years ago.....