Grandfather stories

Dear readers,

theokwek would very much like to tell you that yehudi menuhin and stephane grapelli's album, Strictly For The Birds, is simply amazing.

And so are the Anderson and Roe piano duet, whose video you'll see here as well as in the post below!

Moving on, it's been a wonder listening to grandfather's stories, and here's one of them below. enjoy!

As the tango of life envelops us,

steals our breath

churns our feet

and washes us in its momentary addiction -

how often can we be proud of saying

that we have stopped

to think?

The Straight Times Editor

Morning Jogs

My family’s always been one fond of taking morning jogs – perhaps it’s a health thing carried over from predominantly medical professions, or simply a matter of habit. Though the tradition’s more or less ending with my generation, I’ve still come to taste the joys of hearing what blissful reminisces my parents and grandfather share as we sit around for breakfast or lunch, after another routine jog.

Just today, Gong-gong told us about his clique of gentlemen from a previous era, all chronically retro-fitted in Nike running-gear and sporting prominent glassy spectacles like his own, who would gather to jog every Saturday morning. It’s not surprising that they’re all tan and healthy – to a degree that might embarrass even peers of mine whose only claim to fitness is the relative youthfulness of being a teenager.

All hail from different paths – and they have starkly different greet-the-dawn habits as well. There’s an ex-Member of Parliament who stretches by the waterside and yells across the undulating reflections. There’s an old teacher who yells, too, but from the top of the little knoll that houses war hero Lim Bo Seng’s memorial. Then there’s the fuzzy old hawker-centre uncle who hobbles around the reservoir with a cane and a scoliosis-ridden back. And of course the taxi-driver who gives them all free rides to a comfy Toa Payoh coffeeshop for breakfast afterwards.

I can just imagine how they met – thudding past on the dirt-track on bones refreshed by the cool heat flicked off the reservoir, not quite feeling as energetic as they once might have been, but grateful that they’re better off than friends who matured at a faster rate. Slightly blurred vision locks against other eyes that house kindred spirits; there is a silent acknowledgement of “yes, I’ve eaten.” and “the weather’s fine”; soon, uneven footsteps fall in pace.

In each other’s bony fingers and wrinkled brows they read stories similar to their own. Stories of when “we were poorer, but happier”, “everywhere was one big kampong”, stories of “people were friendlier then”. These are stories that when repeated to today’s children, bounce of layers of rock-induced numbness and homework-weighted boundaries, pinging memory cells somewhere within grey matter that has been solidified by ink.

I can imagine, too, later on, as they climb good-naturedly into Ah Kow’s taxi, what amazing memories they must have of riding hands-free when the first motorcycles took to Singaporean roads, of clambering onto trucks, buses, trams, cars to escape the racial riots, of admiring floats that swung by during Chingay parades. I can imagine those toothy grins that they flash to each other, as a common thought of wanting to be young again zips across their minds with the churning of tires under the car.

I wonder – maybe one day we, too, will inherit this age-worn tradition of theirs, and bring our walks of life together on timeless reservoir jogs. Maybe by then there wouldn’t be reservoirs left, or even the need to jog, but I sure hope we keep these places and these hobbies – these books in which our grandfathers once scrawled their stories, pounding them into the soft tropical dirt with every footprint.

I can’t help thinking that probably, one day not very far away, our children will be writing about us going to these places, standing atop a grassy embankment, and yelling our stories to the trees. Then, I guess, the trees might just yell their stories back to us.