My Memoirs (Part 3)

Continue from My Memoirs (Part 2)

Grandma’s two daughters, where the elder one, whom I called Ku-cheh (elder aunty) had a string of failed courtship which left her a very depressed person. As she always keeps to herself, communication breakdown was the norm, especially towards her immediate families. However, she was kind and helpful to most strangers who drop by to chat with her. She spent the later part of her life at the family house along Chulia Lane.

The younger daughter, Lai-ku (younger aunty) marries her sweetheart who lives next door. Lai-ku has 3 off spring of her own. While her children, lou-piu, (my cousins) are in constant contact with us now, lou-piu’s children could now hardly recognize us or vice-versa. And this is so-called generation gaps.

Dad, being a young mechanic in those days, used to repair and trade used cars for a living and he would sometimes drive a Hillman or a Chevrolet home, the ones that has protruding tail lights. Being young and native, my brother and I called them the ‘Fei kei’ car

Dad used to drive the family to the ‘kow-mar tou’ the Esplanade, at the Fort Cornwallis and the ‘san-mar tou’ at the Gurney Drive, where we used to enjoy the ride on the ‘merry-go-round’ carrousel, the swing and the ‘ king-kong pan’ (see-saw)
A type of horizontal platform with centre pivoted and balanced, where each person sits at both end, with own legs to push up and down, making ‘king kong’ noises when platform’s end touches the ground
Mind you, I believe this is the only place where you can find such a playground in those days.

At the age of five, I remembered shifting house, away from Chulia Lane, away from Grandma, away from the neighbor hood buddies where we had our fair share of playing games together. Brother and I missed our favorite games of glass marbles, top spinning, water gun battles, green unripe berry (for bullet projectile by elastic band) on wooden gun battles, hide and seek (where you can even hide blocks away) and yes, flying kites.

We stayed put for a year at the corner house situated at the end at Counter Hall which connected the Terengganu Road (just a stone throw away from the now framed P. Ramlees’ house). In front of the house is a small little steam where the children from the neighbor hood spend their time catching ‘peacork fish’ (guppy fish) with their bare hands.
Of course, there are a lot of greenies in the ‘san deng’ area, which gives us another pastime – catching fighting spider. We would carefully ‘scan’ through the wild berry hedges that usually grown along the fences surrounding the house. We would pick up and consume those wild but red ripen berries! How native we will then, without considering the facts that these wild fruits could be poisonous. But we lived through.

Those days, as Counter Hall is consider ‘out-of–town ‘area or ‘san deng’ (small village), was also a flood prone area.. Coming down town from the ‘san deng’ in those days, one must always drive through the big hump along the Perak Road which is just in front of the Penang Stadium. Only then after the big hump, the area would only consider as down town. (At least, this is what dad told us).

To continue......