Happy 42nd birthday Singapore!

It’s our nation’s 42nd birthday and we are all pre-65ers.  Let’s reminisce the good old days of carefree childhood, black & white TV, 5 cents bus rides, playing catching and hide & seek, etc…

12 thoughts on “Happy 42nd birthday Singapore!”

  1. My childhood days were carefree. Dinner was a family affair everyday where we ALL ate together. Daddy will tell us to study hard to break out of the poverty cycle.

    Going to school was walking half an hour to and fro each day. School was the main source of entertainment I had. Tell that to the kids today! And bedtime was 8pm, not 12 midnight.

    We had no computers, no mobile phones, no iPods and no fancy gadgets. We made our own Monopoly sets, our own chaptehs, our own Snakes and Ladders, etc.

    Maybe some of us have different memories to share…

  2. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SINGAPORE! FROM ONE ITS BETTER KNOWN SONS!

    David Marshall in 1994:

    I’ve got nothing against money. I’d like to have money myself! I’d like to have a house and a garden and dogs and a car and a chauffeur but, look, I’ve got a flat. I’ve got a swimming pool attached to the flat. I’ve not even got a car but I use taxis. I have a dignified way of life without being wealthy. I don’t see the necessity of owning a Mercedes-Benz and a swimming pool and a couple of mistresses. I think we’ve got our values all wrong.

    You know $96,000 a month for a Prime Minister and $60,000 a month for a minister. What the hell do you do with all that money? You can’t eat it! What do you do with it? Your children don’t need all that money.

    My children have had the best of education. In fact, I’m very proud of them. One of them is a senior registrar to two major hospitals in Oxford. Another of them is a consultant in European law to the Securities and Investment Board in the United Kingdom. They’ve had their education. There are no complaints.

    I never earned $60,000 a month or $90,000 a month. When I was Chief Minister, I earned $8,000 a month.Look, what is happening today is we are encouraged to and are becoming worshippers of the Golden Calf.

    We have lost sight of the joy and excitement of public service, helping our fellow men. The joy and excitement of seeking and understanding of the joy of the miracle of the living the duty and the grandeur. We have lost taste for heroic action in the service of our people.

    We have become good bourgeois seeking comfort, security. It’s like seeking a crystal coffin and being fed by intravenous injections through pipes in the crystal coffin; crystal coffins stuck with certificates of your pragmatic abilities.

  3. Before and Now, No Change (BNNC). Find heroes in everyday life.

    Like the stock market. Look at how some people stake their everything on a simple principle that the market will go up. If the market crash some will take the fast way down without the lift. BNNC.

    An authority on happiness or optimal experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (last name pronounced as Chicks-Send-Me-High) says you must get into the “Flow”. Nothing to do with chicks. Unless you are brain dead, you need a constant stream of information / stimulation to feed your senses to be happy. Before you are contented watching traffic from your kampong house. Now you squint up on your screens. BNNC.

    Earn more. Pay more. Happy, yes. More, no. BNNC.

    Same, same. BNNC.

  4. Birthdays, anniversaries always bring back memories of yesteryears like oldies:

    Chubby Checker – The Twist
    Connie Francis – Among My Souvenirs
    Connie Francis – Stupid Cupid
    Johnny Cash – I Walk The Line
    Pat Boone – Love Letters In The Sand
    Ray Peterson – Corrina, Corrina
    The Tune Weavers – Happy Birthday, Baby

    To listen, click website below which has 450 oldies

    http://www.bobforrest.com/JukeBox.htm

  5. Wonderful isn’t it when we reminisce those lovely tunes of the past. I play most of them on the piano/keyboards and it never fails to make me feel young again!

    Thanks for the tip!

  6. Joy, thanks for the memories.

    Mine was similar to yours. Dad had a car – a Holden – which he readily lent to neighbours’ use much to the ire of mom who then aiya at us for hours.

    Glad to read the sharings od Edwin, KT & Charles. (Thot Kenneth & Ronald too will share theirs….maybe coming?)

    Touted unabashedly the best criminal lawyer of his times, David Marshall’s fees werent inexpensive. Certainly, he got nothing against money.

    He was magnaninous enough to accept a diplomatic posting which paid an honorarium to serve his country after the jury system was removed in 1969 which also removed the audience to which he cd do a bit more outside of the law with his glibness & re-enacting what he thot was the crime scene.

    Yes, David is certainly one man I remember with pride on our 42nd birthday, our first Chief Minister who gentlemanly resigned after his failed talk in London, a great lawyer and an acomplished statesman.

    It would surely make an interesting read if he had written his memoirs in his usual no-holds barred style.

    While I do share David’s views and his premonition, a people is shaped by its leadership and when the leadership is so entrenched, but in the process has also brought prosperity, there is no point turning it around.

    Anyhow, you just cant reverse it without a total collapse. Much like a stock mart built on hope & euphoria, you’ll continue to add in to the pile without wishing or daring to pull out that piece at the bottom. You just have to hope that it’s a ladder with every step built taking you nearer to heaven.

    Haha, nvm whether it was the chick who told KT but I do agree that you must get into the “Flow”…..but where it eventually leads to – heaven or hades-van – heck care lah..

    Kam chiu yow zou kam jiu zui (canton) – savour yr wine this morn & go mabok.

    And, haha, how apt for Charles to chip in with his teaser “Stupid Cupid (stole)Johnny’s Cash (and so) Walk The Line (in fear even tho what)Pat Boone (sent to her were) Love Letters (but guilt stricken & with her head) In The Sand (she wd only listen to the) Tune Weavers (who reminded her that this is 9/8/2007 so) Happy Birthday, Baby (and it’s amnesty time !)

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