Come walk down Memory Lane with me

Yesterday, feeling a little bit better and not wanting to miss the summer sun, we went to Kensington Gardens to join a group of youngsters having a picnic. It was such a beautiful day and it seemed that London and her grandparents were out with their sunglasses, balls and rollerblades.

There were groups sharing their sishas under the trees, youngters playing football and many just enjoying the sun, cuddling their loved ones without a care in the world.

There was hardly space to sit down but we made our way, dodging frisbees and dogs running after sticks, following the sound of the strumming of the guitar with familiar voices singing Sweet Charity’s “Kamelia”.

Yes, we found the group of young Malaysian students, taking time off from their revision, to enjoy the sun. The reason we went there too was because Taufiq wanted to meet someone who could teach him the steps to seni silat. So, there we were in the Her Majesty the Queen’s park, watching Taufiq and his friend, practising the silat.

Watching the group of young friends, strumming their guitars, singing songs I never knew existed and just larking about playing catch with empty apple juice cartons, their laughter carried by the wind, I felt a tinge of envy. How wonderful it is to be young and without a back ache.

This reminded me too of the challenge I found on JT’s blog – a challenge that was to take me down memory lane, even at the risk of revealing my age. This challenge, if you are up to it, will take you to popculturemadness.com where you will find all sorts of things – like lists of songs during the year you turned 18. And from the list of songs, write about the memories they bring flooding back. And horrors of horror – the year I turned 18 was 1972!!!!!

This was the year, sorry Mak, no more birthday parties with musical chairs and passing the parcel. This was the year, after five years in the strict Convent school environment, we were leashed out into a co-ed school that was the SAHC to join the world of seniors, carrying files instead of school bags, eating at snack bars in semi darkness instead of canteens in the full glare of teachers and prefects. This was the year a pimple spelt disaster, especially if it appeared the day before the sixth form party.

Kitted out in our flares that could easily break any fall from a high building, we strutted out in groups of psychedelic riots of colours, with conversations punctuated with ‘Groovy, man!” and fingers perpetually showing the peace sign.

It was, I suppose, a year when we foolishly assumed to be our honeymoon year, with exams a year away. Like the students in the park, come concert time, we’d sit on tables and benches and strum the guitar singing our all time favourites. We were grown-ups who could handle and juggle social life and studies, or so we thought, forgetting that hormones tend to make things very difficult even for the sanest amongst us.

It was the year I fell in love with a dream, a vision that was to last for a very long time. This was the year I danced to “Walk Away” by Matt Monroe but the vision and dream lingered for a very long time. Thus important events that hit the headlines during the year, such as the Munich Massacre at the Olympics when Malaysia first competed, passed without as much as a glance to the newspaper coverage. Our own state was celebrating our Sultan becoming the Agong, a young dashing Agong that we were so proud of and yet, it made little impact on me. But hard to ignore was the 1972 spelling reform which took away apostrophes and hyphens from words like tabi’at and di-buat. No more makan2 or rumah2, and the year that brought about the standardisation of spelling – with the ch giving way to c and sh becoming sy and so on and so forth. A word – skuasy till this day baffles me.

And so, what were the songs that used to echo in the small cubicle that was our bathroom, that would make me stop in my tracks and stare dreamily into the horizon, that played endlessly into the nights, almost wearing out the 45 rpm vinyls, which were either on loan or bought with scholarship money meant for purchase of reference books? In 1972, I was not quite over Carole King and The Osmond Brothers, but a few still bring a smile to my face.


Roberta Flack’s The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
This has got to be the most eagerly awaited song as the lights dimmed and you hoped and prayed that the one who asked you to do the slow dance didn’t have clammy, trembling hands. This is also a song, you think you can sing at karaoke sessions, a song others prayed and hoped you’d never sing!

For Roberta Flack, romance was so far away from her mind when she sang this song.
"A lot of people ask me what I was thinking about while I was recording that song. Actually I was thinking about a little black cat that someone had given me, named Sancho Panza. I had just gotten back from being on the road for the first time, and I discovered that he had been killed. I only had one pet, and when I went into the studio, two days later, he was still on my mind. “

That brings me to my next song

Ben by Michael Jackson
Ignorance is bliss. Little did I know that Ben was a rat – cousin to the one that caused my back pain. But Ben evoked such sentiments and feelings that you can only share with a close friend. I had and still have some very close friends from this era and Ben, the song, is still one song we sing during our gettogethers, reunions and when we are racing down the motorway to nowhere in particular.

Baby, Don't Get Hooked On Me - Mac Davis
Being young and only had eyes on the opposite sex ten years older then me , I used to think this song and others like Young Girl by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap were written for me and me alone. Why was it no one ever took notice of me???

Without getting as much as a glance from those ten years older, I sought solace in women’s liberation and Helen Reddy’s I am Woman became a favourite. “I can face anything" and "I can do anything" almost became a mantra. I persuaded myself to believe that I am strong, I am invincible cos I am Womannnnnnnn!!!!!