Their Wedding Day.

It was on a Sunday, 20th November, 1966. Rev. Fr. William Smith, the Rector, of St. Michael's Church, Penampang, allowed it. A Sunday Service coinciding a Wedding Service. A Rector's decision. The wedding invitations were sent out a good fortnight earlier and the regular Sunday Church Service goers were well informed. Marriage Banns and Wedding Days were announced in Church on three consecutive Sunday Masses previously in those days. A good crowd were present for the Sunday cum Wedding Service and nearly all of them stayed on for the wedding group photograph which was taken outside the church after the Service. It could not be done...simply, it's impossible! But, suppose, if the whole episode could be redone, so to speak, the pre, while and post parts of the whole episode, which particular details would they want be done differently? Of all the numerous black and white photographs taken during the occasion, this last termite-partially-spared one is appended as a reminder of an event which happened in the past. It is coming to 44 years old.

The Long-Forgotten Beauty and Usefulness of the Family Dinner

When I grew up in a kampung life-style setting, the evening family meals were almost considered sacred family affairs. Each dinner time was a very important meeting time for all the family unit members. A dinner could not start if there was a missing member of the family. The family head, my mother, for all dinner times, would ask a complaining hungry member to wait for all to arrive. Sometimes someone would be sent out to call any slow comer to come faster for it was dinner time. A kampung call for a brother who happened to be at a neighbor's house or at a game in the field, would be issued aloud in their local tongue, "/ludi:, muhi:, maka:n/" That was in the early 1950s and then onwards in time. Years later, sometimes in and around the late 1980s, the practice of a corporate family meal was still continued and cherished. That was long after the members of that intact family unit that I came to know so well have then gone their separate ways and have then started their own family unit to lead and to guide. The picture appended gives a testimony to such a small family dinner beauty. The eldest sibling would lead the others to organize the setting of the table. The preparation of the food need not be done by the children. Their mother normally did that specialized work, so to speak. The TMTs in the picture are seen around the table ready to partake in a family meal, at dinner time. That was the now-lost happy scenario of a family dinner. Nowadays the sanctity of a harmonious family unit was gravely compromised, if not, grossly corrupted by that anti-Christ red herring, the G games.

Some better days of yesteryears!

Yes, the picture you are looking at says a thousand words! One Confucious of the Orient a long, long time ago once said so, so it was said.

The JETT's Dec 2009 KK Home Visit

While the JETT boys were home in KK numerous sight-seeing trips were actually planned by Tania for them to participate in. All except for just a few fell through. The trip to Tuaran to meet the Orang Utans did take place but the trip to Beaufort to see and be among the early night fireflies was canceled. A Moyog river swim, a short father-supervised one, was enjoyed, while a more prolonged, assured freer Aki-participated promised repeat did not materialize due to the weather constraints. This valid-for-one-year promise is claimable if by December 2010 it is not out-grown and naturally forgotten due to the busy buzz of Singapore City living.