when you have not met your former colleagues for nearly thirty years, the things that would dominate all conversations would be the good old days. actually, the rest of us in the pictures have been meeting quite regularly; it is only lai wenko - seated on the extreme right - who has been missing from the picture for about thirty years.
lai was with us in balestier hill technical for ten years before he got a transfer to kim seng technical. soon after that, he resigned from teaching and left for the states to further his education.
i always remember him as the st john's ambulance brigade officer who would be the only one around conducting drills and other activities for the sjab members on a saturday afternoon. at least one misconception was cleared up at today's meeting. i always imagined seeing him in his white sjab uniform. he verified that it was light brown (khaki) uniform that he wore for ten years.
there was a lot of laughter as we recalled those youthful days when we were full of zest and we devoted our time unquestioningly to the school and the students. in retrospect, someone commented that we were quite naive compared to the present lot of teachers. nevertheless, we enjoyed such a tremendous sense of camaradie that after all these years, even after we had moved on to different schools and different jobs, we still keep in touch.
lai is still managing his own business. what puzzled him most was: how come, out of the eight of us (myself, the photographer, included), seven retired prematurely. one retired at age 54, one, 55, two, 57, two, 58 and one, 59.
we told him that if he had not resigned from teaching, he would have also been in the same boat - retiring before he could reach 60.
the present lot of 60 years old do not look as old as those one generation before them. with better medical care, personal care (no botox, but got botak) and hair care (dye), they look as though they are in their 40s or 50s.
we chose an appropriate meeting place - the coffee-shop, located in balestier complex, where we used to have meals between breaks about thirty years ago.
