Going Down Memory Lane

Yesterday I drove to Seremban with my father and was in adventurous mood. I was told to try the road going to Sepang Gold Coast and then turn right to go to Kg LBJ and go to Labu in order to exit to Seremban. I religiously follwed the instructions and Lo and behold! I managed to pass through down memory lane, especially upon reaching Kg Batu 9 in Labu. I remembered more than 40 years ago that I was in Kg LBJ to visit the JKKR and gave a talk to the settlers. I was then working at my first job in FELDA. Those days were really lousy. I had expected to be sent to the region as regional secretary, instead I remained in HQ in Jalan Maktab and worst, I was the only Arts graduate amongst the guys who qualified as Agricultural Officers and two of them were OP's ( Old Putras ) and though I enjoyed the short stint, I left that organization and joined the elite MCS. When I drove past the junction to Bandar Enstek, I realized how times have changed. I passed by Kg LBJ and remembered that girl, Azizah who was my clerk in FELDA HQ who took a snapshot at the Settler's house in Kg LBJ together with President Lyndon Johnson at the window's opening which perhaps the only one facing the dirt gravel road which was notoriously dirty laterite and for every passing car, you could see the mushrooming red earth flying into the air after passing through in the Scheme's Land Rover. She was a sweet lass and my colleague AK Bear was quite attracted to her.But fate had it AK Bear left to join the elite MCS too. My father had no inkling where we were until we reached Tiroi in Labu, which was a cowboy one street town with a nostalgic air of what seemed to go backwards more than 50 years ago. I was then staying in the quarters provided by the Govt in Jalan Keyser near the road from S'ban to Labu. I recalled once a classmate by the name of Saparudin from the Kampong in Labu who tricked me into believing that he would give me a macaque which he claimed to have tamed. I believed him through and through and waited forlornly at the Bus Station in S'ban hoping he would appear with the long tailed monkey. After waiting for hours and not seeing him coming down the bus from Labu, I realized that I had been had. Next day when I met him at school, I told him " Celako kau, den kau tipu yo! " in Negri Sembilan dialect which we always used when things go awry. When I told my father this he just smiled. It just showed how naive I was, and I was then in Special Malay One, the transition class for those who came from the Malay School to join KGV School in S'ban. Well after such a long period if time, it seemed I had come a full cycle. When I was in Labu Road( actually Keyser Road ) I used to collect mangoes which dropped during the early morning mist at the house on a small hillock just behind the quarters where I stayed. One morning the house owner thought there was a thief outside the house and peek through the window. To my consternation, I shone the torchlight straight onto his face and he panicked, thinking I was a Ghost appearing from nowhere. Seremban town centre now is like Khan-El-Khalilee in Cairo. It's so haphazard and disorderly. The town's stoplights seemed to have no coordination and motorists had to negotiate the roads leading to Tampin, Kuala Pilah, Jelebu and PD. My trip down memory lane is quite rewarding to say the ;east. Now I know where to avoid the perennial exodus of city-dwellers during Hari Raya causing miles of stragglers who wanted to celeberate HR in their neglected Kampongs. I told my wife, we need not "Balik Kampong" and caught in mile long congestion on the North-South Expressway. See you next posting! Bye.