Remember....

The World Cup Football is almost over. Germany versus Uruguay on Saturday and Spain versus The Netherlands on Sunday. Yes, football fever is on, even here in sleepy Teluk Intan. This brought to mind the football final in 1974 between Germany and Holland at that time. That day was the day i bought my first televion set. It was a National T.V. set and a black and white one. The shop had to deliver it in time so that we can watch the final that night. What a treat for my dad as he loved watching football. So it was football which made me buy my first T.V. set. Since then, this is the 10th world cup that i'm watching on T.V.
You can imagine the amount of bettings that are going on at this time. Large number of people have already fled the little town of Teluk Intan.....for fear of the moneylenders. Here we call them the 'Alongs'. My students told me that many people have borrowed from these loan sharks to make bets. Well, the results have all gone wrong. They had to leave town because they just can't pay back the loan sharks.....principal plus the interest, this can be quite a hefty sum. Well, even students in schools make bets. Few lucky ones will be enjoying their ice-creams for some months to come. Bets on ice-creams....loose three ice- creams but if you win, you'll get thirty ice-creams. I still cannot make out how they bet, and i guess i will never understand...........

Remember......

Dorothy has left Teluk Intan for two weeks already. She's a grand old lady of more than eighty years old. I have known her for more than fifty years, and i can't imagine that, at this great age, she has to leave this little quiet town and resettle in noisy busy city of Petaling Jaya. I always thought that most senior citizens would retire in small quiet towns like Teluk Intan or Kampar or even Bidor, but i thought wrong. We retirees are so set in our ways that we won't find it easy to readjust to life in new places. However, readjust to new places we must when we find ourselves in a situation like Dorothy. Living all alone in a house when one is old is certainly not recommended. The amount of housework we have to do on our own sometimes boggles me....cooking,washing, dusting, wiping, even gardening. There's no one willing to do these chores even if one is willing to pay for these services. So, we have to do all these on our own. Also, our mobility is limited nowadays. We have to learn to do things slower than before. We have to learn to take little rests in between our chores, lest we get tired...and we certainly get tired easily.
I am thinking of myself at the moment. Will i have to make this choice in twenty years' time if God grace me with another twenty years of life? I don't know. But i hope i don't have to make this choice...i am praying that i would be healthy still till that day. One thing i learnt from this...life is nver certain....we need to learn to take life one day at a time. Making plans is when you are young. Now that you are old, live your life to the fullest for the day. We will never know what tomorrow will bring............