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PSP? We had zero-point and spiders... PART 2

Hey all, here’s the 2nd part of ‘PSP? We had zero-point and spiders...’ as promised. The following are contributions from Ant, myself and not forgetting the readers (thanks for the emails). Enjoy!


Growing Up

Ant: The Road Safety Park at East Coast Park was the bomb! Parents and school would bring their kids there to teach them about road safety. You could be a pedestrian, motorist, cyclist and so on…You’ll be given a card that plans your route around the park and you’ll have to observe all the necessary road safety rules while trying to complete the route. At the end of it, you’ll be given a certificate. Ant says her dad brought her and her cousins to the park every weekend and she had certificates for all the different roles!

Noel Boyd: I don’t know if you guys will remember this. There used to be this thing called Twinkle Friend. It’s a hotline for children to call when they have problems in school or at home. Even when you’re bored, you can call and talk to someone. There was always a listening ear!

Sue: The Bookworm Club used to come to schools to promote reading and sell their story books. There was membership that children can get. Every year on your birthday, you can redeem your birthday present at their clubhouse in Selegie. Who can forget Porky, Mimi, Fat Ani, Sam Seng, Smarty, Simone, Edison and Louise?

Winston Phua: Western Bar was a kick-ass handheld game! Every kid played this game. The graphics were lame but who cared?!

Chua: Back then, our playground was made up of metal structures. It was a bunch of steel put together for kids to climb. Even the swing was made up of a wooden seat and metal chains.

Chua: Back in 1989, the fastest modem was 300bps (over phone)..

Chua: You listen to songs on LPs (laser disc) at 45rpm or 33rpm, instead of CDs.

Chua: Television programmes started at 3pm on SBC channel 5 and the broadcast ended at 11pm.

Suffian: We could buy paper kites for 25 cents from mama shops. Some of us would buy these kites everyday after school.

Thomas - jpopnut: School boys would gamble everyday while playing marbles. There were different techniques and each game costs 20 cents or so.

Food

Chua: You can buy eggs from door to door salesman. These eggs were direct from the farm.

Noel Boyd: Hawkers would come to our door step. I remember my neighbourhood had a rojak man on his motorbike, a mee goreng man also on a motorbike, these two brothers that would drive around the neighbourhood selling cakes and confectioneries from their van.

Ant: I remember young boys going floor to floor of HDB flats selling “epok-epok” and “goreng pisang”. They would shout “epok-epok” and “goreng pisang” at the top of their voices and residents would shout in-return their floor level to attract the attention of the boys.

Chua: On National day, kids used to get our national flag filled with sweets or chocolate.

Wendy_T: A&W was the in-thing more than Macs and KFC. The famous brown bear was a welcoming sight at every A&W restaurant. I miss their Root Beer float and Curly Fries!!

Ant: “Air Batu” sticks was a common treat for kids after school. It was 10 cents each and they came in all colours.

Noel Boyd: Before “Ice Kacang” came about, there was the ice ball. I would walk all the way to Ang Mo Kio park and buy myself an ice ball. The walk was long but it was worth every step once I had that ball of ice in my hand!

Army Days

Kris_74 : While doing our national service, the bed mattress was made of dirty old yellow foam. You can feel the springs of the bed whenever you lie down. Today, our soldiers get bloody King Koil mattresses!

Kris_74: Our camp food was cooked by national servicemen. Only god knows what they put in the food everyday. Needless to say, it was horrible!

4 comments:

  1. you know what i remembered before i slept the other night?

    and i'm sure you'll know what i'm talking about too. back then, in AMK, where Emporium used to be i think, there's this stall outside the store that sold this slurpee like drink...its cup had a white polar bear on it, with red and blue stripes...
    it came in lots of diff flavors...cola, strawberry, etc etc...

    remember? remember? it was one of my favorites!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. i do!! i do!! it's called ICEE. the most popular flavour was this red mix thingy. it rocked!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. hey noel.
    think you mean tinkle friend.
    not twinkle. :)

    nice walk down memory lane in that post - go 80s!

    (janine)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey Janine! You're right. It is tinkle friend. thanks for pointing it out. I just found out today thanks to Channel News Asia that Tinkle Friend is still around!

    ReplyDelete

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