Again Thinking

20 April 2006

Not quite sure I like digital photo albums.

Digital cameras are technically great conveniences and creating and uploading photo albums easy, but I am convinced that if one does not print down photos, after a while memories are lost. We have hundreds of photo albums stored under beds, in the attic etc and even fading black and whites in an old round biscuit tin (mine). Each time we look into one of these albums, memory floods and all the old stories come pouring out.

Will it, can it be the same with a digital album on a CD or DVD? and what if the technology of tomorrow cannot read that of today?

This was brought on by an old photo on my wife's website taken at least forty years ago: my late father-in-law is on his bicycle with his first grandson

This photo led to my recent poem

gamblers never win, but here’s fifty dollars

kong kong loved to ride in buses
especially ones going to Genting
where he admired the view, drank black coffee
and never gambled
but his money did.

his fifty dollars took a while to cross
the blackjack table and when I stumbled outside
the wind was of course misty cold
but my father-in-law leaned head bald
on (what else?) a railing
trademark cloth cap in hand:
his “sucker” and the offer of a beer
cemented years of affection.

since you left
no one rides the bus
to Genting anymore
kong kong.

Footnote: "Kong Kong" is cantonese for Grandfather and was the name we all used for my late father-in-law, Goh Keng Swee (Dec 1909 to 25 Oct 1990), who loved to go to "Genting" (Malaysia's famous casino near the capital Kuala Lumpur), not to gamble himself, but to see how long it took for his son-in-law to lose his "fifty dollars"!

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