They paved paradise, put up a sandless lot

Posted by shaun wong under Reflections
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In an earlier post on dinosaurs, I mentioned the demise of sandy HDB playgrounds.

Eugene asks: “Ke, where has all the sand gone?”

Sure, the reasons are valid. Unhygenic, stinky and dirty. No argument with that.

But we had so much fun there.

I remember walking home from Montfort Primary and just mucking around the playgrounds with my friends.

It was amazing how many ways of going down the slides we could come up with.

Recently, I laughed at a sign at a pool slide which read, “Going down only”. Mum chided me saying, “You used to climb up the slides all the time.” Did I really?

We’d stage our WWF (yes, it was a purported federation then) inspired matches on the playground. No one would get seriously hurt from suplexes or bodyslams (my friends were pretty light), and even if we got bruised or cut, it was all in good fun really.

Of course, coming home smelly and dirty did have its consequences, but it was worth it.

Nonsensical musing or not, sandy playgrounds always have a place in my heart.

Barely one, brother took his first steps at our neighbourhood playground.

Sister and I used to race each other up the rubber tires.

Seeing brother’s glee coming down the slide and inevitably hitting sand was priceless.

Huge thanks to Mum for capturing the images of our youth.

“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what youve got till its gone.”

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