Passing The Hours By

In the days way before Personal Computers and the Internet as it is today existed, many children had to make do with games that involved other people, namely children, be they neighbours or in school. Though many of the games such as Catch, Police and Thief, Hopscotch, Hardball (can't remember the name, but one throws the ball painfully hard at another), and scores more are near to extinct today, it lives well in the minds of the generation that grew up with those games. Apart from honing a child's social interaction, the physical aspects of the games gives many children the exercise needed to strengthen their body, limbs, and mind, which many would find tiring and find ways to avoid at all cost.

Other than the games mentioned above, there were also Chinese-Checkers, Drought (Dam-Haji), Chess, Country (words game), and numerous more which helps the mind from going idle, especially during rainy days when one has to say indoor. Sometimes though, even these games can grow dull and a child's mind would always wander for new games to be played just to pass the hours by.

At the beach in KT, I came across a clutch of pines of a fir tree on the ground. Though fir trees can be found even in KL, these pines I found at the beach rekindled a memory when we were living in Pengkalan Chepa, Kelantan, and had very little toys or games. Children of a nearby village would often come around and play with us and even taught us a simple game using the pines of a fir tree - a game just to pass the hours by when in extreme boredom.
A pine or leaf of the fir tree grows in sections, quite similar were one to look at those of a bamboo tree. The pine being smaller, off course, makes it easier for a child to detach each section of it till one has about a whole handful. Then, each child would then try to assemble the pines as long and tall possible without having them bend and break. Mindless game as it was, it does take patience and purpose to arrange and assemble the pines, not to mention small dexterous fingers.

The game, as mentioned, was mindless and leads nowhere. It is quite unlike the latest initiative by the gomen to ease the burden of the rakyat due to the petrol price hike.

While I'm quite sure some would not agree, but I think the decision to allow Civil Servants to operate small businesses would only lead to further abuse of their position. The same goes for the licensing authorities who now have more people who will be beholden to them. One only needs to talk to the hawkers on the street to know of the treatment one can expect, and how this decision would lead to case of too many people with too many licenses. And that is just the least of the problems that would arise from a mindless move by some people who just want to pass the hours by.