A long wait

I'm among 20 odd guys who grew up in Taman Desa playing basketball 'illegally' at the Taman Desa secondary school down the road, climbing the fence and breaking through bardwires and playing an average 8 hours of ball during school holidays.

Those were the days.

Today, after 26 years of the Taman Desa recreational park existing in front of my house, it FINALLY has a basketball court! None of us could ever understand why we never had a public basketball court in the neighbourhood. Well, we could easily have been mistaken for being biased, as we loved playing the game but any initial reaction towards us being biased would easily be brushed aside if the fact that Taman Desa, for a good 20 years, has been a dominantly Chinese neighbourhood, be taken into account.

We could never understand why our recreational park, beautiful as it is, convenient as it is, going through quite a few makeovers as it did; never had a basketball court. Instead, we had 3 tennis courts that also served as volleyball courts and occassionally netball courts, 3 badminton courts, a run down soccer field, a walking/jogging path and some other things. But tennis/volleyball courts?? I mean, ok fine, who really plays tennis in a Chinese area? No basketball court? You have got to be joking.

Whoever finally decided on there being a basketball court in the area is a genius! However, one sure isn't going to do the trick. Too many basketball enthusiasts but only one court, 2 halves. It's going to be really crowded!

Went down to the court this evening to check it out, and to see if there were anyone I knew from the old days and sure enough, there were a few old boys there. Most of the people on the court were new faces, young punks and one or two standouts who really seemed to have game. Got to shoot some hoops on the other half of the court from 7pm till nightfall. It's been a while...

Too bad I can't play competitive basketball anymore. Well, not at least till I permanently fix that niggling dislocated shoulder problem of mine =)