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As I mentioned earlier I became a Lake Club member by chance only and for free too. It came about when I joined the Bank of Nova Scotia in 1973 after my sojourn at the Banque de L’Indochine after my Felda career.

My immediate Canadian boss Ed Bernard, who later became a very close friend, made the Bank sponsor for my membership. The monthly club fee too was paid by the Bank and that included all the club expenses too. It was at the Lake Club that I began to take a liking to squash whilst still playing tennis at the same time.

I owe squash to my very close friend Ibrahim Ariffin, who patiently taught and played squash with me and my best friend the late Din Ahmad, better known as "Din China" to the Collegians. It was not long before squash became an obsessive game to me, more so when in the later years I developed very close squash sparring relationship with Dr. Then Suk Min, an opthamalogist, who never failed to turn up punctually at four o’clock every Monday to have a game with me. We continued this routine until he migrated to Australia in the late 80’s when my search for a permanent partner in the game became another obsession for me.

It was not long after that when I found my own cousin YAM Tunku Besar Mukhriz as a regular partner that persisted until today. Squash is great game for me, more so now that I can no longer cover the wide area of the tennis court for a singles game. Playing doubles is not much fun for me in tennis because the derived exercise level from it is inadequate. In tennis, especially when most of the time, players are involved in picking the lose balls, the game becomes a drag in the end. This is just the opposite with squash. Lose balls though frequent are accessible within seconds due to the proximity of the court areas.

All told, squash is a more enjoyable game to play although tennis is very entertaining game to watch, especially all the ATP and Masters tournaments all over the world. When it comes to Wimbledon, US , French and Austalian Opens, I lost my sleeps always. Somehow, they have not been able to display good squash games over the TV simply because of the somewhat restrictive viewing space of the court.

So much for the ramblings and let me relate a nice story for you : -

Jack decided to go skiing with his buddy, Bob. So they loaded up Jack's mini van and headed north. After driving for a few hours, they got caught in a terrible blizzard. So they pulled into a nearby farm and asked the attractive lady who answered the door if they could spend the night.

"I realize it's terrible weather out there and I have this huge house all to myself, but I'm recently widowed," she explained. "I'm afraid the neighbors will talk if I let you stay in my
house."

"Don't worry," Jack said. "We'll be happy to sleep in the barn. And if the weather breaks, we'll be gone at first light." The lady agreed, and the two men found their way to the barn and settled in for the night. Come morning, the weather had cleared, and they got on their way. They enjoyed a great weekend of skiing.

But about nine months later, Jack got an unexpected letter from an attorney. It took him a few minutes to figure it out, but he finally determined that it was from the attorney of that
attractive widow he had met on the ski weekend.

He dropped in on his friend Bob and asked, "Bob, do you remember that good-looking widow from the farm we stayed at on our ski holiday up North about 9 months ago?"
"Yes, I do." said Bob. "Did you, er, happen to get up in the middle of the night, go up to the house and pay her a visit?" "Well, um, yes," Bob said, a little embarrassed about being found out. "I have to admit that I did."

"And did you happen to use my name instead of telling her your name?" Bob's face turned beet red and he said, "Yeah, look, I'm sorry, buddy. I'm afraid I did." "Why do you ask?" "She just died and left me everything."

(And you thought the ending would be different, didn't you?)
Now keep that smile for the rest of the day. Till next time, cheers !