“That way, that Sunday, that summer”, timeless lyrics from Nat King Cole’s famous song “That Sunday, that summer”, sung in 1963, never fails to bring back memories of summer dalliances, summer romances, that familiar palpitating feeling in your chest that goes “thump, thump, thump”, the way your hands get clammy and your throat turns dry and you start blubbering like a mad fool when you see your summer love, the one who makes you swoon when he/she smiles and the way the sun glistens on his/her hair, the way the sunlight shining around his/her face sears the image into your memory – forever your golden boy, your golden girl. Forever immortalized in the memory of ‘that summer’ – that’s how summer romances always are. Though the tides of Time may come and go, summer romances will always stay golden. Frank Sinatra got that right when he crooned “All summer long, we sang a song – and strolled on the golden sand / Two sweethearts, and the summer wind” in his song “Summer Wind”.

With PUB’s ‘Active, Beautiful, Clean’ (ABC) Waters programme, the dream of ‘that summer’ can now be realized. It does this by naturalizing Singapore’s waterscape, an appealing energy and environmentally friendly way to do so. Turning water canals into water spaces (a water works in the making!) would definitely open up new lifestyle and leisure alternatives for the public, and keeps in line with Singapore’s image as a Youth Olympic city – brimming with youthful verve and vigour. Certainly, I wouldn’t disagree with the decision to naturalize Singapore’s waterscape – not when you will have muscled men with washboard abs and bronzed golden skin, dotting the waterscape, rowing their kayaks fuelled by raw testosterone.

I attended the opening of the Family Bay at the Lower Seletar Reservoir on 27 June 2010, among one of PUB’s ABC Waters programme projects. Tottering about in high heels was certainly not the way to go, not when I had to take care not to walk between the cracks in the tiled pavement, in case it would scratch my heels (hey…I was trying to dress corporate to look professional. How wrong I was when I turned up at the event and saw everyone, from the officials, dressed in de rigueur polo tees and pants, to fellow school mates dressed smart casual to suit the hot weather). It was interesting to note how much Singapore’s waterscapes have changed since the initiation of our own piped water supply in 1867, and that the turn towards the naturalization of local waterscapes also reflects a change in Singapore’s gradual change into a cosmopolitan city, with ample lifestyle and leisure alternatives, be it on land, air or water.

I have always felt pangs of envy whenever I saw how beautiful other countries’ water ways were (some drains in Japan even have koi fishes swimming in them!), and have always wanted to hold the quintessential summer (what summer. Singapore is summer all year around…well save for the monsoon seasons. But you get my point. I am hankering after the feeling, that summertime je ne sais quoi you get whenever you watch those schmaltzy Hollywood/ Japanese/ French romantic movies, where they always detail in nostalgic fondness about ‘that summer’, where they had barbeques on the river banks, and swam and caught their fish fresh from the river, and slept under the sky at night, with only the moon and the stars for company…) barbeque on the river banks, or perhaps something more chi-chi like afternoon tea times on the river banks (with the chink of elegant china and all…ahhh imagine the good life). Anyway, I am digressing. What I meant to say is that I can’t wait till the next ABC Waters project gets completed (Bishan Park), where I could perhaps get closer to the dream of “that summer, by the river, we…”

Dreams of ‘that summer’ (say this with that sigh of nostalgia and dreamy eyes that tell of a never forgotten memory) will no longer be a pipe dream for Singaporeans.

Posted by Gwendoline Sim, School of Film & Media Studies, Ngee Ann Polytechnic