The Banana Club

There's this place we called The Banana Club. It was situated behind some poor family's house right opposite our high school's side entrance.

The Banana Club existed roughly about 13-14 years ago. Back then it wasn't called The Banana Club. I have no idea what they called it then, nor a clue what they call it now.

I passed by The Banana Club sometime earlier this week and it was stil abuzz with activity, just as it has always been 13 years ago.

You see, The Banana Club was where we met everyday, before and after school. Many things happened at The Banana Club. Things that shaped the way we are today. Things that changed our perceptions. Some forever, and some as we go along through adulthood.

Social activities usually start from 7am Mondays to Friday. For members that took the school bus, they were always at The Club pretty early. For the ones on bikes and on foot, we were always there just in time for the morning fag and manly gossip sessions.

You can always tell there was activity at The Club by the thick smoke snaking through the trees. Morning salutations were given, idle chit chats and doobies being passed through de left hand side.

It was a place for formal functions as well. The welcoming of new faces. Of brotherhoods. Of alliances. There were happy and dark times. Mostly after school, judgements passed at the club. fists and feet become judge and jurors. Maturity was the outcome.

Blood, tears, laughter, happiness, dissapointments, tall tales. That was what The Banana Club were to all whom I knew.

I hope it still serves its purpose well till today. The trees have many a tale to tell. Some to remain a secret forever, and some to peek silently at you after all those years as you drive by, with your family in tow.

I always wink back when I drive past The Banana Club. And for all those new secrets that it hears and witnesses for this generation and the generation to come, I hope that those who enter and eventually say goodbye to it, will live and learn to tell their tales. Of The Banana Club.