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Tim Mathews
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Tim Mathews
| House: |
Clive |
| Year: |
1970-1973 |
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Just stumbled upon the web site (4th March 2003). Some of Nairobi School life is coming back to
me: I hated those cold showers we were given in the middle of the night as punishment. Can't
remember what kinds of things we were punished for. That was Junior House.
Didn't they used to lock us in at night?? What a fire trap. I remember the
guy (his name is just beyond the haze of my memory) who always used to say
"sharp shooters please"....or something like that. It was always after
lights out. Can't remember if he was talking in his sleep or just
talking....and there was always someone saying "...eh, nani ame
shootah?"....... Remember how the coconut bristles used to poke out of our
bed mattresses?? What a pain in the butt. It's a wonder we ever got any
sleep....maybe we didn't....although we all seemed to have adjusted
alright!
I recall the French teacher (was it Mr. Keon?) being a bit
of a terror. Bonjour Messiere Tebour, Commaeu tale vous, Jevaianne bien,
merci......I can recite that stuff like yesterday. Why?? Because we used
to sit in the dark, watch those stupid slides and repeat by rote memory
those damn words....hoping we got it right so as not to incur his wrath.
Did he hit us or did he just shout at us? You IDIOT!! You
CREATURES!!!.....I can hear him now. The best part of the class was when
the light came on and we could get the heck out of there.
Oh yeah, God
help you if you got caught with food in one hand and your cup of tea in the
other. Don't you EVER eat and drink simultaneously. I used to hate being
at the end of the table when, once in a flippin blue moon, we would have
steamed pudding. We'd eye the pudding disappearing as it made it's way to
the end of the table and shake out the crumbs when it got to us. That was
in the Clive House dining hall. "For what we are about to receive, may the
Lord make us truly thankful.....bang...." What an original prayer!! We
heard it three times a day.....for years. You know, come to think of it,
Nairobi School was the best training ground I could have had to prepare me
for my 25 years in the Marine Corps.
I remember the sports. Good fun. Remember David Isherwood - man, he was
a fish. What a great swimmer. Football was great fun. Of course "football" to
American heathens means American Football....so what if the rest of the
whole world means soccer when they say "football." Sometimes I feel the
best part of the Kenya experience was the ability it gave me to view the
U.S. and Americans and our behaviour from an outsider's perpsective.
Sometimes, we as a people, are totally clueless regarding how the rest of
the world perceives us.
Left the School in 1973 when my family moved back to the USA. I finished
high school in Michigan. It was funny (in
retrospect) trying to integrate back into the US school system. The school
administration didn't know where to put me on account of my "strange"
schooling in Kenya. I did a year of college, then enlisted in the U.S.
Marine Corps. in 1976. I retired from the Marine Corps just last year, on 7
June 2002. The most interesting experiences while a Marine included a
winter up on the Korean DMZ, the Persian Gulf War (1991/2) and Operations in
Mogadishu, Somalia (in 1992/3). Mogadishu has been the closest I have
gotten to returing to Kenya. We were just starting to get some of the
junior men down to Mombasa and Nairobi for R&R when we completed our part of
the operation and returned to Camp Pendleton, California.
Barb and I
married in June 1982. We met when I was first stationed in Hawaii. We have
no kids, but lots of pets. I currently work as a Federal civilian on the
U.S. Pacific Command Hqs staff, in the Intelligence Systems and Architecture
Division. Barb and I live on Oahu, the most populated island in the Hawaiian Island
chain. We really love it here.
(Registered - 6th March 2003)
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If anyone wishes to contact Tim, please e-mail webmaster@oldcambrians.com
to obtain his contact details
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