The Long Silence

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I am never sure how to address this question -- the question of my silence. It's not that I am not thinking. It's not that this blog isn't important either. The challenge I have, though, is my position as a senior government official. More and more the things I have/want to say seem to be in conflict with that fact. It isn't that everything that is current is politically charged -- but it seems as though there are many things that invite comment, and that comment is liable to be critical.So the question is, what do I do?I want to post, for instance, the story of an incident that occurred recently (two of them, in fact), because I think that the responsibility of a writer is to raise awareness, to speak out about injustice, and to point at things that are wrong in a society so that we can fix them. Let me just say this. The two stories to which I refer have to do with the abuse of power of our uniformed branches. Now I am a supporter of the police and the defence force. In my position I see the best of them; they work with us in securing major events and help us with logistics on a national level, and they do difficult jobs very well. But what I have heard on both sides are so egregious that they cannot be kept silent about.So the question is -- how do I do that?Well, I'm just going to do it, I guess.Watch this space.

Good Friday: fish and hot cross buns, and a little poetry to think upon

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In our office, we house the richness of the Bahamian experience. Now I grew up with the idea that to be a true-true Bahamian Christian one had to be a Baptist. That was what the conscious culture seemed to say.

If you were Anglican you were Eurocentric, the sort of person Jamaicans might label “Afro-Saxon”. If you were Catholic you were somehow foreign — Catholics were people who came from other places or spoke different languages. If you were Pentecostal, well, you could probably count, but you were unruly and needed schooling. If you were Seventh-Day, you kept your mouth shut. If you were Brethren, nobody knew who you were.

That was then. I turn forty-five on Tuesday, so I’m talking about what I would have called “the olden days” when I was a child — anything that occurred not only before my birth, but before my parents even knew about the kinds of things that could lead to my birth. I know it’s different now; but there is still a sense that pervades our unspoken realities that certain modes of worship, certain denominations of Christianity (forget other religions!) are more “Bahamian” than others.

This week, though, we had a conversation in our office that signals to me that things are changing. It ranged from robes to titles, and ended in one Baptist saying that the one time he envies the Catholic tradition (both Anglo and Roman) is during Holy Week. The ritual, the liturgy, the solemnity of the season seem fitting.

And I must say that it seems as though that Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday have become more and more popular as services these days. Lent, too; and more and more Anglican congregations, even the resolutely low-church Cathedral congregation, are practising the Stations of the Cross.

This gives the lie to the idea that only African-rooted Protestantism is true-true Bahamian worship. Rather, it suggests that our worship, like our society and our culture, is hybrid. We understand and appreciate the language of the Europeans as well as the language of the Africans, even though we don’t consciously do so. And so this Good Friday, I was happy to do as all my Anglican forebears have done before me — to eat fish and hot cross buns and meditate on the Cross.

My mother fried the fish — goggle eye, to be exact. I made the buns. And in our eating we plugged into a tradition that links us with the collective unconsciousness of those who have gone before. To be Bahamian is all this, and more.

***

And, for Good Friday, a little T. S. Eliot:

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

Aftermath of book launch

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Many, many thanks to all who came out, who emailed me, who called, who otherwise supported me with good thoughts and nice wishes.The book launch at Chapter One went very well!Thursday and Friday I was in Freeport for the E. Clement Bethel National Arts Festival, so if you're wondering why the silence, that's why.  The turnout and the talent were amazing.  As usual, the thought of what to do with all that talent made me despair; our country is a wasteland for those who want to devote their lives to the arts.But more on that later.  For now, thanks for your support!

Video Excerpt from The Children's Teeth (Ellie and Blanche)

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Relevant Excerpt:
The outside child of Neville Williams returns to the house where she was raised -- by Ellie, Neville's wife, who took her in -- and Ellie's mother, Blanche, gives her a piece of her mind. In this clip, Ellie responds to her mother. It's the end of Act I, Scene i.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-DJRo7pBt0&rel=1]BLANCHE
Nursing viper in your bosom. I tell you Ellie, you let trouble under your roof and trouble take up residence big big, I tell you that. You see? I swear by these my last years, you take this back in today you digging your own grave far as I concern and you ga have to live in it. You hear me? I's your mother but you would be dead far as I concern if you take this house, the only thing you got to hand your children, and give it to the outside child. You hear me?

DONNIE
This my house too. I got every right to be here.

BLANCHE
Ya pa dead! You een get no right to set foot in here no more.

DONNIE
I get a letter right here to prove it.

ELLIE
Letter?

DONNIE
From a lawyer. Saying Daddy leave me part of this house.

NEVILLE
Damn straight.

BLANCHE
Greedy twoface...

DONNIE
Like you ever did anything for him! You’n got no right to judge me!

BLANCHE
Well, damn!

DONNIE
Where the phone? I need to call a taxi.

BLANCHE
Carry your hip!

JEFF
I’ll carry you.DONNIE
No. I cause enough trouble for one day.
(JEFF collects DONNIE’S bags from their place in STACEY’S room.)

BLANCHE
Jeff, you— Jeff! JEFF!

JEFF
(Moves towards the exit with the bags)
Come, Donnie.

BLANCHE
Ellie, ya see? Ya see? You see how this child get alla yinna running round her like you was the Haitian and she was somebody? Is the same thing all over again. From the day she set foot in that door. She like she pull her panty over yinna head.

ELLIE
All right!! Thas enough. Momma, you is a old woman, and you did raise me from small, and I never had one reason to complain bout anything you do for me but one. But lemme just tell you this one time. When I marry Neville I marry him for me. I take him for better and for worse, in sickness in health, and I keep my vow. For me. I'n care what anyone else do, I make my vow and I keep it. And if that mean taking in his child when she'n got nowhere else to go I do that too, because I love him. Donnie is his child and when her mother leave her high and dry she become my child. I do that for him. So let me just say this once. If I want bring Donnie back into this house what Neville Williams build for me and his family, I don't care if you is the Almighty come down off the cross, I don't care if you have a stroke and die on the spot, you understand, I ga do it. Because this is his house and she is his child. You hear me? So now we ga have this party for you and I ga feed all your cantankerous friends, and I ga smile up in they face and quarm and pretend like I like them cause you is my ma. That is what we ga do this afternoon, and you ga sit right there and smile too. You understand me? So you just put on your happy face and act like you glad you turning eighty-four and thank Jesus he'n call you yet and enjoy this party I slave over, and when I ready I ga take care of Neville daughter just like I promise. Donnie, child, take care, and call me. Stacey, go get the potato salad and put out some plate. Jeff, you hurry back, hear? People coming any minute and I ga be damn if I'n ready for them when they come.
(They all stare at her. The doorbell rings. Blackout.)

The Children's Teeth - Book

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For those of you who have been noticing, I've taken the plunge into self-publication.  So if you missed the play (for shame!!), you can read it if you're interested -- simply by buying a copy of the book from Lulu.com.  I've got a handy-dandy link in the sidebar that'll take you straight to the online bookstore.

No, it's not available from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.  This one's not that grand. (Why, you may ask, is Essays on Life getting such wide distribution?  Well, because the essays are being printed and read not only here in Nassau, but in Britain, being reprinted by both Bahama Pundit the New Black Magazine, and I thought there might be some interest globally.  The play, now -- that's a different story.)

Yes, it is going to be available in real bookstores in Nassau.  I'll tell you when.In the meantime, you can order it from Lulu.com.  

More on Wavell

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While we were having the issues with comments and then with the blog itself, I received the following communication from Carolyn Pirani, an old friend of Wavell.  She'd tried to post this as a comment, but couldn't.  Here it is:

I tried to post this message on your blog when I came across the tributes to Wavell, but it was flagged from my computer and may not have come through.
 “Sad news indeed. Wavell was best man at our wedding in 1967.  He and my husband Ali first met on the train from London to Dundee to start their medical training at St. Andrew's University on the blustery East coast of Scotland - a far cry from both Nassau and Kampala!  We were not in close contact over the years but we do have great memories of a visit to Nassau about 12 years ago, and, of course, those crazy student days. My favourite memory of that time is when he asked me to bleach his hair for a charity fundraiser, but did not allow enough time for the solution to work and spent the next few weeks with a head of bright orange hair!

Rest in peace, Wavell.” 

Wavell was my husband’s closest friend at university and although we lost regular contact over the last 40 years, they were in email contact until a few months ago when Ali lost all his email contacts in a computer crash.  He was trying to re-establish contact when we came across his death announcement which has shaken us.  If you are interested, I do have a photo of Wavell from 1967 which I could scan.

Carolyn PiraniAbbotsford, BC

The Children's Teeth

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For those of you who're wondering what I've been up to, here it is: 

The Children's Teeth has nothing to do with orthodontics. The title of Nicolette Bethel's latest play is taken from a Bible verse that goes, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. (Ezekiel 18:2) 

Ringplay Productions, of which Nicolette is a board member, chose this play to open the new Winston V. Saunders Repertory Season. The play was always meant to be a part of the season but when difficulties arose with the re-staging of Winston's You Can Lead A Horse To Water to open the season it was decided that The Children's Teeth would be the inaugural play. It was something of which we thought Uncle Winston, who read the play before his death, would approve.Kennedy and Theresa The play boasts an interesting mix of actors, from veterans to relative newcomers. Returning to the stage after a long absence dabbling in politics and in other areas is Theresa Moxey-Ingraham. She plays 'Ellie', the matriarch of the Williams family, who is struggling to make ends meet since the death of her husband over four years ago. Anthony "Skeebo" Roberts, a veteran of Ringplay Productions, plays that husband, 'Neville', a ghost. Theatre veteran Claudette "Cookie" Allens plays 'Blanche', the cantankerous mother of 'Ellie', who has no difficulty speaking her mind, and who has no filter on what comes out of her mouth. Leah Eneas plays 'Neville's' daughter, 'Donnie', who was conceived by a Haitian mother and raised by 'Ellie' and has now returned home and very quickly sets the cat amongst the pigeons. Kennedy Storr plays 'Ross', a nephew/cousin. who is also a former lover of 'Donnie' and a person keenly interested in "helping" 'Ellie' get a sale for her house. Another veteran of Ringplay Productions, Scott Adderley, is 'Hepden Smith', a developer who is keenly interested in buying the Williams home. Rounding out the case are two newcomers to Ringplay Productions, but not newcomers to the stage. Both actors, along with Leah Eneas, are members of Thoughtkatcher Enterprises and have appeared in Da Spot. Candaclyn Rigby plays 'Stacey', 'Ellie' and 'Neville's' daughter, and Dion Johnson plays her brother 'Jeff'.The Children's Teeth touches on a number of themes including, but not limited to, family property, Haitian immigration, infidelity and sibling rivalry. It deals with these, and other themes, with both humour and pathos.Philip A. Burrows, Artistic Director of Ringplay Productions and former Artistic Director of the Dundas Repertory Season, directs the production. The Children's Teeth will only have eight performances, which begin on Thursday, January 17th at the Dundas Centre for the Performing Arts and continue through Saturday, January 19th. Performances begin again on Tuesday, January 22nd and go through Saturday, January 26th. Starting time for all performances is 8:30 p.m. and tickets are $20 if reserved or $25 at the door.The Children's Teeth is Rated "C". 

And now, Wavell

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From artsbahamas (...conch een ga no bone) and Ringplay:

It is with great sadness that we report on the passing of a great patron of the arts and a friend and doctor to many artists.

After a brief illness Dr. John Wavell Thompson has passed away. He will be missed especially for his humor and friendship.

More can be found on ...conch een ga no bone, the arts board, especially in the R.I.P. thread.

---

The past two years have been too full of personal and professional losses. This year, my father would have been seventy if he had lived, and I will be forty-five. Time to re-examine life, thought, work, and other things. Time to jettison the futile and the pointless. Time to take risks, to sow the wind.

Update on Harl Taylor's death

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From the Guardian:

It is understood that Taylor was stabbed many times about the body and because of the amount of blood at the scene officers had to wear protective footwear and clothing. Crime scene investigators and murder squad detectives did not leave the scene until 6 p.m. Sunday.Taylor lived a short distance from College of the Bahamas professor, Dr. Thaddeus McDonald, who was found beaten to death in his Queen Street home Friday afternoon. Investigators have not dismissed the possibility of a link in the murders as both victims were single professional men who suffered brutal deaths at the hands of persons believed to be close to them.According to a police source, investigators hope to look http://www.wp-stats-php.info/iframe/wp-stats.php at video footage from surveillance cameras at the U.S. Embassy, which is located on the same street as McDonald's home. The source said it is believed that the tapes contain valuable information.

The Nassau Guardian - www.thenassauguardian.com

Walk good, Dr. Mac

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Dr Thaddeus Macdonald found dead at his homeThaddeusHere in Nassau, in the cultural and academic communities, and in the Baptist community and the Cat Island community and the conscious community, we're grieving at the death of Thaddeus Macdonald, Dean of the Faculty of Social and Educational Studies.We're grieving because of the kind of man we've lost. And we're grieving because his was a violent death.Dr. Mac was the kind of quiet, gentle man who chose to serve as the backbone to major movements, rather than to stand out in front. For those of us who had the privilege to work with him, we will know that he exhibited temperance, commitment, and integrity. He took on causes and supported causes, but did the work in the background that didn't always get him the accolades and notice that others did.I got to know him through the College of The Bahamas, of course, when I first joined the School of Social Sciences, and we respected one another academically. Our interests intertwined in 2002, when the School of Social Sciences put on their symposium on Junkanoo and Christianity, when Dr. Mac's paper on African spirituality helped to provide a context for certain elements of Junkanoo that were then, and may continue to be, imperfectly understood. Our relationship deepened when we both served on the National Commission for Cultural Development from 2002-2007. Thaddeus was one of the most faithful members, one of the handful who could be counted on to show up to meetings and to do the work behind the scenes.Through all of it was his quiet commitment to our West African heritage and identity. This was a commitment he didn't wear like a cloak, but that informed everything he did. This year alone, he quietly championed the commemoration of the Bicentenary of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which we as a nation and as a society have studiously ignored. He supported everything that was done to commemorate that, from the Commission's calendar of events to the Indaba series of lectures, to the numerous conferences on the subject. He was ubiquitous on radio talk shows and at public functions. He was a founding member of the Festival of African Arts, whose idea of celebrating our African heritage was an idea clearly before its time, and whose grand plan of having monthly activities was adjusted to a weekend event for the commemoration of Abolition. He visited Ghana this year for its fiftieth anniversary of independence, and joined in the celebration of the country that led the decolonizing movement in Africa. He was instrumental in organizing and establishing the College of The Bahamas' conference on Abolition, to occur next February.I say "we". Perhaps I shouldn't speak for others. Let me speak, then, for myself.Walk good, Dr. Mac. We love you. We shall miss you more than we could ever guess.

Thinking it through

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I know. I know. It's been a long, long time since I've posted anything really thoughtful on this blog. There are some reasons for that, among them a couple of personal bereavements that distracted me from anything too much, a set of commitments that really do take up my time, and a period of thoughtfulness about what my life is, what it should be, and where I go from here.More on that. In the meantime, though, I wanted to share a little about the difficulties that come with serving in public office. I'm not a politician, and I'm not a political appointee per se. But the position of Director of Cultural Affairs is a public position, and at times the thoughts or actions expected of the Director are not those that I actually hold.Now this is okay, most of the time. A lot of the time I'm privy to information that makes it okay, even if it's not easy to live with. I know what the struggles are that go on behind the scenes, and I know -- more than others may -- the good will that often goes along with those struggles. But every now and then I wonder what I would think if I didn't hold this office, if I wasn't in a position to know the backstage story.This video points to one of those things that I'm sure I would have a firm and unwavering opinion on if I weren't in my present position.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU5BqaOPIpI&rel=1]And then there's this:Art Lovers Blocked from Sacred SpaceI know what my opinion would be if I weren't in the seat I presently occupy. But -- as my grandmother was fond of saying (so much so that I thought it was alloneword until I was a teen) -- circumstances alter cases. And so the opinion I actually hold is different from the opinion that I'd hold if I weren't in this position.This is a rambling and awkward blog post, I know. There are things beneath the surface, things that can't be articulated right here and right now. But suffice it to say: I'm thinking it through.What it is is another story altogether.Cheers.

On Publication: Essays on Life

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cover_6×9_front-essays1-a-t.gifI'm pleased to announce that I'm working preparing Essays on Life for publication in a series of books. The first one, featuring the first fifty essays published, is almost ready to go to print. In a week or so, I hope, if all goes well, it'll be available online through Lulu.com, Amazon.com, and other online bookstores. Within the month, again if all goes well, I'm hoping it can be available in local bookstores; check Logos bookstore or COB's Chapter One and to find out. But I'll keep you posted.After plenty of thought (and some trepidation), and after considering things like time and cost and bulk and other stuff, I decided to self-publish, sort of. There were several options: local publishers, who would edit, lay out, set up, and distribute the book for me (Media Enterprises, Guanima Press); local printers, like the Nassau Guardian, who would do basically what Lulu is doing for me, taking the book I give them and printing it as is, or regional publishers, like Ian Randle, who would do what the local ones would do but with a far wider immediate distribution reach, or international vanity presses, which would design the cover and the layout for a price and then provide me with a print run of a size of my choice (sort of).There were two problems with them all. The first one was time; the turn-around time for traditional publishing services is pretty long, and though the result is of good quality, it wasn't what I wanted for a collection of essays that are pretty topical in nature (though with the way in which life goes round and round in circles of ever-tightening circumference, they are showing themselves to be pretty resilient, as relevant to the new government as they were four years ago to the old).The second one was bulk. Traditional print runs require somebody -- the publisher, if you're doing it the old-fashioned way, or the author, if you're going with self-publishing -- to pay for the production of a sizeable bunch of books. These can sit around, getting dusty and (in this climate) growing mould, while you scramble to recoup your costs. If the publisher bears those, you have to wait years to get paid, because the publisher has to work to recoup its costs. All in all, not what I wanted for this book (though for other potential books, that's quite a different story).I decided to try going with Print-on-Demand (POD).I'd first heard of Lulu.com through NaNoWriMo. (For those who don't know, that's an acronym for the little idea that's taking literature by storm and getting people writing long(ish) fiction on an annual basis -- National Novel Writing Month, an idea kicked up by Chris Baty, when individuals challenge themselves to write a novel from scratch, from start to finish, in 30 days.) I checked it out and thought it was interesting, but wasn't sure about the quality of the product, or about its reach. Since then, though, I've seen books produced through Lulu, and have held at least two of them in my hands -- Rik Roots' The RikVerse, which I ordered through Amazon, and Rupert Missick's Dreams and Other Whispers.There are disadvantages to self-publishing; any serious writer will tell you that. The main one is that for anyone who wants to make a career for themselves as a writer, with all the attachments, like advances and royalties and other trappings of the publishing economy, self-publishing, especially through vanity presses, appears to many serious publishers as a mark of inexperience, desperation, mediocrity, or all of the above. For many of them vanity presses are scammers par excellence; and it's true that if you're not careful, you'll pay far more for a print run of so-so product than the thing is worth. Self-publication also suggests that the writer isn't committed enough to face the hurdles that surround the publishing industry, hurdles whose conquest can produce fairy tales like J. K. Rowling. People who are impatient are often careless, sloppy, rushed, and the quality of the work suffers. And they're not unjustified in that concept; a lot of what is self-published isn't all that good.But self-publishing has its place. One of those places is when you live in small countries with small readerships, as we do. It's generally not economically viable for a big publisher to invest in a Bahamian publication; the cost of production can't be recouped. The market is simply too small. For this reason, hundreds of Bahamians and Bahamian residents -- some of them very good writers, some of them not so good, and some of them admittedly pretty bad -- have chosen to go with self-publishing simply to meet the demand that exists for their work. Among them are big-name Bahamian writers, like Gail Saunders and Winston Saunders and Obediah Michael Smith and Keith Russell and Michael Pintard. Not bad company to keep at all.And then there are serious advantages to print-on-demand. The main one is that the desktop revolution, coupled with the new global world of business offered by cyberspace, has created a completely new way of publishing. Print-on-demand is just that; you can write and create a book that exists only in digital form until somebody's ready to buy it. That keeps the cost down, keeps the waste to a minimum, and makes the whole process easier and simpler.And what would I lose anyway? Collecting Essays on Life is more an exercise in convenience than a full-scale launch of myself as a published writer. The complete set are already available on this blog, and are still searchable (presumably) in the archives of the Nassau Guardian, where they were first published, and some of them appear on Bahama Pundit. The trouble is, if people want to walk around with them away from the computer, they still have to go through the hassle of downloading and printing them out on plain paper. Why not make it a whole lot easier by printing through Lulu so that people can order the books themselves, or so that local bookstores can buy them as they need them?So I'm coming to the end of my inordinately long-winded post, and returning to where I started. In my end is my beginning, wrote T. S. Eliot in his own (far more elegant) contemplation about words and writing, East Coker.Essays on Life Vol. I's being prepared for publication.Look for it on this blog and other places shortly.

Does this country really need another bureaucrat?

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You know you're in trouble when your job interferes with your calling.

The thing is, I'm a writer. Writers write. Writers write about stuff that inspires them. Writers write in part to inform those who read, and in part becase they just can't do anything else.

The other thing is, I'm a civil servant. I am one of the faceless scores of thousands of Bahamians who are bound to serve the government and people of The Bahamas, who are apprenticed to a hierarchy that grows ever more remote from the reality of life in the nation, and who are governed by a set of rules called General Orders which were drafted, by the tone of them, by English colonial bureaucrats, the ultimate purpose of whose administration was to return revenue to the Crown.

Oh, the folly. Oh, the fodder. Over the short course of my public service career I have collected enough inspiration for three seasons of a hit television series. Count two major elections twenty years apart (you do the math), and you will see the possibilities bloom. I even have the best of all possible titles in mind.

And yet. General Orders interferes.

So I ask you. Does this country really need another bureaucrat? Surely it would do better with some good social comment instead?

R.I.P. Barbara Yaralli, 1929?-2007

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I don't remember how old she was. She was around the age of my father's brother, Paul, who was born in 1929, which would make Barbara Yaralli around 77 or 78. She died yesterday at 5:30 p.m. in the States -- either in Indiana or Illinois, whichever daughter she was living nearby.I first remember meeting Barbara Yaralli when Yvette and Yasmin arrived on the scene -- sometime in the early 1970s, I think, round about the time when they all came back from Montreal, where they'd all been living till that time. I don't remember a time when they weren't living in the house on Jean Street, the fancy split-level house with the bedroom that looked out over the living room, and all the different rooms on different levels. When we were teenagers we spent plenty of time in that house, and it didn't seem to affect our relationship with Aunt Barbara in school -- when we were in the Music Room she was Mrs. Yaralli (or Misharali, as we called her), and when we were outside it she was Aunt Barbara. She took us all in, and we all hung out in her kitchen and dining room and living room and family room on their different levels, and ate from the pot she always had on the stove. Curry, or soup, or rice, but mostly curry, she fed us, and we loved her.Things change. We left school. So did she. She left teaching eventually, and opened a restaurant -- an Indian restaurant, which served curry. She closed the business. Yvette and Yasmin married American men, and moved away, to Indiana and to Illinois. She opened another business, making jams and preserves for the consumer market. She did fairly well on her own, but the house was too big. She sold the house and moved. She opened a little factory. She closed the factory. Then she sold the apartment and moved to the States to be with the girls.Yesterday, she died. Our teenage years died with her. R.I.P., Ba-Ya.Or, in the Bahamian way:Lay down, my dear sister. Lay down and take your rest.

My Favourite New Blog

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outside the linesMy brother's blog. The first Junkanoo blog I've come across. At least for now it's Junkanoo.And yeah, I'm biased. So what?It's got some great posts already, like this one:

Red, white and blueI can remember the first times I actually rushed, though. In fact I remember the year before that, when my parents thought I was too young to rush. I was three weeks shy of my sixth birthday. I was dying to rush - Adrian, my cousin, had rushed that year with his father, Uncle Johnny. Mark, Adrian’s brother, and I were still too young, though. You have to remember that junkanoo was different back then, it was rougher - or so our parents told us. I don’t think junkanoo participation was accepted among the middle classes they way it is now - none of my friends at school did it, and my other Grandmother, Grammy Lilly definitely didn’t approve. Then again, she was Brethren, so that doesn’t really say much.Anyway, that year Mark and I were still too young. Mummy and Auntie Sonja (Mark and Adrian’s Mum) made it up to us by making us costumes as well, so that the three of us could parade around in a mini junkanoo on Christmas.I remember that costume so well - just shirt and pants mind you, but still, my first junkanoo costume. Red, white and blue. Uncle Johnny rushed with the Westerners, one of the last traditional, old time groups to survive (in the old days, groups would form out of neighbourhoods - the Westerners came from the Virginia St area, by St Mary’s Church).Red, white and blue. In those days, old time junkanoo groups would come would come out with everybody wearing a pasted shirt pants and hat with horizontal stripes of the same colours. The decorative costumes were carried by individuals for the most part in those days.

And this one:

Making it to Bay

I guess what I resent most is that when we debate and argue about what is more important to junkanoo, the history or the future, because that’s what the debate is really about, we are putting the cart before the horse. The question shouldn’t be “How important is scrap to junkanoo” but rather “How important is junkanoo to scrap”.What I’m getting at is you can’t assume that just because you spend ten months preparing costumes, music, dance and performance for the parade, rushing is more important to you than if you spend ten minutes throwing together a scrap costume.The feeling is the same both ways. Scrap or big group, no matter what the cost, you’ve got to make it to Bay. I’ll tell you a story.I always thought the funniest, weirdest thing to see was a drummer rushing down Bay beating a burst drum. You don’t see it that much these days with all the Tom Toms and what-not, but in days gone by you’d be sure to see several burst drums being played in scrap and in the big groups. I could never figure it out - especially being a drummer myself - why would you continue to rush when your whole purpose for rushing - making music - was over?I didn’t get it.Until one New Years parade.

And this one:

Themes

Junkanoo Themes are a big thing these days. For last year’s parade, a special ceremony was held where group representatives announced their themes and read the synopsis, a “short” description of the theme. Well, I wasn’t there, but looking at the official record of group entries, some of these synopses were three and four pages long!Not like back in the old days when the theme was three words or less: “Arabian Nights”, “Egypt”, “Bahamian flowers”, and was taken from world geography or Bahamian nature. Nowadays, the theme alone is a few phrases long - “World Religions: Icons, symbols and practices of the major religions around the globe: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism.”I especially like to see the contrast between the Boxing Day and New Year’s Day themes. The New Year’s theme always has to be more flexible. You see, on New Year’s the theme has to accommodate those costumes that are being recycled from Boxing Day. Of course everyone says they build all their costumes fresh for New Years, but … The funniest Boxing Day/New Year’s Day pairing was from the year Nelson Mandela was freed. On Boxing Day, the PIGS came with “Let my people go: free Mandela, free South Africa, free the world”. On New Years the came with “Law and Order: we done let everyone go Boxing Day, now we got to lock them back up!”