Victor Hugo is one of France’s literary giants. His daughter Adele came to Barbados chasing after a British army officer. She took it hard when he rejected her. All that is by the way.
An African lady who had come to Barbados from Trinidad cared for Adele, eventually taking her back to France. The African lady’s name was Madame Baa. That is also by the way.
What concerns us here is that Hugo seduced Madame Baa and she was very soon in his bed. As Selwyn Cudjoe puts it: “At seventy and still very active sexually, Hugo recorded in his diary that Baa was ‘the first negress of my life’. She was equally taken by him.”
As a seventyanarian myself, I was somewhat disconcerted last Thursday at having to get three medical certificates to obtain licences to drive, have a gun and handle food. True, the last one has nothing to do with age but I don’t care.
My worry is that they won’t stop there. Hugo’s performance at 70 was by no means unusual. My brother-in-law Paddy tells me he has living proof that 70 can go into 50, several times in fact, and with no remainder. Will they require a licence for that?
By the way, the goodly gun licence officer promised to bring Rihanna down by me. Their motto is to “serve, protect and reassure”. I’ll do my best.
Next thing: LIME or their agents screwed up badly with telephone directories this time around. Lots of names left out, including mine. I’ve been paying business rates since 1978 and have lost heavily this year with customers being unable to contact us.
Mistakes happen. But don’t insult my intelligence. The telephone company has provided a listing in the directory for every subscriber since time immemorial. With a business service, this is absolutely essential. And only a jackass would believe that LIME doesn’t use part of the subscriber’s fee to pay for printing the directory.
LIME claims that the directory listing is a “free” service so there can be no rebate if mistakes occur. And the Fair Trading Commission has ruled that their actions are “appropriate and acceptable”.
Say, Chris, don’t limit lay-offs to drainage workers, especially with an earthquake possible. I have a suggestion.
Next thing: the marijuana and getting high scenario. I was a lonely boy, few friends, hated parties. Then my brother gave me a donkey. “Balaam and his ass”, they sometimes referred to us in the Vaucluse area. Many thought Balaam was the donkey’s name. I was over the moon.
Later in life girls came along. It was hard for a shy guy with no gift for talk. I had to rely on two basic techniques: the old “round and round the garden like a teddy bear, one step, two step, tickle her under there”; and my own invention – “shoeing the mule at Vaucluse”.
Few girls could resist asking for a repeat of shoeing the mule. Eventually I worked out a refinement where, if the “mule” was frisky, I would rub down her legs with Limacol. This worked well except for one day I must have dolloped the Limacol too heavy and it flowed right down into Mesopotamia.
Lord have mercy! Kicking like a mule is one thing. To have a young lady kick like a mule while swearing like a pirate is something else. She wouldn’t even let me blow on it to assuage her grief.
Check Frank Sinatra’s “Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars, let me see what spring is like on Jupiter or Mars; in other words, hold my hand, in other words, darling, kiss me”.
Frank is obviously high as a kite just holding hands and kissing. A good donkey, a little woman, a nice book, an old Everybody Loves Raymond and I soar.
I don’t know what a marijuana high is like but I often literally jump for joy I feel so good.
My point is, the makings of a “high” are right there inside you. You don’t need substances. I even stopped my one cup of coffee a day when my body seemed to crave it.
West Indian countries hoping to profit by luring our young people into the drug culture scene should be ashamed.
•? Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator. Email porkhoad@gmail.com
