Friday, March 29, 2024

THE LOWDOWN: Bajan heaven?

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2011 COULD BE HEAVEN. Brand new year, brand new prime minister. Barbados sweet and everything to live for.
Laser eye surgery at Dr Roger Thomas last week. Don’t know if a laser beam hit the wrong area, but things have been looking decidedly up ever since.
Nearly embarrassed myself on the way home after a little bacalao talk with a Rocklyn gas pump girl. Donkey want water!
Yet in this delectable paradise which the Good Lord hath provided us, some fellow columnists still find doom and gloom. My weekly inspirator Wild Coot Russell, (or his “friend”) sees Barbados “caught like a fly in a jar of vaseline”.
A serious situation indeed given where much vaseline ends up nowadays. He thinks we have “few options”.
Ricky Jordan, young, handsome and healthy, has apparently been pondering for the last ten years about dying! Gimme a break, Ricky, man! Worrying about death at 48? And this week, after telling us there was much to be depressed about last year, he’s trying “with some difficulty to be optimistic”. And then he starts moping about earthquakes. Lord have mercy!
One day a worker at the Central Livestock Station, Mr Cumberbatch, told me: “Don’t limp before you’re lame,” advice well worth heeding.
Add to that Job’s “I know that my redeemer liveth” and there is nothing, repeat nothing, worth worrying about. Concern, yes; worry, no.
Look how great that laser surgery turned out. And I was afeared to go. And repairing Tomas’ damage has brought new energy, togetherness and hope to the whole family.
The secret lies in the old “if life gives you a lemon, make lemonade”. Or “learn to dance in the rain”. Or Rudy’s “if you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and show those two imposters you’re their master”. (Don’t phone; I know those aren’t his exact words.)
And it works. Last weekend stray dogs returned to kill one of my best milking goats; maul another. Upshot: we got endless exercise hunting the miscreants (so far, unsuccessfully) o’er hills and dales.
Because of workmen in the house, the wife and I are sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Don’t ask me why that always arouses exrotic inclinations. One daughter claims that last time it happened she was sure we were “doing something” because her mother was “giggling happily” causing her to be “scarred for life”.
That is all nonsense, of course. We were probably just running through our repertoire of Knock-Knock jokes. As in: “Knock, knock!” “Who’s there?” “Daw”. “Daw who?” “Dawgie, dawgie, look a bone, look a bone . . . . ” (Uncontrollable giggling.)
And, because of all the packing away, my wife claims she can’t find the black plastic bag where she put all my underwear. Upshot: enter Commando Dick, creator of rhythm and tempo, master of the sweet calypso, leading I band. What you see is what you get . . . .
Let’s not fool ourselves. This country may face difficulties. Natural disasters may or may not occur. We will handle them, no problem. The economy will rebound. We have that in us, no problem.
My main hope for 2011, however, is that Bajans and our government will move to tackle the intolerable stress in this country. Stress from an unhealthy society with bad eating habits; stress from traffic; stress from overpowering workplaces; and finally stress in the home as we hear stories of break-ins and assaults with successive governments doing precious little to bring back effective punishments.
Do your do, PM Freundel! And you columnists: get some laser in your taser; put a freeze on BVDs; and tell the lady, “from now on it’s beds no more, we are sleeping on the floor”.
a lift-up on mornings, though. I don’t know.

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