SEEMED LIKE EUSTACE WILSON was prepared to talk for hours, even in the drizzling rain … but after the drizzles became showers, he hurried off for shelter.
His arthritic knees did not allow him to run, and he walked with a cane, swinging it fancifully as he did so.
Eustace, of Deighton Road, St Michael, is 76, but stands tall and erect.
“The old time days …,” he said as though developing a “feel” for the phrase as we queried his thoughts in them, “those days were different, of course.
“People were more genuine. You could stand up and talk to people, but today you’ll be taking a chance talking to people like that on the road. In my days, if you saw your schoolmaster or teacher, you had to salute them, but today the children don’t care.”
Eustace blames this growing lack of respect among this generation on no one in particular, but says: “It’s not all parents’ fault. For they can teach the child on thing and when he goes to school with his friends, he forgets what his parents taught him.
“The saying ‘you can carry a cow to a pond, but you can’t make it drink water’; some parents are really doing their best, but some children decide to take their own initiative and do their own thing.”
Eustace, a widower, says he’s not certain which years he prefers, the ones of yesteryear or today’s but he is enjoying his life right now.
After working and living in Trinidad, Jamaica, St Vincent, the United States and England, Eustace is comfortable relaxing at home and visiting neighbours.
