This past week in Demerara, at the height of the thunderous rainstorm that produced widespread flooding, an East Coast resident was in a quandary. With the tide high, the seawall koker closed, and the level in the drainage trench behind his property rising, the floodwater in his yard was inching closer and closer to the floor level in the house. With the whole area under water, pumping was out of the question, so Mr Resident had begun contemplating methods of raising furniture should the water encroach. Four hours later, as the koker reopened, the water gradually drained out of the yard, leaving no damage, but it had been an anxious time. We often look back on such scenarios later and find humour in relating them, but at the time the feeling of helplessness is not remotely funny. It’s a time when we are caught, as the North Americans euphemistically put it, “in the deep brown stuff,” and our prospects are daunting bleak.
Knowing about the flooding story, I was reminded of a plight of mine, going back a few decades, that involved a late night trip to the then Atkinson Field, now Timehri, in a Hillman Minx vehicle owned by the Shell Oil manager at the time, Rudolph DeBruin. Rudy, a very affable Trini, was giving four of us a ride back to “the Base”, as it was known, and we were sailing merrily along, probably halfway home, when we suddenly developed a flat tyre. We piled out of the Minx only to be informed, very casually by Rudy, that he had a spare tyre but no jack. So we wait for a passing motorist to help us out, right? Wrong. I’m talking here the 1950s and as Rudy casually told us, “Look padna, at 2 o’clock in the morning, the traffic on this road going our way is almost zero, oui. Even if another car comes along, the odds are his jack won’t fit. We’ll probably have to wait here until daybreak to get help, and in the meantime the mosquitoes will eat us alive. We have to lift up the vehicle, swap the good tyre, and away we go.” I thought it was impossible, but nobody argued – we were facing the deep brown stuff here. I was the youngest and skinniest of the bunch, but the four of us somehow lifted the back, DeBruin slipped off the flat, we put the car down gently, he lined up the spare, we lifted again, and the job was done. The tag to this tale is that the next day at Atkinson, as people doubted our story, we tried to lift the Minx again, but no longer facing the daunting prospect of a night on the East Bank road, we couldn’t do it. Anxiety brings you strength.
An Arian Browne photo of the front wheel of a truck stuck in a drain on Robb Street, reminded me of a more recent adventure when a few months back in town I drove onto what I thought was grass on a parapet but was actually grass growing over a drain; I ended up with my front wheel jammed in a Camp Street gutter. Several people tried to push me out, but I was stuck. Panic set in, because I had no cell phone to call for help. Fortunately, a friendly guy in a store lent me his, and I called my friend Dale DeNobrega who came with his massive wrecker, blocked both lanes of Camp Street for five minutes, giving the complaining motorists as good as he got, and pulled me out. But for the half-an-hour or so until I called Dale I spent some very anxious moments.
Another deep brown time for me involved a trip to the US where I hooked up with my sister, Marie, and her husband Bill, living in Florida. We set off in my rented car to some scenic spot, did a short tour, and I came back to the car to realize I had stupidly locked the keys inside. Bill was not a guy to deal with aggravations and he was furious with me, but after I got him to cool down we spent what must have been close to half-an-hour with a piece of wire and managed to lift the latch. A very anxious time had come to an end. With the car keys in my hand, I climbed in the back seat of the car to rearrange some items, got out slammed the door shut, and looked back to realize I had left the keys on the seat of the car, locking the keys in for the second time. Bill almost went ballistic. He gave me hell and refused to help with the second attempt using the wire. I wasn’t making any headway, but a passing stranger, more adept at such things, came over and was able to do the latch lifting. It had been a very anxious time for me, made worse by Bill’s ranting.
In 1970, living in Toronto, Tradewinds rolling, I entered the heavily-promoted CBC Cross-Canada Song Competition with a heartbreak song called ‘Over You.’ I figured it was a long shot, there were hundreds of entries, but three months later I got a letter telling me I was one of the 8 finalists. Tradewinds had played in Montreal on a Saturday, and I drove through the night back to Toronto for the final the next day. I didn’t know anybody in the auditorium, including the other writers, but I felt good to have come so far. When it was announced I was the winner, my wife Dorothy, watching on TV at home, said to me later, “You always mange to look so damned cool.” Looking back on it now, for this West Dem country boy to go to Canada and come out on top of some 2,000 songwriters from Newfoundland to British Columbia, the truth is my heart was thumping with pride. So while outwardly it may have seemed I was Mister Cool indeed, on the inside, waiting for the announcement, I was living some very anxious moments. And by the way, as you may have guessed, the anxious “Mr Resident” in the flooding story above – that’s me, too.
