I’m not big on “long time” – I remember it as a lot of hard time – but there are instances where I suddenly regret some aspect of life from that era that’s no longer around. Whatever happened, for instance, to parental control of children? Used to be that if a youngster behaved poorly in public, he/she would be corrected by complete strangers and the reprimand would be sheepishly accepted by the youth. Although I wasn’t a particularly wayward lad (I grew up with a strict mother and four serious aunts at Hague) I remember a few instances when my friend Joe Henry and I got a quick short lecture when we were rambunctious in public.
It was as if, with my mother and her sisters not around, other adults took over my training. These days, many young people seem to be on the rampage, and those concerned adults have disappeared. Several times in recent years, I have heard parents saying, in almost identical words, “I don’t know what to do with this child?” How did that shift come about? Whatever happened?
An incident that reflects that time involved a bus running off the road at Crane ending up on its side in a rice field.
The bus I was in arrived moments after the mishap. No one was hurt, but all the passengers, wet and muddy from the adventure, were taken into our bus, already almost full. As a “small boy”, I had to give up my seat to one of the new group who was soaking wet.
No argument; you give the adult your seat. I ended up sitting on the guy’s lap, and by the time we reached Hague I was almost as wet as he was. It took some time to convince my mother that I hadn’t fallen into a trench on my way home, but telling her I had to give “a big person” my seat was explanation enough. I think I even got a pine tart and a cup of Ovaltine.
In my days coming to Georgetown for school, I was always impressed by those Motor Transport yellow buses, based at the Stabroek Market area, that took folks around town. In the country we had a diverse set of privately owned buses (a bus body of local wood mounted on an imported chassis, like the one that ended up in the rice field); they carried people inside and cargo on top. Colourfully painted, they would sport exotic names; on West Dem we had ‘The Hawk’, ‘Blue Moon’ and ‘Atom Bomb.’
But those buses in town were the big leagues, with better seating, drivers in uniform, and operating on schedule. Looking back on it they seemed to cover the city more efficiently than the minibus brigade does now, with no blaring music, and no running of red lights.
Whatever happened to them?
Whatever happened to clean drains and no garbage littering the landscape? I grew up in a Guyana with, yes, burnt-earth roads in the country, but the parapets were always cut, and the drains were clean. In town, there were gangs of men with home-made cutlasses weeding and clearing public spaces; every day of the week some part of town would be getting their attention and the overgrowth we see these days – have a look at upper Water Street – was not taking place. Drains in Georgetown would flow vigorously after rain, and we would race paper boats in them. Where are small boys racing their paper boats these days? I suppose the answer is they’re inside playing video games.
Whatever happened to males sporting handkerchiefs? There was a time when most men routinely carried them to mop the brow or deal with colds. I recall one afternoon going home on the Vreed-en-Hoop ferry when a sudden call of nature took me into the toilet only to discover, after the deed, that there was no toilet paper; my father saved the day by handing me his handkerchief to do the necessaries, and then throwing it overboard. I remember being very impressed by that rescue. What does a parent do today if a child needs a WC, as we used to term them, and there is no toilet paper? What do our gentlemen do now on a hot day? Ignore the perspiration? How come a sensible idea like the man’s pocket handkerchief has faded away?
And where is the gabardine suit? It was once the sign of your arrival as a man. When I migrated to Canada in the 1950s, I was strutting in my first suit, a grey gabardine I had saved for months to buy. With no winter coat, and landing in December at Toronto’s airport with no jet ways then, I ended up running when the cold hit me, but I wasn’t embarrassed – I was sure folks were eyeing me up in my gabardine splendour.
And whatever happened to those mobile vendors, with two baskets on a bicycle handlebar, dispensing various Indian delights? Georgetown was the territory of people such as Garamai who was famous for his potato balls and would draw a crowd wherever he appeared. They were many like him, each with their own specialty; you would ride up alongside on your bicycle, enjoy a quick snack, and ride off recharged. I love Shanta’s, but he’s at just one location. Whatever happened to the vendors coming to you, all around town?
And whatever happened to custard blocks? There was a tiny cake shop on a side street near Saint Stanislaus College that used to do a brisk business with them. I recall the anticipation of riding up there at lunch time to get one, looking forward to the crusty ice and the heavenly taste.
One good custard block could turn your mood for the day from grumpy to “man, that was good.” The frozen sour-sop bar we get these days doesn’t come close. Whatever happened there? We ran out of custard?
And while I’m on the subject of “long time”, whatever happened to West Indies cricket?
