Persons who know me well, or read this column, will know of my admiration and affection for dogs, particularly in the years when I lived in the Cayman Islands on two acres of land in the countryside, with several dogs in the family.
From time to time I hear from readers of this space saying that they enjoy the columns but suggest I should use some of them to focus on “feel good” stories, like the one last week about Fay James, the nature tourism lady running a successful nature-tourism business in a lodge on an island in the upper reaches of the Essequibo River.
It’s easy to get dillusioned or even cynical about mankind in a time of Trump, or of some wayward soul in the interior with a high-powered rifle, and not much else, shooting a beautiful jaguar, or of a man in Georgetown leaving his dog chained up in the hot sun all day long.
Even a casual observer of the various debates in the public spectrum of Guyana will notice that the subject of raising standards in the society is an abiding condition in the mix.
No matter how long ago you were born, no matter how long you live, we keep running into stuff that leaves you gaping and saying something like, “I think I know a lot of stuff, but I that’s news to me.
Certain aspects of Caribbean life can produce various rages in our people, with the ingredients to cause such maladies in the population as high blood pressure, copious perspiration, bulging veins in the neck, and stomach pains.
Probably because it causes disruptions of varying levels in our lives, we tend to see change as something revolutionary, one of a kind, when in fact it is always going on.
Growing up in Guyana, or coming here to live, our waterways are part of your life.
I often get questions about advice on starting out in music but I usually try to abstain; the path in each case is different, and when one considers the thousands of factors involved, it’s not surprising that the process would itself vary wildly and advice is, therefore, a tangle.
As I get older, I have come to realize, time and again, that we are often oblivious to things of great value in the culture we inhabit, and I have to admit that I didn’t come to this position on my own.
I said in a song somewhere once “I’ve been a lot of places, I’ve seen a lot of faces, and now and then a woman smiled at me” and though I didn’t mention it in that song, as I travel about, I’m often asked about my favourite music.
After migrating to Canada in the late 1950s, I had been back to the country starting in 1967, when Tradewinds music became popular and while the visits were short – usually two weeks – they were regular, sometimes twice a year.
In front, Christmas music on the radio and in the stores – I’m not big on that.
The preliminary photos of our revamped airport terminal at Timehri, remind me of the time I spent there after I graduated from Saint Stanislaus College in Georgetown.
By the very definition of what they are, epiphanies come at us uninvited.
The matter of music being played at a volume that triggers public clamour is again in the news, and clearly needs attention from the powers that be, but whoever sets about to tackle this issue needs to be aware that it is not simply a case of “turn down the volume” as has been suggested and this is not just of a case of some “inconsiderate people” as has also been mentioned.
This week, on the ground in Guyana, I ended up in an online conversation with my friend George Jardim (East Coast businessman and erstwhile musician) that involved our various dialect pronunciations or creations across the Caribbean.
When you write a column for the media, you’re drawing on nudges, intimations, angles from everywhere you can use; sometimes an idea comes in the middle of something else and you make a note of it in your “to do” book, which you resort to on the occasional week when no particular topic has already engaged you.
In a recent column, I reproduced an article by Guyanese Hubert Williams, once a leading journalism light here, dealing with a recent show in Barbados, put on by the Barbados/Guyana Association, where I performed along with The Mighty Gabby and Red Plastic Bag.
My wife Annette is very big on Guyana. Soon after I met her, some 10 years ago, showing pictures of the Guyana interior at a THAG function where I was appearing, that came across loud and clear to me.
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