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Gun Violence on the Rise

Submitted by the Mahogany Coconut Think Tank and Watchdog Group There was a time in the not too distant past, when the dreaded drive by shootings was standard occurrences in the inner cities of America. Black sociologists and criminologists described drives by and other violent crime involving blacks as: Black on Black crime. The graveyards…

Submitted by the Mahogany Coconut Think Tank and Watchdog Group
Gun crime on the rise in the Caribbean
Gun crime on the rise in the Caribbean

There was a time in the not too distant past, when the dreaded drive by shootings was standard occurrences in the inner cities of America. Black sociologists and criminologists described drives by and other violent crime involving blacks as: Black on Black crime. The graveyards of many inner cities are home to several victims.

In the Caribbean, we are witnessing the drive by and other forms of violent crimes occur with unusual frequency. Unfortunately, youths throughout the region, appear seriously determined to wipe out each other via the bullet. Gone are the days of “throwing big rocks’ or “giving a fellow a cuff” or trying to wrestle your adversary to the ground. Gone are the cuss outs at the standpipe and the often frivolous village rivalry of four or five decades ago. Today, all disagreements among the criminal element are settled with a burst of fire from a gun. Even stabbings are rather obsolete.

We at Mahogany Coconut have warned, from our inception, that the major threats to the real development of our region are our failure to properly manage our fragile environment and the rising levels and sophistication of crime. We can try to correct our environmental problems by: proper garbage disposal, protecting our scarce wildlife and ensuring that old buildings are given a new lease on life. However, when a young citizen’s life is cut short by acts of extreme violence, there is nothing we can do to “bring him or her back”.

The bodies that are identified in our morgues are mainly black youth and the people responsible for getting them there are by and large mainly black. So we have black on black crime, Caribbean style. In our schools, many teachers feel threatened by aggressive youth, many of whom are already using illegal substances. Also, the blatant disrespect for female students and alarmingly high incidences of student on student violence, are now daily experiences in schools throughout our region. When our schools become breeding grounds for criminals, we have to admit that we are travelling on a road that leads to nothing but pain and destruction.

We can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to black on black crime in the Caribbean.

39 responses to “Gun Violence on the Rise”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    @William

    This submission went to spam which explains the late upload.

  2. rubes Avatar
    rubes

    to date- barbados 19 murders toronto 25
    barbados 270,000 people toronto 2,500,000
    something wrong in bim

  3. Gun Violence on the Rise – Vibe Audio StationVibe Audio Station

    […] Gun Violence on the Rise […]

  4. islandgal246 Avatar
    islandgal246

    “We can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to black on black crime in the Caribbean.

    Should we turn it on white on black? Since the Caribbean is made up mostly of black people then it is not a case of black on black, it is a case of crime. Crime should not be labelled black on black at all, who else are they going to shoot? We like to follow the USA where this description is more appropriate.

  5. David Avatar
    David

    We allow US media to shape our narratives. When a political party a few years pushed the national discussion to crime and violence we mocked. When there was concern about gangs a former AG shouted, we have no gangs. And today when concern is expressed about crime the AG retorts the stats are trending down EXCEPT for gun violence. We are a people in denial.

  6. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    @ Mahogany

    For everything there is a season…

    Remember the bicycle rim, the box-cart, the wooden skate, the old Raleigh Stilliard? as if with each passing generation, the new one graduates to something of a disconnect with the last.

    Cards, dominoes, draughts, wari and even chess were the games we used to interact with each other (even monopoly for the rich chilren)

    Now we have pacman, xbox, WII or whatever the grandchildren call it, things that cut of healthy social interaction with yours schoolmates, neighbours, community and, like Grand Theft Auto, enforce “insensitization” among its victims.

    If i practicing how to kill a man with a head shot 18 hours a day during my marijuana, blackie induced moments what should we ole fogeys expect, UWI undergrad material???” Get real man!

    Someone made the observation about Mia bringing children to the Gymnasium to watch Movado or some performer for half day.

    That encapsulates the whole thing, we are indoctrinating our youth with filth, the Bold and the Wufless and other dribble and then wondering why our daughter is not Joan of Arc and our son Saint Peter.

    This is the purpose of State radio and/or TV, to purposely distill the available filth and to disseminate content that instills values.

    And doan tell me bout advertising dollars ent gine come in.

    Men like Sir Kyffin and Mr. Bynoe at Carlton are prepared to support proper programming and not Henry Frazier taking pup bout 375 years of Parliament for $120.

    I dont think you (nor 85% of the law-biding Bajans) understand the prestige that (i) carrying a gun in your pants (the bigger the weapon the more prestige) (ii) brandishing that weapon in front you ingrunt friends (iii) periodically discharging that weapon (iv) now and again bussing a cap in a man tuh cement your reputation as being “sick dennnn” and (v) when push come to shove, killing a man, the ultimate elevation of being a bad man pun de block.

    Doan talk bout if you is able to evade de police fuh about 3-6 months, man when you finally get Andrew Pilgrim to walk into de police station to surrender, when you goes to Dodds, you is a “king man”!!

    UNDERSTAND THIS.

    These men (and increasingly young women) HAVE NO HOPE!!

    THERE ARE NO VISIBLE PROSPECTS FOR THEM!!

    These are the Bajan equivalents our own breed of Paraiyar Caste in our society, the “untouchables” Bulbados’ outcasts who, in seeing themselves without any hope to be a part of this society, have consciously made the choice that they WILL BE COUNTED, even if only as “bad boys”.

    Doan blame the killers, they only crying to be heard, blame us ole fogeys pun de film censorship boards, the impotent school committees, de Minister uh Edukation dat we elect now (and he predecessor) and de rest uh we “cannon fodder” vampires and shadows of men and women who have abdicated our responsibilities for so long and now crying out “whu happen wid dese young people doah??”

    I guess that now we can answer the question that the Church has failed to address in Bulbados “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

  7. Hamilton Hill Avatar
    Hamilton Hill

    A mouthful said by pieceaderock. The almighty dollar for quite some time now has been the yardstick used for the measurement of success. That our values have been compromised should surprise no one. As long as there is money to be made one can find a radio station to feed the young impressionable minds with the type of diet that has choked the life out of the society of its origins. Good clean wholesome music gets seasonal restriction bout here. Hey that’s why we are known as cari-clowns.

  8. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    “Twistory, then Cari-Clowns”

    Every day when de ole man tek a read uh BU, I does get some words that epitomize a concept, a biting issue and the real state of affairs in Bulbados in particular and in de world in general

    Gots to go en “Feed My Sheep” someplace else today.De madam gine get vex wid me causing “I exposing de under linen uh de church”.

    De Feed my Sheep programme getting cut back causing de same “mightier than thou, saved in de blood crew” demselves is, post the coming of de greatest sheep herder of all, Fumble, now part of the “sheep” that have to be fed!!

    “De tithing is down by x%” (nearly said teifing) and de hands of the faithful has now become part of the “mouths of the hungry” so we did has was tuh scale back pun de “outward reach in the highways and de hedges” to address “those among de brevren dat has fallen pun hard times”

    We now gots two programs going on at de same time but I cyan tell wunna no mo’ causing de madam gine read dis pun Monday an I gine be in de doghouse by Tuesday self.

  9. PLANTATION DEEDS FROM 1926TO 2014 MASSIVE FRAUD LANDTAX BILLS AND NO DEEDS, BARBADOS DLP/BLP MASSIVE PONZI FRAUD Avatar
    PLANTATION DEEDS FROM 1926TO 2014 MASSIVE FRAUD LANDTAX BILLS AND NO DEEDS, BARBADOS DLP/BLP MASSIVE PONZI FRAUD

    http://zinnedproject.org/materials/burned-out-of-homes-and-history-the-tulsa-race-riot/

  10. The People's Democratic Congress Avatar
    The People’s Democratic Congress

    We in the PDC have properly put forward on here and elsewhere that some of the major problems helping to destroy our Barbadian ways of life are the many very negative corrosive aspects of foreign life (especially US) which in many cases are copied and practiced by many very unthinking negative citizens of this country to the unnecessary detriment of much that is desirable and necessary in safeguarding much of what is appreciable and developmental in social value and role systems in Barbados, and too to the unnecessary destruction of much that is desirable and necessary in promoting and providing much that is purposive and agentival for social cohesion, stability and harmony in the country.

    Take for instance much of the very false, demeaning and violent images representations in movies coming out of Hollywood and by extension the US/UK/Canadian movie world and much of which have been shown on TV from video cassettes inserted into and functioning in video cassette players, from DVDs inserted and functioning in DVD players, and more so now much of which is viewed on the TV/computers from the internet.

    It is clear that these very uneducational unuplifting violent images representations are internalized by many of the weaker vulnerable minds amongst us and whenever the very engendering of opportunities arise are acted out by them in reality in many community spheres and social relationships in this country.

    What is worst is that these unwanton acts of violence have far reaching effects, in that, some of them are also reported in much of the local media, the perpetrators are dealt with by the police, in the national courts, probation department, in the prisons, etc. and many local families, communities, professions of the victims and perpetrators continue to live and function and tell the histories of those unnecessary acts of violence.

    Too, it is clear that many of these violent images representations, which serve serious commercial imperialistic and mind altering purposes, and which also have been directed to this country, et al, must be stopped ALTOGETHER from entering this country’s spheres by the various social agencies and groups that are very interested in further/advancing the social well being of this country.

    PDC

  11. Mr Watson Parkinson Avatar
    Mr Watson Parkinson

    The focus on parts of Kingston Jamaica as the hot bed of violence has now turned to Barbados…!

  12. Dompey Avatar
    Dompey

    If you grew up in the city localities of Barbados as I have done, you ought to have been exposed to some form of violent behaviour. I call with some sense of dread, when Doctor-rat, Mark Young, Harden, Pack-rat, and a hold heap of city bad boys unleashed their violence on an innocent humanity.

  13. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    pieceuhderockyeahright wrote “we used to interact with each other”

    Do you remember when we had to make every toy and things like cricket bats and balls.

    We used milk tots as wheels etc. Older boys made tops from wood and a nail.

    I won’t bore you with a long list because you already know this.We were busy outdoors almost all day every day interacting with our peers at no expense to our parents.

    Nowadays children can’t function without Ipads, tablets and laptops.

  14. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    @ Hants

    The Waldorf School of Peninsula, one of the leading schools in Silicon Valley where staff of Google, Apple, HP and Yahoo send their kids DOES NOT HAVE A SINGLE CUNTPUTER IN THEIR SCHOOL!

    Theirs is the belief brother Hants that “computers inhibit creative thinking, movement, human interaction and attention spans.”

    $234 M dollars in Edutech and here we are raising a nation of drive-by shooters.

    Something just ent connected here Hants.

    I used tuh tink dat de peeple in Englant used tuh put someting in de water to bewitch black men (mostly de womens ent so bad) and dat is why Britishers or balck UK long stay residents so freaking mad.

    Nowadays at me age, i is now inclined to eleive dat since we is Little Englant dat dem bring an extra dose bout heah and letting Elias Haloute and de next fellow share out de bewitichity in Cheffette Chicken and KFC!!

    We ingrunt real bad man.

  15. David Avatar
    David

    A signficant % of the edutec budget was given to contractors to improve the physical plant.

  16. Exclaimer Avatar
    Exclaimer

    @ islandgal246,
    You speak good sense as always. The term black on black is meaningless and racist. Italian gangsters based in Italy are highly likely to assassinate their Italian and Albanian rivals. Their rivals share the same white skin yet we do not use the term white on white. It is time that we drop this highly charged term.

    @ Dompey,
    “If you grew up in the city localities of Barbados as I have done, you ought to have been exposed to some form of violent behaviour. I call with some sense of dread, when Doctor-rat, Mark Young, Harden, Pack-rat, and a hold heap of city bad boys unleashed their violence on an innocent humanity.”

    I had no idea that you grew up in the mean hard city streets of Bridgetown. I hope that you did not run with the pack?

  17. GEORGIE PORGIE Avatar
    GEORGIE PORGIE

    Hants | August 22, 2014 at 2:39 PM |
    pieceuhderockyeahright wrote “we used to interact with each other”

    Do you remember when we had to make every toy and things like cricket bats and balls.

    We used milk tots as wheels etc. Older boys made tops from wood and a nail.

    I won’t bore you with a long list because you already know this.We were busy outdoors almost all day every day interacting with our peers at no expense to our parents.

    Nowadays children can’t function without Ipads, tablets and laptops.

    HANTS YOU MIGHT ENJOY THIS PIECE OF PROSE

    Despite all of the hi-tech gadgets we have procured for our offspring, “We are bored!” is a common comment of contemporary children- especially in summer holidays.

    In our day, we could not get bored because there was too much to do! Many boys had to get up early to sweep the yard, feed the chickens, clean out the pig pen, collect the pig food, dip out the “cess pool”, “pick rabbit meat” and “carry out the stocks.” All this before getting ready for school.

    Today the youngsters don’t even know what pollard or scratched grain look like nor they never get to see a yard fowl getting thread. Nor have they heard a literal pailing cock doing its thing, and waking up sleepy people on fore day morning. The only pailing cocks around are the politicians, and those fellows that always begging women for entrance to the promised land, although they wont know what to do should the ladies acquiesce.

    The girls did dishes, scrubbed and cleaned and washed and cooked and combed and plaited the hair of their younger siblings inter alia. The bigger ones had to go to the shop. This was an expedition that some of them liked, cause they got to see their favorite boy in the village in the process. Smart fellows were always alert to seize these opportunities to sneak in some handsy handsy or even steal a kiss by the pea trees or the cane patch nearby.

    Very cautious mothers always sent their lasses on the street with a younger sibling with a big mouth. These siblings could always be depended upon to report exactly what ever happened on the road- real blabber mouths they were. Some fellows would however bribe them very easily, by offering them to go for a ride on their bicycles. Life was certainly a challenge if you had a chick in the village with a big mouthed brother or sister. Mercy Lord!

    The afore mentioned chores had to be done in fair weather or foul, or as they say “Come hell or high water.” In school time these chores had to be effected in timely fashion on a daily basis so as to be on time to take the walk to school, or catch the school bus or hitch a ride with a friendly neighbor. Tardiness resulted in lashes at home, and more licks at school for late arrivers.

    This was the basic morning routine in holiday periods as well. After school many of the tasks mentioned above were repeated. In families where they were no boys, the girls had in addition the additional burden of the tasks of the boys. In those families where they were no girls, boys had to do “girl chores,” except that boys in that era NEVER plaited their hair like contemporary sissies, nor did they EVER wear ear rings!

    On Saturdays the schedule was more hectic. If your guardian baked “sweet bread” or made pudding and souse, there were coconuts or potatoes to “grater” respectively. Around November 5th – conkie time- banana leaves had to be fetched and pumpkins gratered in addition. There was also rice to be picked for the Sunday meal. And if your granny or mommy was a hawker in town, some children had to accompany them to the city, when they would rather have preferred to be at home. Girls had to wash and press everyone’s clothes. This was good training so that later when they got a husband they would not be packed back to their mothers.

    You certainly didn’t get bored before school time or early weekend mornings in those days, because there was work to do– all year round. This was the norm seven days a week- including Sundays.

    Saturday mornings was also a time to exchange books at the Public Library in town, or accompany parents to dig potatoes or yams by the hole or the rod.

    Sundays was church- period! Attendance was compulsory, and the preparations elaborate. The girls were resplendent in their proper length dresses and can cans, ribbons in their hair matching the color of their frocks, proudly clutching their little purses which had long slender handles that enabled them to be carried on their shoulders. It was not then difficult to believe that girls were made of sugar and spice and everything nice; and you could easily tell the girls from the boys!

    The boys had their faces properly scrubbed and their hair properly, combed and parted, with shoes shining like the proverbial “dog stones on a moon light night”. When we were in secondary school it was then fashionable for the boys to wear their school blazers to church. I have somewhere, a picture of my brothers and I, in our teens all outfitted with the blazer of the different schools we attended.

    We went to church three times on Sundays. In those days Sunday School was in the afternoons unlike the case today when morning Sunday School is very common. Sunday Evening Sunday School was something to look forward to, especially as you got older and acquired a girlfriend or boyfriend who attended your Sunday School or one close to your church, or on the road thereto. This allowed boy and girl to meet! What a treat!

    In those days we had much more respect for members of the opposite sex, and since meetings of your special boy or girl was not as routine as today, these rendezvous were eagerly anticipated and appreciated; and appropriated and assimilated!

    We must mention that there was also another “Sunday school” that had nothing to do with the church, or Robert Rakes’+ original idea of what this institution should be like. The term “Sunday school” was also used by fellows who attended 1:30 or 4:30 pm shows at the many cinemas that were doted around the city, along with the Oistins Plaza and one in the Garden, St James, now taken over by the Roman Catholics,. Boys who went to these “services” tell many stories of the chinks who made these places their habitat. Chief of these was one called Cephus. Stories of this chink’s voracity are legendary!

    Candy called “Love Hearts” with cute lovey dovey sayings inscribed on them or their wrappers, or special sweet biscuits (not Shirley biscuits now) or little chocolate bars were bought and given to the object of one’s affection, at Sunday school. Call it puppy love if you will, but this was serious business. I received my fair share of “Love Hearts,” and donated chocolate and special sweet biscuits (not Shirley biscuits now) to a few lasses myself.

    Now lets be clear about this sweet biscuits and Shirley biscuits issue. No one in the puppy love biscuit donation would seriously think of giving a member of the opposite sex Shirley biscuits. These were “too local”. Decent people do things decently, so you had to fork out extra money for proper biscuits from “over in away” if you were going to impress. After all we teach and practice in Bim, that you don’t have to be poor and show poor. That didn’t mean that you had to be poor great though.

    On Sunday evenings large companies of boys and girls might take long walks between Sunday School and evening service. Some visited special homes where some mothers baked cassava pone, or coconut bread or the seasonal conkies in early November for their families and children’s families. One such lady was Mrs P in Amity Lodge Gap. My mpther also did her fair share of entertaining thirsty after Sunday school children, along with the concomitant dispensing of slices of sweet bread. There was an old lady close to our home who seduced little boys and girls to look at pictures of far away places on a view master. I can see now that this old lady looked forward to our company once weekly on Sunday evenings, because she was very lonely otherwise.

    During the vacation, after chores we pitched marbles, rolled rollers, scooted scooters, played stick licking, cricket, football, table tennis, or road tennis or flew kites in the mornings until the sun got too hot and “you were called in outa the broiling hot sun.” After eating lunch or other light meal the boys played draughts or dominoes, or pasted kites. Little boys were sent to bed to rest, bigger boys might be sent to get a book.

    As we got older we sometimes spent the whole day at the beach especially if it was low tide. We would swim far out to sea and play catcher around the anchored fishing boats, or in late August catch “sea eggs”- a delicacy that is almost now on the verge of extinction. The girls played with their dolls or made doll clothes. Sometimes they went to the beach. Generally girls did not seem to have the same amount of play time that boys had it seems. I can, however, remember evenings when large numbers of boys and girls would on evenings visit in turn the large number of dunks trees in our area. We would go from tree like birds or insects, sampling these miniature fruit.

    Skilful couples would lag behind, or flit more slowly than the others, to engage in the darting of tongues through oral orifices and labia orae. Hmmmmm.

    I have never seen one of the girls cry when thus kissed. Consequently, on becoming a parent I though it would be the honest thing while teaching my sons the Nursery Rhymes to revise the lies we were taught about Georgie Porgie.

    My revised version is Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie, Kissed the girls and made them HIGH! When the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie taught them the way!

    Thats what I taught my boys.

    In the rainy season especially, we would make our slut lamps and go crabbing. For the uninitiated, a slut lamp was a discarded sweet drink bottle filled with kerosene oil with a piece of rag stuck in the bottles orifice to serve as a wick. I suppose that torchlights were not yet invented- they certainly were not common. A gang of boys and a tom boy or two would go to the swamp with this type of exotic illumination, crocus bags and sticks in hand.

    One person would approach the crabs and used the stick to restrain their use of their claws. Having done this one deftly and quickly held the back of the crab and deposited in the crocus bag. Sometimes the unskillful might be bitten, especially if the crab was a “back bitter”, that is if he could some how bring his small claw backwards to strike. Many of us have been bitten in our lives by “back bitters” who are unfortunately not crabs, because their bites are worse and have longer lasting effects.

    On returning from crabbing, we would cook the crabs or leave them over night in a barrel or can if we were too tired or if it was to late. This exercise allowed us first hand to observe the phenomenon that gave rise to the dictum “like crabs in a barrel” when referring to how we often treat our very own.

    Once you could read, and get comics, or books that you loved to read from the Public Library or from friends, you were never bored, as there was much to enthrall and enlighten, and stimulate the imaginations of little minds in a good book. In those days that was all you could do at night after completing one’s homework.

    There was no television or wireless radio, or video or computers or DVD! You had to make your own fun and entertainment, and we were very innovative in so doing. Boys made trucks or buses out of discarded tin and painted them in the appropriate colors. Some of these were entered and actually won prizes in the Annual Agricultural & Industrial Exhibition.

    I became a photographer of sorts in my teen years , and was rarely seen without my camera, which I called my girlfriend. I quickly learned how to make money by making ugly girls look good on photographic paper. The secret is not to have their acne treated with contemporary cosmetics (which they could not have afforded anyway) or with number three sand paper if their faces were otherwise bumpy, but rather to just take the photos slightly out of focus. Call it soft focusing if you like. I was so good at photography that I did my first weddings at age 17. One at Holy Innocents Church, one at St Mary’s, and the other was the marriage of two blind folk at Dayrell’s Road Gospel Hall.

    They were times though, especially “moonlight nights”, when the children of the village met and played games like “London Bridge is broken down”, “Mosquito One” and “Dumb School”, and a host of simple frivolous but funny games, while the more adventurous snuck off to steal kisses, or play professional games like “Doctor & Nurse”. Yes. Hmmmmm.

    Children were never denied the opportunity to go to the Library. This could be used to one’s advantage, especially if the Library one visited closed at 7 pm when it was dark- as was the case at Oistin’s library. I had a girlfriend who had a love for books and Oistin’s Library on Friday nights, prior to Choir practice. We used the opportunity to enhance our academics especially in the Science of Kissing. It is not for naught that the Bible teaches in John 3: 19b that “men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” My naughty notions with this lass usually came to naught because she had an intense fear that her mother would appear from nowhere.

    Children were also permitted to go to school or church fairs or the Annual Exhibition in the Park in early December, or to go listen to the Police Band play in the Park on Christmas morning.

    Last week a teenaged girl and her brother visited me for medical certificates as part of their University admission exercises. I was amazed when they admitted quite innocently that they did not know where the clock in Queen’s Park was, or that a clock in Queen’s Park actually existed! Can you imagine that? One clear conclusion is that they had never met their sweet hearts in the Park at any function. Those of us who courted in the sixties and met our sweethearts for the events held in the Park mentioned above, all know for certain where the clock is. This was the meeting place of choice just as Phensic or Cafenol were the layman’s treatment for all maladies that were accompanied by pain – including broken hearts for those who received “big rocks” to carry right there by the park clock! **

    As man, I have to tell you my favorite Park story which occurred in January 1968. My library lover summoned me to an evening of watching netball at the Girl Guides Head Quarters at Pax Hill. I hate netball-basically glorified catchings- with a passion. But I love girls. And my sweet lipped, long legged, library lover, Lorraine^^ was one whom I loved more than I hated netball. So anticipating the joys that lay before me, I personally ironed my most special shirt and met her at Pax Hill, after double checking that I had my school’s dark room key in my pocket. I was then a budding school boy photographer at Harrison College, which is situated as you know next to the park.

    After enduring an eternity of netball we set out at twilight for the Fairchild Street bus stand via Queen’s Park, and hopefully Harrison College darkroom- a minor diversion.

    We often experience the things we wish for. Remember I told you that Lorraine was always thinking that her mother would sometime appear? Well this Saturday evening she certainly did!

    In those days traffic came up St Michael’s Row, as it was not then yet a one way street. As fate would have it, the bus that my Lady Lorraine’s mother was traveling towards Carrington’s Village broke down next to the Cathedral.

    You learn something every day, and I certainly learned that evening that if you know your daughter well you can recognize her when she is waking down the incline by the Steel Shed in the Park, from down by St Michael’s wall. All youngsters I want you to “put this in your pipe and smoke it,” as we used to be told as youngsters. To cut a long story short, Lorraine’s mother spotted us long, long, long before her daughter did- I am yet to see her for that evening!

    On discovering the approach of her mother, Loraine cried with a great cry “My mother coming! Ganong disappear!” I loved her so much that I did not stop to think. Since I could not disappear quite as she ordered, I set off hastily up Crumpton Street and ducked into the Agricultural Seed Store situated between the school wall and the park.

    In retrospect I ought not to have run, because I had not done anything wrong- YET! Loraine was duly punished for panicking, and setting up the appearance of guilt. The Bible has well said that “The guilty flee when no man pursueth.” Hers was an experience similar to Neddy in the popular Bajan folk song about Neddy who get lock up though he aint do nothing. Her punishment was that she was unable to go out for whole eight months! Oh how she must have suffered! But it served her right! If she had let innocent me stand my ground, all would have been well. I would not have had to suffer a whole evening at netball, with no kissy kissy in the dark room afterwards. Silly girl! Thinking she could fool her mother! And wishing her mothers appearance upon herself! Despite that, if the truth be told she was my favorite girl friend of all. I believe that she would be faithful and trust worthy. I speak favorably about her up until this day.

    Some of us were fortunate to be invited out to spend the day during holiday periods. The more precocious of us–like the author-was able to invite himself out, and to no lesser place than the home of a special girl friend! (Not the above mentioned). I remember that occasion well because we went of to a quiet place of the house where in exchange for doing her Latin homework, she allowed me to fondle her thoraxic appendages or budding breasts. Yes.

    Naughty boy! you might say. But that certainly made me most happy, and not gay! This experience was one of the major benefits I have received for studying Latin well. Amo, amas, amat etc.

    Though you may correctly consider we mercenary, at least I was a good enough boy not to teach her how to translate from English into Latin the sentence “They say to the judges, i.e iudicibus dicunt.” Nor did I read the translation in Bajan, nor did I seek to do what the pure or impure Bajan pronunciation of that sentence advocates. I am not permitted to teach Latin pronunciation prose on this page, so you might have to ask one of the bright Latin scholars of the fifties and sixties whom you know to assist you to “announce” the Latin above properly, and NOT in Bajan.

    Talking about budding busts, reminds me of the occasion when I had a car full of my sons, nephews and niece on the way to the beach. They were just about in their early teens, or perhaps a bit younger. Her brother announced excitedly to us “Uncle Ganong, Sherry getting busses.” After eventually figuring out what he meant, and never one to miss the chance to pun, I asked him “Transport Board or minibuses?” He replied quite seriously “ Uncle, I think they more like ZR vans.” Children and their comprehension!

    I can truthfully say that those of us who grew up in Barbados in the sixties and before were never bored. There was never a dull moment. If there was, we could make it exciting. All you need do is hit your hopping ball onto the neighbor’s pailing or house or in their kitchen garden. You probably needed to get another ball, but there was sure to be some fun and excitement, as all hell would surely break lose. Bored? Bored? What you talking bout, we were never bored!

    ——————————————————–
    ** For the uninitiated to receive a big rock to carry means to have a date not show up as promised.
    ^^Loraine is not of course her true name- they say you must not kiss and tell, and I could not resist the chance for allteration.
    + Robert Rakes was the founder of Sunday Schools in England.

  18. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    @GEORGIE PORGIE

    YOU SHOULD WRITE A ROMANCE NOVEL.

  19. Well Well Avatar
    Well Well

    GP……like a friend who grew up in Barbados said recently while in the throes of a mild heart attack, the 60’s and 70’s were when dinosaurs walked the island, now you have well armed gun men walking around Bim…ahh!!

  20. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    Mr Watson Parkinson | August 22, 2014 at 10:37 AM |
    The focus on parts of Kingston Jamaica as the hot bed of violence has now turned to Barbados…!
    ……………………………………………………………………………..
    Eurika!!!!! Isn’t this what we were aiming for? The denial of no gangs in Barbados, and the tied hands of the police to stop and search vehicles on the highway at nights. The chickens have come home to to be roasted.

  21. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    There is no sense having a gun if you aren’t waving it around intimidating people. There used to be a phrase drop a dime on someone which has been replaced by…don’t snitch. When good people do nothing…you know the rest

  22. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    @ Georgie Porgie

    I read each and every word and may “old acquaintances never be forgot and days of Auld Land Syne”

    Whew, each passageway, chores, church, courting, hiding from de girl’s fadder and muddah, crabbing and fishing, going to de Library and borrowing books, treasuring the yellow card dat you got as a junior then the orange card, mixing it up and keeping it real according to the “granchilrens”.

    Tempus fugit and cannot seem to be recalled, our kids are technologically richer but are socially bereft of the humanity that we had.

    I understand that in Japan there is a phenomenom called proxy eroticism that has caused the men to love the animated realm so much that they have given up the activity of lovemaking to soft, sultry flesh in exchange for visual erotica and cyberspace encounters that you would never have been thinking about when you were going into the darkroom between Lower 1C and the Music Room.

    I sued to fix ** at secondary schools fuh *** & Sons and had was tuh go dere once or twice as a young man.

    Every now and again I am touched by the humanity that still abounds on the human spirit around Barbados and to see that a few of us so care for this country that, while we pontificate on BU, in this Rum Shop, such is our love of country that we cry out in abject pain through our words and submissions watching it heading to the 7 rings of hell, driven by incompetent politicians that we, in a fit of drunkeness elected, aided and abetted by lost youth empowered by 9mms.

  23. Exclaimer Avatar
    Exclaimer

    @ pieceuhderockyeahright,
    Please do not encourage the GP.

  24. GEORGIE PORGIE Avatar
    GEORGIE PORGIE

    Hants | August 22, 2014 at 4:46 PM |
    @GEORGIE PORGIE

    YOU SHOULD WRITE A ROMANCE NOVEL.

    I WILL TRY HANTS

    pieceuhderockyeahright | August 22, 2014 at 5:06 PM |
    @ Georgie Porgie

    GLAD YOU LIKED MY PROSE
    AND ITS TRUE TEMPUS FUGERAT

  25. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    @ Exclaimer

    One thing that you will note about me is that “I will give Jack his Jacket and Tom his Coat” and even if I cuss you today, tomorrow, if what you are promoting is sound, I will say so.

    As many times I will come out and cuss AC#1 when she or AC#2 say something that is noteworthy I will be the first to say or commend her/him.

    I have to sat that it is very hard and is causing me bipolar expectations.

    There was a time when I DID NOT READ AC but I was made to unnerstan’ by peeple in the know that somebody come back from Arizona.

    When i click on AC’s submissions I am now either pleasantly surprised to see reasonable thoughts and posits or relentless support for Fumble, even in the face of obvious ineptitude.

  26. Due Diligence Avatar
    Due Diligence

    PDC said

    ‘Take for instance much of the very false, demeaning and violent images representations in movies coming out of Hollywood and by extension the US/UK/Canadian movie world.”

    One movie, at least, coming out of Barbados includes demeaning and violent images right up there with movies coming out of Hollywood

    Suggest you take a look at Barbados made movie TEK DEM OUT, on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TALDKkeKjGE

  27. MR.C Avatar
    MR.C

    We can go on and on about our childhood. I RESPECT each one of you who remembers what it was to be able to make the things we needed to have fun with. But what I remember most of all, is that our parents lead us in a direction of showing RESPECT to SELF and OTHERS. I can still hear my mother saying, son RESPECT is due even to a dog. We all had things to do in order to gain anything close to a reward for our behavior. The younger generation after us wanted to be more of a friend than a parent. The parent and the child spoke to each other without any RESPECT. They refused to listen to what they call OLD HEADS. Older people who would try to guide them. The most of them would tell you that we didn’t know what time it was, or that was back in our time. The funny part of it is, 60 seconds is still a minute. So it seems to me that the time has remained the same, only the people has changed. Most younger parents, aren’t even trying too hard to be parents in the first place. Most has figured if they give the children every designer’s designs that hits the market, like it’s a competition to out do your neighbor. But NEVER dress up the minds of the children from an early age. I always heard we must bend the tree while it’s young. This is NOW the end results of the tree not being bent at an early age.
    In all honesty I don’t really see it getting any better. But I’ll continue to do what I can,in whatever way I’m able to in helping to make some difference.
    The children are men and women at an early age, and feel equal to their parents. This is the first change that has to be addressed. I became a father at age 18, and my mother made it very clear that it was my responsibility to provide for my child, and not hers. She taught me to be RESPONSIBLE. I took it very serious and did what I had to for my child without depending on my parent’s help.
    Children now refuse to be responsible for anything. Many parents has this philosophy of I was brought up the hard way not having a whole lot, so I’m going to give my child a better life. In doing so all the values went right out the door.
    I’m sure that those in high places knows about the guns entering into the country. The O Jays has a song:- Money,Money.. many are sold out world wide for it. Little Barbados isn’t any different. We used to be people who were proud of our accomplishments. That seem to have went out the window all for the $$$$$$.

    May THE MOST HIGH GUARD,GUIDE AND PROTECT YOU FROM ALL THINGS.
    But at this point you need actions more than just prayers and words.

  28. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    @ MR. C
    I can still hear my mother saying, son RESPECT is due even to a dog.
    ………………………………………………………………………………………
    Unfortunately today, the tail is wagging that dog.

  29. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Hants wrote that all that kids want now is ipads. Actually he must know that all most adults want is ipads too.

    Nostalgia is all very well. The ‘Think Tank’ are indulging in it when they write that ‘boys show disrespect for girls’. In my experience, most girls these days are tough, crude and voluble.

    Was there no downside to ‘yesteryear’? On respect – was it more a case of ‘do as I say not as I do’?

    We assume that ‘values’ are static, carved in stone. But surely they change just as language changes because that is how they’re expressed. Thus today the young are ‘getting a life’, ‘doing their thing’, ‘going their own way’. I guess we had something like it. Was it ‘respect’ ultimately rooted in fear of elders?

  30. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    I was pleasantly surprised to see in the news that the Ministry of Tourism had mounted a success convention for the Gun Association of America and the Drug Association of the United States.

    On page four and five of the digital Edition of that newspaper I saw what had to have been the display of the gun association in one picture and then drugs from the Drug association in another of the pics.

    The author Kimberley Cummins must have made a mistake when she erroneously said that it was something to do with a Party Stands and Crop Over.

    She had to be high on something since this was indeed a guns convention.

    I will pause and say a hearty congratulations to our Royal Barbados Police Force who have been able to make this raid without letting the criminals there assembled know that they were coming.

    Having said that I am sure that every one of those persons caught with these weapons of obvious destruction, if they appear in front of the same magistrate(s) that let go murder accused Shamar Antonio Lynch or the judge at District C , or the fellow who let go Suleman Adam recently til March 2015, WILL ALL BE RELEASED while the weapons mysteriously disappear from the evidence room of the same RBPF where another set of criminals, those with similar badges, are employed

  31. Due Diligence Avatar
    Due Diligence

    PODRYR

    You’ve got a pretty sharp eye for nn ole man

    The reader would naturally assume the guns and cannabis pictured were part of the stuff seized at the Party Stand.

    But, the captions to the three pictures were carefully worded

    “The camouflage clothing taken from the patrons”

    “Illegal guns were among the weapons found”

    “Sliffs and bags of cannbis were also found”

    Guess RBPF had the guns and cannabis safely stored in the evidence room, out of sight of the photographer, so they had to use file pictures.

    Looks like you incorrectly gave credit to the Ministry of Tourism for mounting a successful convention, when credit was not due.

  32. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    @ Due Diligence

    It was all sarcasm and I do hope that you weren’t serious with your own counter.

    The point I was making was, given the amount of guns and drugs on display it has to be a convention and, given the MoT and the BTA are the leading bunglers in their sector, I was being sarcastic regarding their marketing acumen and symposium success.

    Please say that you understood my blog at 1.44 pm and were being equally flippant with the ole man, cause if it wasnt so, well DD “Houston we have a problem” and dis ole man gots to get a fresh batch uh insulin from de horspital

    With regard to the pictures and what is being shown being real or file pictures DD.

    I could be wrong but if Ms. Cummins went to the trouble of getting a file picture and the Royal Barbados Police Force, as part of their concerted Public Relations campaign, did not actually lay out the stash of weapons seized on that specific occasion for all in Bulbados to see, well then, they, the RBPF have to be more ingrunt than I thought, and the BT Editor in Chief really has to be dragging the bottom of the barrel for news worthy articles if they are featuring news and using file pics.

  33. Due Diligence Avatar
    Due Diligence

    @PODRYR

    Yes indeed this ole man did recognize your sarcasm and was responding in the same vein.

    But I think you have come up with great idea for the MOT; a Guns and Drugs convention would fit right in with their events tourism strategy.

    I do hope you are on the short list for the CEO post at BTMI.

    On the other hand maybe not, because then you would be too busy to make your wise contributions to BU

  34. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    @ DD

    Unfortunately DD I will have to decline the job offer at the BTMI since I have been begging (and I would appreciate your help on this) for a piece from Vivianne Gittens at de Nation.

    Sorry that came out wrong again.

    I meant I want a piece, OF WORK, at the Nation where I can fabricate news articles, sorry write exciting articles, and tell lies, sorry comment about the legacy that Hamilton Lashley left both for the DLP and the BLP and things like that.

    You ent know nobody doy deah who cud give me a piece? sorry some work? I would try not to be as salacious as that fellow who write bout de school boy thrusting in and out of the school-girl, de ole man forget he name, de same one dat get Anne drag off to court pun “inciting the public and exposing lewd materials to the public and arousing the public to bad values en ting.

    Whu is happen wid dat case doah?

  35. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Barbados police should be commended for sparing the life of a suspected felon.
    In Amurca he would be dead.

    “During the operation, a man armed with a cutlass allegedly attacked one of the officers. He was shot in his left calf and transported to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital by ambulance where he is currently under guard.”

  36. David Avatar
    David

    @Hants

    Can you share the BU pathology examination results to advise how the suspect was able to be shot in the calf?

  37. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    http://www.nationnews.com/articles/view/man-shot-by-police2/

  38. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    Is he the owner of the left calf, or is that one of those stolen recently from Kendal Plantation.

  39. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    In Todays Advocate. A point that many have been advocating over the years,but has been always overlooked by the authorities. Even the organised Mafia type gangs in the USA and elsewhere used to caution their getaway drivers not to flout the road traffic laws, as it could seriously jeopardise a mission, if pulled over by the cops for a traffic violation.

    ===================================================

    We need decisive action
    8/31/2014

    Having been a career police officer, the recent comments of our Attorney General regarding the frequent involvement by our young men in “gun crime” have certainly captivated my attention ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

    As an aside, on a Senior Detective course by Scotland Yard Officers, they informed us back then that one of the solutions to suppressing criminal activity was a strong response to traffic violations. Can we honestly say that the lawlessness we see on our roads daily is being feverishly addressed?

    DAVID MORRIS (J.P.)
    (The full text of this article by Mr Morris may be read in Todays Sunday Advocate under Letters To The Editor.

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