The Three-Day Dog

The Three-Day Dog

Finally, after much cajoling, Dad agreed to give me driving lessons. Every morning we would drive from our house in Cherry Gardens to Excelsior School on Mountain View Avenue. I’d be driving, Dad reading the Gleaner and occasionally raising an eye. On this morning, as the car approached the top of Mountain View, despite the stifling heat we all hurriedly rolled up our windows, in preparation with our rendezvous with “the three-day dog”.
As anyone who knows Kingston will know, one of that city’s less salubrious attributes is its large preponderance of dogs – dead dogs. When a stray dog – of which there are very many in Kingston – gets killed by a car/truck/bus, soon enough someone will employ the Jamaican solution to dispose of the carcass; with the help of an old tyre and a gallon of gasoline. That is, if said dead dog happens to die within sight or smell of human habitation. If however, the canine corpse lay “out of sight, out of smell”, then it would just languish there in the fierce tropical heat for days, until nature’s solution – flies, maggots and john-crows – dispose of the carcass. Eventually.
Now it just so happened that for the last three days, one such rotting carcass had lain on the central divide of Mountain View Avenue, stinking up the place. As we passed the gruesome apparition, windows tight, we caught a glimpse of a strange sight. Standing directly over the stinking carcass, was a woman – a white woman! We both did a double-take. Dad said:
“Wait, isn’t that Mrs. Walker?”
Mrs. Walker was a fresh-faced English teacher at Excelsior, recently arrived with her two daughters.
“Turn around,” he said, “at the next intersection do a U-turn, quickly!” It wasn’t easy with the fast-moving traffic, but with the help of Dad’s frantic hand signals I managed to do a quick turnaround and come up in the other direction, to get a better look. And sure enough, it was Mrs. Walker, standing directly over this stinking, writhing mass of worms, looking down at it. What the hell is going on? We did yet another U-turn, passed her again, before making our way to school. What the hell was that all about?
A couple of days later, I asked Dad if he had found on what was going on with Mrs. Walker and the dead dog. He then regaled us with a strange tale. As it turned out, Mrs. Walker had a dog, Spot, whom they had brought over from England. Spot had been missing for the last three days, and that morning, Mrs. Walker had recognized the carcass of her beloved Spot, by its spot. Dad was about to leave it there, but curiosity got the better of him.
“So … what did you do then?” he asked.
“Well,” she said, “I couldn’t just leave poor Spot lying there, could I?”
Dad’s eyes widened.
“So … what did you do then?”
Mrs. Walker and her two daughters got a large sheet of plastic and some rubber gloves, returned to the carcass and lifted the thing into the back of their station wagon. Dad was aghast.
“So … what did you do?”
“Well, we drove it home.”
“You … drove it home?”
“Yes, it smelled awful, but we had to give Spot a civilized burial, didn’t we? But there was no place in the garden to dig a big enough hole, so we decided to cremate him.”
“You … cremated the dog?”
“Yes, well we tried. We made a bonfire and put Spot on it, said a prayer, and lit the fire. But after a while, the fire went out, leaving a lot of smoke.”
By this time, the stench the half-burnt rotten dog had become unbearable; neighbours came running to see what the hell this stupid Englishwoman was doing. Someone took charge, fetched some gasoline and an old tyre and whoomp! Up went Spot, in a blaze of purifying fire.
Mrs. Walker profusely thanked her pissed-off neighbours, and she and her daughters buried the ashes of their beloved Spot.
The next morning, Spot came home.

Papa God’s Revenge

My father, Darwin “Gerry” Samuel, sailed across the Atlantic in an Atlantic convoy in December 1941; a harrowing crossing he was fortunate to survive:

He wrote to his father, on the back of a postcard showing the Empire State Building: “Sailed into New York Harbor this morning, past the Statue of Liberty, docking at the Hudson River Terminal in Manhattan’s Lower West Side. Empire State Building looming. Unforgettable!!”

The ship stayed in New York just a few days, enough time for the Caribbean contingent, travelling in groups for safety, to taste the pleasures of the greatest city in the world. He told us of going to the world famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, and not understanding a word of what the Harlem “hep cats” were saying!

Back on the boat, trouble started the day the ship was to set sail for England. All the way from Grenada, my father and four of his Grenadian mates had occupied one of the best cabins on the ship. It wasn’t below decks, in the hot humid body of the ship, but was bolted onto the deck of the ship, with breezy portholes on all four sides. Unfortunately for my father and his friends, a group of British naval officers joined the ship at New York, and immediately decided to appropriate for themselves our father’s cabin. One couldn’t have His Majesty’s officers scrunched up with the hoi polloi below decks, while a bunch of coloured chaps enjoyed the best berth on the boat; now could one?

The Grenadians were told in no uncertain terms: sling your hook! They protested, but of course to no avail; they were bundled out and had to go down to the crowded accommodations below decks, and seek out whatever rough berths they could find. But Papa God have a funny way with revenge.

Three days sailing out of New York, the convoy ran into one of the feared Atlantic storms. For one terrifying night howling, icy winds tore through the ship’s rigging, slicing through those crew members unlucky enough to be on deck duty. Worse than the wind were the waves, towering walls of water crashing onto the decks, shaking the very bones of the old ship. Throughout the night, the petrified passengers remained firmly battened down below decks, tied to their bunks, praying to their own gods. With each roll of the ship, the old girl would slowly right herself, shuddering from stem to stern, then go ploughing head on into the next monster wave.

The following morning the storm eased and our shell-shocked, sea-sick sailors gingerly emerged from below decks to survey the damage. Where, they found to their horror, that the sea had ripped away everything not firmly affixed to the ship – including their ex-cabin! The cabin, and all its British occupants, were never seen again.

The meek shall indeed, inherit the berth!

Sooner by Schooner!

Rusty old cargo ships, known locally as schooners, are the lifeblood of Caribbean trade. “Captain” Brian Samuel recounts some recent voyages

In maritime trade, most cargo ships are also allowed carry a few passengers on every voyage. The number of passengers they can carry is usually limited to twelve; after which the ship would have to be re-classified as a passenger vessel.

Many lifetimes ago, I used to work in shipping, and I’ve crossed the Atlantic several times in cargo and passenger ships. It takes a while to get used to life at sea; ten days with nothing on the horizon but the horizon itself. In those days there was no television or internet; your only contact with the outside world would be the scratchy short wave radio. There’s just you, the crew, your books and thoughts for company. But once you get used to it, once your mind and metabolism slow down to match the pace of the ocean, there’s nothing quite like a long ocean voyage, to relax and rejuvenate you at the same time.
Actually, that’s not quite true. An ocean voyage can be relaxing and rejuvenating – it can also be hell on sea! Just ask passengers from the Costa Concordia: in ships when things go wrong; they can go very wrong. However, for the most part traveling by sea is still one of the safest means of travel – if not always the most comfortable.

My first rough trip was on board the late great M/V Federal Maple; two weeks from Jamaica to Grenada, stopping at all islands en route. This ship, and her sister the Federal Palm, were gifts to the West Indies Federation from Canada, and for years plied a regular route up and down the islands. By the time I boarded the Maple in Kingston in the summer of ‘72, as a 19-year old student at UWI, the old girl had seen better days – much better. I was traveling at the lowest fare class: deck passage. Which meant just what it said: you find yourself someplace under the stars and lay down your foam mattress – and hope it doesn’t rain. There was a sort-of accommodation hold below decks at the back of the boat, but you needed a really strong stomach to venture down there; for one thing the hold was awash with of swishing bilge water, which also seemed to contain a fair amount of the effluent of the vessel.

From Jamaica to Saint Kitts is three days of hard sailing directly into wind and sea, rocking and rolling all the way. Even though I had crossed the Atlantic several times before, on that particular voyage I was constantly seasick – as a dawg! Eat-puke; then don’t even think about eating again. The only silver lining was that this baptism of fire cured me of seasickness forever. I’ve been through some pretty rough seas since then, but I usually manage to keep my dinner down. Usually.

We disembarked at Basseterre Saint Kitts, ferried to shore by small boats or lighters. As I walked unsteadily down the swaying jetty, I was surrounded by a posse of Kittitian boys.

“You from Jamaica?”

“Yes.”

“You have ganja?”

“No.”

You have ratchet knife?”

“No.”

In unison they all kissed their teeth; then moved onto the next disembarking passenger! Fast forward a few decades later and I again found myself on board some of the Caribbean’s less salubrious trading ships – which hadn’t improved any with the passage of time. Among the Eastern Caribbean there are many such vessels; discarded old European ships that long ago failed any internationally recognized safety tests, and found themselves washed upon the lawless shores of the Caribbean. Here they continue to eke out a living for their owner/captains, moving from port to port as the trade demands – the original tramp steamers.

Perhaps due to its very island nature, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is the Caribbean leader in the maritime industry. The country has an open ship registry (what used to be called a flag of convenience), and thousands of ships worldwide now fly the Vincentian flag; whether for convenience or otherwise. Many Caribbean schooners are captained and crewed by Vincentians; it’s in their blood.

So far I have travelled on two of these schooners; which for the purposes of this article shall remain nameless (I may need to travel on them again!). Weather permitting; it’s actually quite a pleasant trip from Grenada to Trinidad, about 12-13 hours overnight. However, it is not for the faint hearted. These schooners are the living embodiment of the word “unseaworthy”; any half qualified marine surveyor would have conniptions at the state of some of these vessels! Rusted and broken stanchions (railings); important pieces of deck equipment just hanging around and falling to bits; clumsy cargo handling gear; atrocious accommodation; zero safety features and rust, rust and more rust everywhere. In one of the ships, what passed for a lifeboat was a broken old dinghy haphazardly lashed on deck and swamped with all kinds of junk. To be fair I did see a couple of inflatable life rafts, but I wouldn’t want to bet my life that they were in working order.

Every Tuesday evening, three vessels sail from Saint George’s bound for Port-of-Spain: Ocean Princess II, Little Desrine and Eldica David all departing at around 8PM and arriving Trinidad by about 9-10AM the following morning. A fourth vessel, the Mary G, sails from Grenville, arriving at the same time. In addition, vessels arrive from St Lucia and Saint Vincent – the CARICOM wharf in Port-of-Spain can get pretty congested on a Wednesday morning.

There is very little cargo moving southbound, mainly agricultural produce like yams, plantains, bananas and whatever else is in season; all packed in pallets and loaded on board using the ship’s cranes (there are no shore cranes). The process for loading fuel is even more haphazard; the ship’s cranes lift enormous drums of diesel from trucks, swaying ominously, invariably spilling fuel in the process. The loaded drums are manhandled into position in the hold; from whence the fuel is siphoned off into the ship’s tanks – more spillage.

On this trip I was accompanied by my friend Mike Edmund, otherwise known as Zoo. We were off to Trinidad to do what everyone else does: buy stuff. Bring your own foam, cooler and sleeping bag; and find whatever space on deck that looks reasonably clean. Correction: whatever space that isn’t absolutely filthy and covered in oil. Fortunately, the seas that night were calm, which made our sleeping quarters (i.e. the deck) a fairly pleasant night under the stars – apart from the brief shower at two o’clock in the morning. We all crowded into the companionway, waiting bleary-eyed for the squall to pass; then headed back out to our appointed spots on deck. Apart from the constant smell of diesel fuel, which fills your nostrils and impregnates every item of clothing, you can get a fairly decent night’s sleep.

We awoke to the beautiful sight of the northern range of Trinidad, looming in the distance. Approaching Port-of-Spain you thread your way through the islands of the Bocas, plus dozens of man-made obstacles: ships at anchor, oil rigs plus any numbers of passing craft in the water. We passed close by Carrera Island Prison, Trinidad’s own version of Devil’s Island. It’s only half mile from the shore but the waters are said to be shark infested. Right on cue, we passed close by a huge shark in the water soon afterwards. Last year a prisoner escaped, a real bad john; they caught him 9 months later. We docked at the CARICOM wharf at 9:00AM, squeezing in between Ocean Princess and a Vincy boat; grimy, grubby but happy!

With all Trinidad’s oil money, downtown Port-of-Spain has changed out of all recognition: there are new skyscrapers galore! The enormous fast ferry to Tobago, T&T Spirit, swept majestically past us on her way into PoS; while her opposite number was just heading out in the other direction. Added to that are the four 300-passenger capacity water taxis that ply the PoS-San Fernando sea route, and Trinidad and Tobago is well served by way of water transportation.

By comparison with the journey southbound, where the vessels are almost empty, for the northbound leg they are all loaded to the gills, with an assorted cargo of soft drinks, steel rods, building materials, foodstuffs, gas bottles, car parts, diapers and practically everything else that Grenada imports from our industrialized giant to the south. Sleeping space on deck is always a valuable commodity on the return trip. By this time I had realized that the alternator for my Pajero was never going to be re-wound by Reno’s Electrical in time to make the return trip on the boat, so I decided to extend my trip and fly back. Of course that could never be a simple process; and after one hot sweaty morning tramping up and down Wrightson Road from the CARICOM Wharf to the Immigration Department and back – several times – I finally got my treasured visa extension; and my passport back. Zoo was returning with the boat on evening – or so he thought.

After several delays, Zoo’s boat eventually sailed for Grenada at around nine PM. By ten it was back in port. The steering gear had broken; they wouldn’t be going anywhere that night. Zoo had to sweet talk the security guard into letting him out for the night, because technically he hadn’t re-cleared into Trinidad. The following morning, repairs were made to the boat’s steering gear; and Zoo finally sailed for Grenada at around 2:00 on Friday afternoon. Bon voyage et bon chance, mon ami!

In the overall realm of possibilities, this was a fairly benign breakdown; there are many horror stories of the things that can go wrong at sea. In one infamous voyage, a Grenadian vessel broke down midway between Trinidad and Grenada. The boat drifted slowly south-westwards for three days, until they washed up on the shore of Isla Margarita, Venezuela. Where they were all promptly arrested – for entering the country illegally! This sparked an “international incident” which wasn’t resolved until Grenada sent another boat to pick up its stranded citizens.

In another breakdown, both passengers and crew ran out of food, and had to break into the cargo in search of sustenance – where all they found was Crix crackers and Coke! After three days drifting at sea they thought salvation was at hand, when a Trinidadian Coast Guard vessel discovered them and took them under tow. But their elation was short-lived, as the Coast Guard towed them only as far as a nearby oil rig; tied them alongside, and left them to their own devices! After another Crix and Coke day on the oil rig; they were finally rescued by another vessel sent from Grenada.
It’s a tough old life, on the Caribbee Sea!

© October 2014, S. Brian Samuel
Stevenbriansamuel@gmail.com

The World’s Most Uncelebrated Holiday

Today is Grenada’s own version of Thanksgiving Day; when a nation doesn’t celebrate what it wants to forget

An American university professor, upon leaving the office on Friday evening, and remembering that the following day was a national holiday, cast a parting remark to his Grenadian colleagues:

“Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!”

He later described their reaction:

“My God! They all just glared at me, and nobody said a word. Talk about a non-reaction!”

That’s what you get in Grenada, when you bring up the subject of October 25^th, 1983: people don’t want to talk about it. Especially to foreigners. It’s not an episode that Grenadians (of a certain age) want to remember, let alone celebrate. However, October 19^th is a different matter altogether. The tragic events of that day are seared into Grenada’s national consciousness, a cataclysm that shook Grenada to its foundations.

For the few who don’t know; just six days prior to the US intervention/invasion/rescue mission call it what you will, Grenada’s four-year experiment in revolutionary socialism came to a sickening, bloody end. At the end of that tragic day, the country’s hugely popular (if unelected) Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop, and a still unknown number of his followers, were brutally gunned down by their former comrades in the People’s Revolutionary Army. The Revo had devoured its own. For good, bad or evil; October 19^th 1983 is a day that Grenadians will never forget. It was our darkest hour; certainly within living memory.

So no one was particularly surprised when America invaded Grenada, just before dawn on 25^th October 1983; the only surprise was the speed with which it happened. This was a result of a happy coincidence: an amphibious task force just happened en route from North Carolina to Lebanon, when they got a call to head south and clean up a little trouble in a place called Grenada Where’s that? They really did only have tourist maps, and the combat stories depicted in “Heartbreak Ridge”, Clint Eastwood’s low-key movie about Operation Urgent Fury, really did happen. As an aside: who in the US military comes up with those corny Doctor Strangelove-era “secret” code names? Urgent Fury, Shock and Awe; what next: Sh*t and Piss?

Of course the inevitable happened: Goliath won. Not as quickly or painlessly as Big G would have liked, but win they did. And indeed, Grenada was the poster child for the grateful natives – we couldn’t shower our American liberators with more genuine kindness and gratitude than we did. Thank-you Reagan murals spontaneously appeared on walls, bemused American GI’s accepted the gushing appreciation of an entire nation: young and old; male and female; young and female.

Mind you, by the time the liberators had landed, the entire nation – collectively and individually – was still reeling from the emotional trauma of the past six days. If Martian soldiers had landed that morning, they would have been feted as conquering heroes, and Grenada would now have a lot of half-Martians walking around today. On that first Thanksgiving Day, which the American soldiers were celebrating, people of Grenada spontaneously warmed to the idea, and in a touching display of appreciation, showered the soldiers with a Grenadian version of a Thanksgiving dinner[1], in villages and beaches throughout the island. Our local leaders, latching onto a good thing, declared that henceforth, October 25^th would be celebrated as “Thanksgiving Day” – essentially saying: Thanks America, for freeing we.

Fast forward 31 years, and what do we have? This most moribund of holidays; a speech here and there; bored politicians trotting out well-worn phrases. Basically, it’s just another day off – which this year falls on a Saturday, dammit.

Really, isn’t it about time we did away with this fawning foolishness? Judging by the lack of reaction or any kind of connection that this holiday has with “the masses”, one really has to say: this is a meaningless holiday. Hey, we all like another day off, but if we want to have a holiday with meaning; how about we just move the date up just a little – to 19^th October. And how about we change the name, to something like Remembrance Day? Something that means something. For good or bad, 19^th October is a date that is loaded with Grenadian historical significance; and it strikes me that this would be more appropriate for some national reflection and soul-searching; than on the day that the invasion came. When a still unknown number of Grenadians and Cubans died; when an also unknown number of mental patients died when they were bombed by mistake. That’s something to celebrate? Instead, let us remember and reflect upon the chain of events that got us to that sad state of affairs; and affirm that such a tragedy will never be repeated in Grenada; that we will never again will we put dogma before life.

© October 2014, S. Brian Samuel

Stevenbriansamuel@gmail.com

[1] http://www.legion.org/magazine/217617/thanksgiving-grenada