Book.1 El Gringito
Book 1. El Gringito
I don’t think that Norris ever came back to the house at 252 B Bournfield, I think Larry and Lonnie stayed with Tina, and Mud was out of “The Crazy Wall” for only a few days before we were evicted… There had been trouble with the management of VICORP, (our landlord) ever since Mud’s boss at VICORP, Mr. Gray (a wonderful dynamic African American working in the Islands) had been killed piloting his National Guard Jet off Puerto Rico.
One of the crazy and crazy making things about racial prejudice is that you don’t always know when it’s present and poisoning the water, or if a goat just fell in the well by accident. Trying to figure it out each and every time something occurs can really skew your view and tie your head in knots…
Additionally, in Mud’s case, there was the complicating factor of prejudice against a white woman, (by blacks) and a white woman married once, twice, thrice, to black men, (by whites and blacks) and the jealousy and power playing (by other women) and economic manipulation with her compliance and sexual favors as the goal. (by men in general)
But I was 16, and although I was sure I “knew sumpin’ in the world” I was basically oblivious to the real real…
All I knew was that I didn’t know what would happen next.
Norris and Mud, rented a one room, room in a local rooming house up behind Denton’s Bar in “Hospital Grounds”. Larry and Lonnie were to stay with Tina, Gale was in the states, and I was……wella wella wella…
Mud still seemed shell shocked and zombified (in retrospect, rather than Obeah or Voodoo, it was more likely psych meds) and while I was fairly familiar with dramatic crisis by now, this felt like a big one and serious. It was crazy
I was 16, I had moved 26 times, already in my life, but this was the very first time that I had to move alone, and I had no money and I had no place to go..
I didn’t know what the heck Mud was thinking…
Now that I am among other things, a well trained and skilled drug and alcoholism counselor, “Clinical Therapist” even, (as was my job description at “Next Step” a special inpatient treatment program for medical and legal professionals, Doctors, including Psychiatrists, Lawyers Nurses and Dentists, In Hattiesburg Mississippi) I could offer a variety of jargon laden diagnoses, subject to 40 different interpretations, by any 3 good Psychologists, however..
So I went to see Larry and Lonnie, they were beautiful and loving little boys, and we hugged and kissed. I remembered that Mud had suggested I ask the Morciglios (Anibal’s family) if I could stay with them, but the Morciglios were crowded into a little wooden house somewhere out in the East End, and even if I could discover where, I was much too proud to ask.
I walked down to the waterfront to look at the beautiful harbor and the sea…
After thinking about things for a while, a long while, I decided that I would live in town and I would sleep on the roof top right next to “Sebastians On The Waterfront” a happening nightclub.
The Marty Clark Trio with Jon Lucian singing would be providing the music, my girl friend Patty’s parents had a gift shop on Droningens Gade and…anyway…
To make a long story short, by the fifth or sixth night I stood up at 3AM and started hitch hiking east.
It was a little wood house on the hillside just above and to the right of Daddy’s Bar, on the road to Red Hook. It was locked and completely dark and quiet. I scouted around and found Anibal and (his slightly older brother) Papoun’s room. I climbed in the open window and lay down on a pile of laundry and went to sleep. When morning came, I was warmly greeted by all, absorbed and included in the family activities with no questions asked. I am almost in tears 50 years later just thinking about it. I think they would have begun to get insulted if I had waited any longer before showing up. Now, In fact I am in tears.
The Morciglios were not a namby pamby family, They had come to St. Thomas by way of St. Croix and to St. Croix from Ensenada, an little mountain town in Puerto Rico. Morciglio was a Portuguese name and once you knew that, you recognized the short powerful muscular frame of the males in the family. Mrs. Morciglio, on the other hand was all Borenquenia, the magical mix that seems uniquely Puerto Rican and produces some of the most beautiful women in the world.
There were three such in the family, Nellie, (Mrs. Morciglio), 18 year old Dolores, and 13 year old Francis (Panchie) the baby of the family. Their beauty was tempered by toughness and what seemed like never ending hard times… Much of that resulted from the fact that Mr. Morciglio had alcoholism, meaning that if and when he drank, his basic physiological responses made it very difficult for him to stop. And since every man in the society was fully expected and encouraged to drink, consequently, life was a lot of “stop start” or more accurately, start drinking, create wreckage, struggle to stop drinking, repair wreckage, start drinking, and so on.
So things were rough but they were ready.
Up with the dawn, the radio trumpeting the immediate and up to date news and scandals from Puerto Rico, en Espaniol, which was all we spoke there at home. (I had learned Spanish living in Puerto Rico, and Mrs. Morciglio (Nellie) and Mr. Morciglio (Juan) and the whole family got a kick out of helping me stay sharp in it) Every one out side by the cistern splashing faces and other places, breakfast was tea and French bread and then into the back of the truck for Anibal, Papoun and I, and off to work with Mr. Morciglio.
He was a “Practical Engineer” meaning, he was self taught. He was an electrician, a plumber, a builder, a solution finder and fixer of all things needing to be found or fixed; He was a wise, kind and gentle but very tough hombre.
A year or two earlier hard times had hit and during the “repair cycle” the family was living in an all but abandoned dirt floored carriage stable, right next to “Buck Hole” an old Charlotte Amalie slum notorious for desperate and violent, people and activities.
One afternoon, I happened to be visiting and helping to rewire a number of small electrical motors. Mr. Morciglio asked Anibal, Papoun and I to go to the ice plant nearby to get a small block of ice.
In order to get to the ice plant and back, we would have to cross the “mechanics yard” of a very large “red” fellow (Red in this case means the gent was a “light skinned” person of “high”color (almost yellow) but his pigmentation leaned intensely towards the red side of the color wheel) Custom held that people of “high” color were often mean but anyone with his degree of red coloration were ultra mean.
Apparently this big red fellow believed what they said about him because he was the meanest thing going, with the possible exception of the very tough, very muscular, racist named “Cannibal” that was “one of his boys” (we knew Cannibal from other times and places and he was very scary) The really big mouthed “junior” red guy that may have been his son, and the three wild eyed dogs snapping at everything that moved.
We had to pass there, and we knew we were in for an unpleasant time doing it. We were right. We got through to the power plant, got the ice and now had to go back. We had no alternative; we had to pass there… Anibal and Papoun, caught verbal hell for being Puerto Ricans, and I for being a schupid skunt and a white man, but the most abusive threats were saved for Mr. Morciglio. The big red fellow insisted that we go and tell him that he was going to “mash him up” and “Broke up he ass” and show him “who is de boss aroun’ here” if we or he, ever dared to try to cross this yard again.
When we told Mr. Morciglio what had happened, he very calmly picked up his electricians folding “hook knife” put it in his pocket, and headed directly for the yard.
We were scared to death, but we couldn’t let him go alone, so we stumbled along side trying to talk him out of it. The big red fellow and his bullies came blustering and threatening towards us immediately, Mr. Morciglio (who at five feet four seemed half his size) walked directly up to them and said “We’re here and now what are you going to do”
The moment the big red guy put his hand on him, Mr. Morciglio swept his own hand out of his pocket, flipping open the hook knife, and holding the blade and inch from the point he began slicing X’s all across the front of the bad guy. In an instant he had the big red meanie flat on his back, Cannibal and the other tough guy watched in astonishment as flabbergasted by the action as we were. Blood was every where and the big red fellow had his hands out pleading “ah give up” “ah give up”. Mr. Morciglio could easily have killed him, and he knew it. We all knew it. I saw an attitude change at depth come over the big red guy.
Mr. Morciglio reached out his bleeding hand and helped him to his very shaky feet, and it was over.
Except for the fact that we all had to go to the ER where both men received many many stitches.
They left the ER with their arms around each others waists, now unbelievably friends for life,
Holding the blade of the knife with his bare fingers while they fought, to prevent the knife from cutting too deeply or puncturing any arteries or organs, resulted in serious cuts to Mr. Morciglio’s hand, we nursed his hand along for weeks, but he felt that it was worth it.
I have never seen anything quite like that before or since. There is no doubt that the big red bully man was changed forever by that very violent encounter. Even Cannibal and Junior became friendly with us, we have been “alright with them” from then til’ now.
Still, to this day, It boggles my mind.
In any case, I was at home with the Morciglio family, In addition to expressing my gratitude for the the protective treatment that Gale and I recieved while on our own in Puerto Rico at 10 and 11/2, years of age, El Gringito is my attempt to express my gratitude and appreciation to The Morciglios for their unfailing kindnesses to me.
El Gringito
When I was a boy in the streets of Puerto Rico, people
You were good to me
When I was a boy, and I had no family people
You were good to me.
You said,
Meida el gringito,
Cuida el gringito,
Bendito el gringito
From the islands of the virgins, to the edge of El Fangito
Por la calle de San Juan
Por la calle de Santurce, y por aja por la Loiza people
You were good to me
You said,
Meida el gringito,
Cuida el gringito,
Bendito el gringito
Recitation…
Senor y Senores, nunca puedo olvidar lo que tu haceste por me
Las estrellas de mi joventude
Te debo por un idea de un mundo unido, por un idea que todos nosotros somos hermanos, por mi esperiansas de amor
Te debo mi gracias, te mando mi Corazon.
You were good to me.
When I was a boy in the streets of Puerto Rico, people
You were good to me
When I was a boy, and I had no family people
You were good to me.
You said,
Meida el gringito,
Cuida el gringito,
Bendito el gringito
You were good to me, you were good to me,
you were good to me, people you were good to me
Of course I recognize in retrospect that Mud also (along with just about every other adult in our immediate lives) had alcoholism, and that what we lived in and experienced as “real life” were in fact predictable symptoms of an ongoing and worsening alcoholic progression. towards a “bottom”. But we were “innocent consumers” and didn’t know this stuff yet…
Book 1. The Birthday Party
The Birthday Party…
Today is the day that my brother Lonnie (The Great Tanasha) “thought” was his birthday.
Things fell apart completely when Lonnie and Larry were still very young (4 and 6 respectively) and one of the many things that went by the wayside for Lonnie was which day was his birthday.
When the fit hits the shan you had to hold on to any thing you wanted to save, like “who’s your daddy, what’s, your name, Habla Ingles?, which grade are you in, where did you sleep last night, and your birthday. But Lonnie didn’t know that and any way he was only four” when the fit really hit the shan bigtime.
Larry, Lonnie, Mud, Anibal (Chicki) and I were living at 252 B Bournefield, with her new husband Norris Wilson, fortunately, Gale was in the states. Anibal was a friend also from Bournefield who lived with us much of the time because of difficult circumstances at his own family’s pad.
Norris was a Jamaican from Montego Bay, who had come up to The V.I.. looking for work. He was an accountant and the Hotels were always looking for people with bookkeeping skills. Norris was also quite a good dancer, a romantic letter writer and a heavy drinker. He was subject to very dark moods in which he would sit alone in the kitchen rocking back and forth with his head in his hands crying while he listened to Clyde McPhatter’ “Lovers Question”. We got along fairly well until one night in 1961, it was perhaps his 39 or 40th Birthday
Mud and Norris had decided to have a “Birthday Party”, they got some rum and invited Norris’s friend “Ed” a fairly jolly hardworking fellow also from Jamaica, and Philippe a very sweet painfully shy Spanish fellow who stuttered to the point of complete unintelligibility in two languages. Philippe stocked shelves at Happy View, the little shop just up the road.
The other guests were Mud, my friend Tutsie, Anibal (who as I said, lived with us) and me. Larry and Lonnie had been put to bed and were sound asleep by party time.
Why that short a guest list, I don’t know, why those two fellows? My guess is Ed because he was Norris’s only friend from home, and Philippe because he was not a threat to Norris where Mud was concerned.
Tuts and Anibal and I were 15 but had been drinking like, and with adults since we were 13 years old. It was not unusual in the islands for that to be the case. We drank together, here there and everywhere many times before.
If white folks are describing someone they might say well, she has blond hair and brown eyes or blue eyes, in the islands, folks referred to skin color or tone in very much the same way. The expression “a little lighter than me or a little darker than me”, is often an important part of describing someone. While talking to Norris and the rest of the guests, I (who was fairly tan) said in describing someone “he’s a little darker than me” and in an instant or less Norris had flipped his wig. He grabbed one of the living room chairs and swung it up over his head and then brought it crashing down on mine. Screaming all the time “you is a F**king white man! You is a F**king white man! Wha de F**k you know about that!”
The back of my noggin was split and streaming blood, Mud was screaming “Oh My God”. While I was trying through the dizziness to identify some sort of face saving response, Philippe (with no stutter in his thinking) had the presence of mind to fly through the front door, down the road and into the night.
As Mud and them, rushed me into the bathroom to get a look at the damage, a raging Norris showed up waving a foot long carving knife, and screaming “Ah gon kill im! Ah gon kill im!” In that instant Tuts slammed the bathroom door and flipped the eyehook. The knife came flashing through the door jamb and started slamming up and down against the hook. In two seconds it was undone. I was still stunned and stupidy and thinking I should fight, but Tuts (with his whole body flung against the door and keeping it from flying open) Anibal and Mud all flashed at once on the narrow little window high up on the wall above the tub, as the solution.
First Anibal flew up and grabbing the center post jammed himself through, then Mud climbed up and through (all this while Norris is flinging his six foot, 180 pound body against the door and bellowing as only the truly flipped out can) by now I had realized that this was what you call F**k City and if I didn’t want to get pummeled, sliced and stabbed to death in the next minute, I’d better get the F**k out of here too.
As I was up and on the way out, the last thing I saw was Norris come bursting through as Tuts literally flew, with one step on the tub, from the door up to and then through the window.
Now we were all out side, but only feet from the kitchen screen door, which is where Norris would be in moments. We turned and fled into the jungle, along a natural rain gut, and eventually came out of the bush close to Tuts’s house. Tuts’s Father Charles, kindly drove us all the the emergency room where six or eight stitches closed the wound.
However, there were no stitches to close the wound to Mud’s psyche and soul.
After we got back down to Tuts’s house, Mud asked if I could stay the night with them .They said yes and she and Anibal went back to Bournefield, he to his parents house (a comparative island of calm this night) and Mud went home. Norris was not there, Larry and Lonnie were somehow safe and asleep, and she contemplated her life.
In the morning Tina, the maid (yes we had a maid even though we were as poor as piss ants, she was needed to take care of Larry and Lonnie.) came rushing up to Tuts’s house to say that Mother had tried to kill herself, she had slit her wrists and blood was all over the place. Tina had found her and called the ambulance. As this was a school day, I had to decide, whether or not I would be attending classes, I thought perhaps not today,
I went down to the house, more than a little shook up and tried to formulate some idea of what the heck I was supposed to do next. I decided I’d better go see Mother and see what if anything I could do to help this situation. I, for whatever reason, put on my shades and my beret and the oddest mismatching shirt and pants that I could find and set out to the “crazy ward” to see my Mother. When I got there and was admitted to her room, the first thing that I noticed was that someone had “walked” footprints all across the ceiling. I didn’t get what kind of loco psychology that was, but then again, things are different in the Islands.
Me poor Mudder dear was so tired and so so sad. Her wrists were neatly wrapped in clean white bandages, which looked cool and crisp and were the only thing in the world that seemed to be down right orderly and under control
I told her that the boys were ok they were with Tina, at her house.
After a few moments, Mud asked me to go find Norris and tell him what had happened and where she was.
I must say it was a frightening prospect, I weighed 85 pounds and though I knew my self to be next to invincible, last night had put a small dent (or crack) in my confidence. However, I was very used to doing things that I was afraid to do, in those days, it was a way of life,
Mud thought that Norris might be staying with ED at a rooming house up in Savan
Savan was then, and is now, a classic 300 hundred year old West Indian ghetto. Tightly packed shanties, crowded by ancient wooden row houses with oddly tilted tin shacks containing a jukebox and some rum bottles in between, You walk in the middle of the street for your own safety. Everybody knew (and so did I) that with out debate, Savan was not a place for white people.
So I was feeling somewhat stressed as I searched deeper and deeper into Savan for Ed and the unknown rooming house. I was being given some sort of grudging respect for having made it this far. I did have my beret pulled down to my eyebrows, my collar turned up to my beret, and my super shades jammed on to seal the deal. I must say, in defense of proper and careful costuming, that while I was clearly a white boy, I was also clearly not a tourist, and obviously crazy.
Some bar flies recognized me as “the white juke box boy“ one of those kids who sang at the top of their lungs with our ears jammed up against the booming speakers while having our brains magnetically massaged and rewritten, at every opportunity by every juke box, in every juke joint around, And yes I had visited the juke boxes in more than half of these joints but that was different because, it was night, we were drunk, and as everybody knew, you were safe when you were singing
Still, it’s only God’s grace and the kind compassion of the broken hearted for the broken hearted, that got me to Ed’s door.
This is not cool, is what I was thinking, as I knocked on the door. Who’s there? And I said “It’s Scott” Ed opened the door quickly, and just behind him stood Norris, de steamed and deflated to the bone, freakin’ pitiful.
Ed saying “abba abba abba” as I spilled out my message and prepared to flee. Norris echoing “abba abba abba” and before you knew it we were in Ed’s car and headed for the hospital to see Mud.
Book 1. Hulahulacancan…
BOOK 1. Hulahulacancan…
Tanasha, was a beautiful child. Mud was in the hospital for over two months with toxemia and other complications.
Gale and I were teenagers by then and with no supervision (Howard was either nowhere to be found or in the VA hospital in Puerto Rico) we were all aver the place with all kinds of people at all hours of the night. Friends of Mothers would see us and send us home. But by the next night of course, we were at it again.
When Mud got back home, she observed that men and boys (but mostly men) were flocking around Gale like hungry seagulls (or in the case of the Islands, booby birds) absolutely no pun intended. The seagulls in St. Thomas are boobys, they roost on little Saba just off shore. But the ornithology is beside the point; the point is that Gale was creating quite a stir everywhere she went because she was such a knockout looking chick. (No bird pun intended here either)
In her sweet naiveté she was really killin’ em.
One morning (after she had gone out the window the night before and was caught by Mud) she put Mothers most spectacular cancan slip under her skirt (actually the thing had a hula hoop in the hem) and headed off to High School. (Gale and I had been the only white children in the public school system since the first grade, and her attractiveness was often remarked upon, other remarks about her were often directed to me, but that’s another story)
The first minor difficulty was in getting the hula hoop cancan extravaganza to fit through the bus’s front door. It wouldn’t. The only way in was to squeeze the skirt, Cancan and Hula-hoop together from the sides so that it approximated an upside down taco and completely exposed her fore and aft. I have never been so proud and relieved that someone else’s underwear was clean, as I was that morning. Starting with the popeyed google eyed bus driver and the popeyed google eyed market women already on the bus. Not to mention the hoard of popeyed google eyed children and male relatives who had materialized out of nowhere and were now determined to get on this bus also, no matter what. I am quite certain they would all have noticed even the tiniest smudge or tear, as there was simply no where for such a thing to hide.
I of course, would have liked to have been anywhere but there. It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to dive headfirst into the stone lined gutter, and pretend that I’d accidentally dashed my brains out. Diving beneath the wheels of the bus seemed like a good idea or alternativly in front of any passing car or truck. But in reality I knew in my soul, that I had a much higher calling, a much greater responsibility had been thrust upon me by my father in our last moments together in NYC. He’d said “It’s up to you now Scottie, You’re the man of the family now. You have to take care of your Mother and your sister. Don’t let anything happen to them no matter what”.
I knew that my job was to protect my sister from any untoward advances, glances, looks and remarks, that tripping and diving headfirst into the open gutter to pretend I was dead or unconscious would be cheating. Smacking the biggest, toughest popeyed googler so I’d be killed instantly was the cowards way out, and If I knew anything, I knew that I had to get and be, and stay cool. Cool and nonchalant until by the grace of a loving and merciful God, this day would be over. And that’s when the riot on a bus arrived at school, and she had to squeeze that skirt together and get off the bus, Oh my dear lord.
That was perhaps the first and only time ever, that I saw the tiniest flicker of compassion flash across the faces of even the most cruel, most racist bully boys in the school, as they realized my pitiful, pitiful situation. They knew that I, the skinny little white boy, was obliged to defend my sisters honor in any and all circumstances, but good God awmighty they knew that this one, this day, this one was a long gone, lost cause.
And then she had to walk up the up the stairs (we’re in the tropics the blasted stairs are all open and outside) to her second floor classroom and that is when the real riot began…
Fortunately we were only 20 or 30 feet from the principal’s office and all of the office staff came pouring out to see what was going on. When the principal got a look at Gale’s hiney wrapped in pink, just a few feet above her head and the popeyed google eyed screaming, pointing, panting, hooting, hollering, laughing, and lusting mob all around… she did the only thing that she could have done to solve the situation.
Remember that every student present at Charlotte Amalie High School that morning had been raised in an educational system that practiced strict and aggressive corporal punishment, Yard sticks and rulers across the noggin, whacks and whippings by the score, so when the popeyed google eyed principal bellowed “Whey me belt! Bring me, me belt!” Everyone knew what she was talking about and knew also, to run like hell.
In seconds there was only me standing helplessly down below and my big sister Gale red faced on the stairs in her clean pink undies. The Principal took the hulahulacancan, folded it in quarters and stuffed it into a paper bag. The ladies (The Principal and Mud) were remarkably restrained in their verbals, (Gale did catch high holy hell for ruining Mud’s fancy slip) but I suspect that they knew the lesson was learned, that Gale didn’t need any more talking to.
I guess you were supposed to know enough to wear a sack full of can cans under the hula hula slip. I’m glad I never went out with Mud while SHE was wearing that thing. Good Lord God Awmighty!
Gale began to see a Taxi driver named Dollars, Or rather, an adult (more than likely married, as is the custom among night prowling Taxi drivers) started parking outside and honking his horn until Gale came out to chat and kiss.
Shortly after this, Mud sent Gale up to the states to see if Frankie could rein her in. Gale was only 16, but she looked like Sophia Loren and Gina Lollabridgida rolled into one. Within a month she was dancing at the Lemon Twist Lounge in Miami. Her phony ID said that she was 21 year old Edie Isle; Gale was Edie, to fully half the people that knew her, for the rest of her life.
When I am in the Islands, no matter what the occasion, the question is always the same…”Whey Gale Meson, Whey Gale?” and the follow up question is always… “Boy, do you remember de day when…”
One of the truly great mysteries of life is how my beautiful wild child sister Gale, managed to hold on to her virginity until her wedding night. She said she did, and I believe her
Further, that she would grow up to be the essence of respectability, living quietly in Middletown Pennsylvania, where she raised two daughters and served as the President of the local friends of the library for over 25 years…
On that Edie thing, lemme say that Gale was known as Edie to fully a whole bunch of people, because another fairly large group knew her as simply “The Cat” which I will explain in time…
When Mud married Howard we moved from half of a little house, “owned by Frank Prince” at the bottom of “China Man Hill” (The more than semi-official address),To a house “dey by de numbah one hole and the numbah two tee” (also more than the semi-official address, and definitive directions) on the Herman E. Moore golf course.
This little house had been the original passenger terminal for the Pan AM clippers in the 30’s and 40’s before the military build “Bourne Field” the Marine Corp. airfield that would eventually become Harry S. Truman Airport and now Cyril King.
No doubt these are romantical sounding addresses to some of you, and while Gale and I did enjoy our physical surroundings and our exotic way of life, we were starving hungry 90 percent of the time.
It’s was like Mud had no concept of the priority of food in the house, or the priority of moola for children’s needs. I/we loved her, I/we knew that she loved us, but God awmighty, we were starving hungry, almost all the time. Further, our shoes almost always had one or more flapping soles, once the lady next door, out of pity, got Gale a new pair of glasses, as the ones she wore everyday were cracked and scotch taped in the most pitiful way.
That was when Gale and I learned to use water rather than milk on our breakfast cereal, and where we slipped in to the neighbor’s house to steal something to eat from her icebox.
The upside, is the local folks (adults and children) saw clearly that we were real, (rather than rich and privileged things that behaved in strange and unnatural ways) and were for the most part protective and compassionate towards us
.This is not to say that we got a pass from the racist comments and remarks causally and habitually directed towards whites and the local French people known as Frenchies. Cruel and hurtful names that stung and humiliated, (“White Rat!” “Stinking Whitey Cheese!” Cha Cha Balahoo!) Still, somehow we knew that this was tit for tat , because our own racist white people were so ever stinkin’ mean.
As we got older, we realized that all we had to do was look at the news to see what the latest wave of resentment would be related to, we could see it coming… I wondered, “Don’t these friggin’ white people know that when they do these cruel and crazy racist things that it reverberates through the world, and somewhere, someplace, kids like Gale and me catch hell for it”?
Congress Men, Senators, leaders of the free world! So called respectable, smart, good people, as stupid as sin. It was rough…
Anyway,
BOOK 1. Mud’s Birthday…Jazz Heaven…The Great Tanasha.
BOOK 1.
Mud’s Birthday
Today is my dear Mudder’s birthday, she died on November 17th 1977. She is alive in my heart. I miss her and I love her.
Mud was an identical twin, born in Green River Wyoming in 1924, that would have made her/them 89 today.
Lelia, ( Le-le ah) my Mother, and Lea, my Aunt, had a fairly rough time in their childhood, their Father. Frank Kelly, worked for the Union Pacific Railroad in Green River Wyoming, and after he lost his job in the depression, he stopped his car on the railroad tracks in front of an oncoming train. Why? Depression? Alcoholism and Depression? Ultrawackizoidism?
I have recently been given photographs of Mother and Lea when they were little girls and they are so beautiful and vulnerable looking. It breaks my heart. And I know that my heart-break is only the most distant echo of their own.. Dear God Awmighty what a thing.
Mud and Lea graduated from high school and left home at 16. They moved together to Washington DC to go to secretarial school. They had been living in Kansas City and were musically, pretty hip girls. In Washington, they gravitated towards the Jazz scene and in that scene, Lelia met a good-looking young tenor player from New York, Frankie Fagan. They fell in and poof! Little Abigail was born. By then the four jazz babies (Lelia, Lea, Abigail and Frankie) were in Chicago, and shortly after, New York.
Frankie was born in Harlem in 1921 to a 21-year-old barroom singing orphan girl, from Scotland by the name of Sally (or maybe Sadie, we don’t know) Travis.
His biological father was a married small time Irish politician from the Bronx whose name was Frank Galvin. Galvin denied that the child was his. An Irish longshoremen by the name of Fagan came forward an offered to marry Sally so that her child would have a name. Sally died on welfare island of tuberculosis at 26, leaving little Frankie with no one to take care of him.
The Christian Brothers took him in as a charity case. But Frank Galvin’s mother wouldn’t stand for it. She brought him home to raise him in her apartment in The Bronx. Her oft-repeated statement to her own son was “Of course he’s your kid, you stooopid! Look at him!”
She was a hundred caret character herself having grown up as one of eight in a candy store in Hells Kitchen. Her Irish Mother had been a Novice Nun in the convent of “The Little Sisters of Charity” in New Orleans, her father was a sailor from Marseilles, working as the Convents gardener. They fell in love and fled the convent for Hells Kitchen , where they had eight children and ran an old-fashioned New York City candy store.
My gather Frankie spent the greater part of his life trying to be accepted by his father Frankie and his family. He had his name changed legally to Galvin in his mid forties and gained some acceptance from his brothers later on in life.
He was always after me to change my name to Galvin but there was not one chance in hell that I would change my name to the name of a man who was so scared of his wife that he would deny his own child. Of course that kind of righteous, self-righteousness can come back on you in many ways, and of course, it does, it do, and it has..The question of name changing was a sensitive issue for me well before the Galvin tangent.
Mother eventually married eight times, and I would have been Scott Fagan, Smith, Hodge, Lindqvist, Wilson, Somethingoranother, and Somethingotherorother, McTiernan, Galvin. It happens though, that the name “Fagan” (which I thought was my father’s name and connected me no matter what, to my “real” father), was often the only thing that I had to hold on to in the world.. I was so unhappy to hear this bs about changing my name to Galvin after all that I had gone through to hold onto and to “be” Scott Fagan.
I was born on to Jazz Heaven (West 52nd street) in what they say was an exceptionally good year for Jazz and Jazzing. 1945. Frankie was up and down playing with his heroes Lester Young and Chu Berry, and with another singer who had struggled with the name Fagan, Billie (Eleanor Fagan) Holiday. Gale was baptized at St. Malachi’s (The Actors Chapel) on West 49th Street. Dizzy Gillespie was her Godfather.
My first conscious memory is standing in a hospital crib at 2 years old, watching Mother, Frankie and my sister Gale walking away and leaving me. I could not understand why they were going and why they wouldn’t take me with them. It had never happened before and I just couldn’t understand it. I was so sad. (However, I would have been a lot more than sad, if I had known what was coming next. I was there for surgery to repair an un-descended testicle) I then remember riding the bus uptown in Frankie’s arms and coming home to our hep “Jazz baby” basement apartment.
Shortly after that, Mud and Lea and Gale and I, moved up to 82nd east of Amsterdam, and Frankie wasn’t around as much anymore. 82nd Street became a real “Jazz baby” pad. I remember the living room furniture was nothing but stripey mattresses all over the place (I’ve since learned the stripey stuff is called “Ticking”) and Mud had some pants and shirts made of the same material. It seemed like it was party time all the time. Jugs of wine, Jazz and jive talk The joint was “swinging” and Gale and I of course, were often on our tippy toes peeking out of our cribs to see what was going on.
When not peeking at the party, We spent a lot of time sitting on folding chairs at the modern dance studio watching Mother and Lea (and lots of other young women) in black leopards doing variations on a Swahili fertility dance, or Martha Graham movement exercises.
Alternatively, we spent a lot of time sitting on folding chairs in rehearsal halls where Frankie (and lots of other young men) were doing their variations on the latest be bop riffs. It was all very interesting for two or three minutes and then…but Gale and I were very well-behaved, and well-mannered “good little children” I don’t know why, we just were.. (but stuff like that takes it to the limit)
How I wish that I could sit there and watch it all again, not only because they are all gone now and I miss each of them and would love the opportunity to be with them in any context, but also because I’m much more interested in the dance and the Be Bop than I was, and I would be intrigued and excited by it all. I would love to say Wow Mud that was beautiful, or Wow Pop, that was amazing!, or Wow Gale what a wonderful girl and a wonderful sister you are..
I miss them each, and spent nowhere near enough time listening to who they really really were (although I will argue that at one time or another I feel who each of them really really were, in me, in the way I feel) it’s very odd to be in the world without them. Though we were never really a family under one roof, we were. We are connected in a deep and timeless way. I hope they knew how much I loved and love them.
I feel like I did when they left me there alone in the Hospital, except this time they didn’t all leave at once and I know, they didn’t go on purpose.
And now Dejavu all over again today (next day) is my brother Lonnie’s Birthday (Mahlon Lindqvist) aka “The Great Tanasha” or simply “Beloved”. He would have been 49 he died at 43.. He is buried in the Cemetery directly across from the recording studio, in a grave that waits for its stone. God willing, “it soon come”
Lonnie is the second of two children that Mother had with Howard Lindqvist, Howard was the only son of Mahlon Sr. and Grace Lindqvist. The Lindqvist family (at that time) was one generation removed from greatness and one generation ahead of losing it all. They were the wavy haired, golden skinned, golden children of the Cinnamon Bay Plantation and the House on America Hill, on the Island of St. John.
Mahlon Sr. had fallen from a horse as a young man sustaining a chronic injury that manifested as a bent back and hunched shoulders, on the other hand, his brother Louis Lindqvist, was a tall dashing fellow with long streaming white hair. Louie looked for all the world like a bronze Buffalo Bill or a Kentucky fried, Colonel Sanders. Larger than life Louie, owned the Ford dealership in St. Thomas.
Louie had two children, a son Ken and a daughter June,
Mahlon Sr. had two children, a son Howard and a daughter Dorothy.
Somehow the family’s extensive land holdings (actually an enormous ranch) on the east end of St. Thomas (a stones throw across the channel from St. John) were in the hands of Louie and his children, while a respectable three-story Danish brick house in town was what Mahlon had to hold and where he and his children lived.
Louie’s daughter June became a spinster librarian, at the Edith Baa Public Library in Charlotte Amalie, and her brother Ken an egomaniacal alcoholic who first ran the dealership into the ground and then actually lost every square inch of dust that had been the Lindqvist families pride and joy. (Ah..I hesitate to say it, but after Ken was no longer my “Uncle” we actually became good friends)
Howard, was also an egomaniacal alcoholic with nothing to run into the ground but his potential as a graduate of Howard University (where I thought I would go when I grew up) with a degree in Civil Engineering and his reputation as a human being capable of delivering a full days work. . (Ah..I hesitate to say it, but after Howard was no longer my “Father”, we actually became good friends)
Howard spotted Lelia in her bikini at “The Lindbergh Bay Beach Club” and made a bet with his friends that he could “get the white woman”. He may also have known that Mud was already.. at that moment, married to his next door neighbor Jerry Hodge. Jerry was a very cheerful finger clicking younger fellow who played the squeeze box, ah..ok, Accordion, Gale and I liked him well enough for having seen him only once or twice before they married. At the time, Jerry was away in the army.. (Mud had married Jerry perhaps a year earlier, and Jerry had gone off to “get his education” in the service.)
Jerry was stationed in Georgia and being trained as a cook. One day in the kitchen, Jerry (who was very dark-skinned) whipped out this photograph of his white wife and children back in the Islands (Mother and Gale and I) a southerner soldier, freaked out and threw a meat cleaver at Jerry’s head. When Mud first told Gale and I what had happened, I remember thinking to myself “Boy, why would he do something like that?” .
I vaguely remember meeting Howard, he was just one of many who flocked to Mother whenever she showed up wherever..he just seemed like another insincere bs artist trying to impress her. I guess he did because before we know it, Mud was asking Gale and I whether we thought she should marry Jack (her current boy friend) or Howard.
I think Gale and I were caught a bit off guard, she had already married twice since Frankie, without consulting us (While we were living on 82nd Street Mud had gotten married to a fellow by the name of “Jack Smith” a “war hero” with a drawer full of combat medals and beautiful silk ribbons). They got married at the “Manhattan Towers” a hotel on the West side at 76th and Broadway, made famous by a suite of romantic music by the same name.
It was a big to do..after the festivities, Gale and I were sent up to Connecticut to stay with his Mother and her big licky, scratchy, hairy, scary dog (In fairness, I have to say that after the hospital event, I was scared of everything, but most especially, thunder and big licky scratchy, hairy, scary dogs) in her trailer, while they went away to honeymoon. Shortly after, it came to light that Jack Smith, was a big fat liar,..ah I mean a pathological liar, and that poor Mud had been had, her money and her love.
Nevertheless when she was asking our opinion on who she should marry this time, I distinctly remember thinking, “why is she asking us, certainly she knows what to do about these things”..We didn’t have much time to make up our minds so because we knew Jack, and he had taught us how to play poker, we said Jack. To us, Howard was just another insincere guy being nice to her at the beach.
In retrospect, I think that Mud just deep down fully believed that if you were intimate with someone, you were obliged to marry them.
Needless to say, Mud divorced Jerry, jumped over Jack, and married Howard. (Jack would later marry Muds’s twin sister Lea, and stay with her the rest of their lives…However, Lea had no bed of roses with Jack as evidenced by the fact that after moving from St. Thomas to Jamaica, to New Orleans, they lived in Vegas for over 20 years and their ashes are buried under the infield at The Delmar Racetrack, in Delmar, California. Yep.
BOOK 3. “Look yu Muddah De”
BOOK 3. Look yu Muddah De
Go Go Carnival is “done” one pass for the rhythm and one for the lead. The Sugar Apple is next, first pass, the “under rhythm” is done, the “over rhythm” is next.. and just that quickly they are done. (Jeff’s parts that is).
The car is wobbling as if it has a flat, I pull into a gas station to take a look, no flat. Maybe it’s gone out of alignment (perhaps as a result of hitting one of the potholes under the care of the Dept of Historical Preservation)
We Have a long and somewhat glorious history with pot holes here in the Virgin Islands, starting with what is believed to be our first pot hole, best known as “fus hole”.
This is the pot hole that Governor Gregory Von Hasselbum disappeared into along with his horse and carriage en route to his fifth inaugural Ball in 1763- (interestingly there were a flurry of sightings of struggles in the hole in 1944 and people thought the Governor might still be trying to climb out so they threw in another half ton of crushed “blue bitch” granite, but that was also around the time that the US Naval Administrator for the Islands riding in a ten ton truck filled with drunken racist swabs, had disappeared, so it could have been them too).
In either case the blue bitch filler as usual, was gone within a week and “old reliable” was back as hungry as ever. Of course fus hole is only one of thousands, vying for and worthy of landmark status.
We should have a pothole map we could sell thousands and make millions, but not only that, folks would then be able to travel from lets say WISCONSIN directly to the pothole wherein their vacationing families were known to have disappeared (or in official parlance, “last seen close to near by the general area which may include the approximate vicinity of”) which is more in keeping with the official policy which is to absolutely deny that any pothole could be responsible for the disappearance of any visitor”
You will notice however (or if you didn’t, please do so now) that the policy refers only to visitors, as it is well-known even to those Government officials who are paid good money to be in and stay in denial no matter what, that “De Sly Mongoose” a taximon of dubious reputation absolutely did disappear into the huge hole known as “Look yu Muddah De.”
That one was all over the papers because he was actually found (if only for a few moments) the Dept of Historical Preservation pot hole gang that fished him up, concluded that not only was he riddled with bullet holes but that he was so sufficiently “ripe” that he needed to be buried immediately so they applied the bluebitch balm, (in his case approximately one ton)
A good and fancy pothole map would also save lots and lots of hassle for local folks too. Do you have any idea how many times a day local people are accosted by anxious and even irate state siders describing their relatives and demanding that we stop what we are doing to find the dear disappeared?
Lets see..”He’s got a big fat belly and he was wearing a straw hat with a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts and somekinda flipflops, she was wearing her shortshortshorts the ones that her hiney hangs out of, with sun blocker all over her face and somekinda brassiere like halter top and flipflops the kids, Sammy and Chartreuse were dressed all in black Sammy’s t shirt said FU*K YOU in big letters across the front and back and hers said “YEAH!! WHAT HE SAID..DOUBLE”
First of all, local folks don’t really understand why any one would want to find people like that, and secondly, it is a well-known fact (to every one but white folks) that all white people look the same, so how in the world would anyone know, saying someone WAS found, WHO it was that was found, anyway? You certainly couldn’t go by who they claimed to be because as everyone anywhere in the Islands knows, you can’t believe a WORD white people say..
In spite of all that, because everyone’s entire familial economics depends on a steady stream of happy (though indistinguishable ) visitors, we have come to accept the crazy idea that it is our responsibility to make sure they stay happy.
Consequently, We are all looking, pretty much all the time, all over the place for them. Did I mention that we never know if we found one of them because they are all over everywhere anyway. In front of you in back of you, one side, de next side, up down, all over the place..! And did I mention, you can’t believe a ting’ they say?
This whole idea of parading people through your house and home one after the next, by the millions and millions, every day including Christmas, Easter and New Years, hoping that you will be able to stimulate your own economy as they stagger by, is a little bit loco.
Every body knows that by the time The Cruise Ship lines, The Airlines, the Hotels Association The Credit Card Companies, The Main Street Merchants and The Havensite Mall Men, The V.I. Government, The Street Vendors and The Taxi Mon dem have had their way with a tourist, there is pitiful little left in their pockets for an honest citizen to pick.
In fact, (as you may know) there are many local families that have strange-looking white people walking around in and out of their houses with no where else to go. They have spent all their money and the collapse of everybody’s credit (which is what they’ve been living on for years) has left them stranded, or “castaways on this G’damn Island” (as the more romantically inclined are inclined to declaim)
However, there is nothing romantic about having 50 big belly white people standing in your kitchen, refusing to eat your good Boil fish and fungi and whining for Kentucky Fried Chicken or Burger King.You want to tell them to suck mosquito, but you can’t because you have to be nice, because everybody’s economics depends on and so forth..In fact I know for a fact, that more than one visitor has intentionally (sometimes with a little help) dived? diven? doved? leaped headfirst into “the hole of no return” hoping to find a McDonald’s on the way down, and that his life insurance payout would be enough to get the rest of the family back to the states and good Judeo-Christian living.
Which reminds me of a local lady known as Gulping Vidalia. They say that Gulping Vidalia is herself responsible for the disappearance of a minimum of 1,000 tourists. (mostly sailors) But wait! Before any howls are launched protesting an unflattering depiction of a native lady of color or a Lady Hispanic with the DNA of five continents in her hair, Don’t bother, she’s colorless. She’s what? Yep, And she’s not very happy about it either. Some people say that she’s an albino Portugee mix up wid a Carib, (and say that could account for the gulping part)
The fact is, I believe in flattering portraits and I will do my best to make this that. So..she has blond hair is as pale as a que ball and has the brightest pink eyes. Ok there it is! She’s a good lookin’ girl. We ought to decorate the pot hole map with pictures of gulpin’Vidalia!
BOOK 3. A Birthday…
BOOK 3. A Birthday…
Yesterday I fully realized and understood precisely why and how the best minds of ancient Greece, after centuries of the most serious inquiry and consultations concluded that the Gods made humankind, our suffering, our dashed dreams and disappointments, our wretched afflictions, our snot riddled grief, our eyeball popping, hair tearing, spittle soaked screeching, and soul wracking sobbings, just for laughs, just for their amusement and delight.
Yesterday was nothing but laughs. But today?
Jeff Medina “el maximo guitarra” (Of Trinidad and St. Thomas) is coming in from Las Vegas where he is gigging, to do leads on what we have managed to record to date. As I mentioned before, I am very disappointed with the quality of the recordings and I will have to find a way to redo many if not most of them.
I will have Jeff listen and select the ones that he thinks he can work with and we will move forward from there. I am on my way to the UVI library to see if there are any last-minute emails from Jeff before his flight is scheduled to leave Las Vegas. I’m scheduled to meet with Derrick at the studio at Eleven AM. We will be looking at what Dan has left us to work with in terms of tracks and track information and I will try to discover how we will proceed and with which engineer and so forth.
When I first imagined creating a musical of the “Virgin Island Songs” it occurred to me to utilize the original tracks from “Dreams Should Never Die” (The V.I. Songs VOL.ll) and I asked Dan (the co-producer and studio owner) to find them. He said that he would. I have checked with him all along the way about the progress and he has reassured me that he and his partner Derrick were steady on it.
At our first “production meeting” this morning, I asked Derrick if they had found the remaining tracks and was amazed to hear him say that he knows nothing at all about those tracks, and that he and Dan have never searched high OR low for the tracks, at all… ever.
Aside from the fact that Dan lied about this important element of the project, if some or all of them are lost, it throws into question the possibility of using those tracks at all. (Which in my mind is half of the score) this is a big big problem.
As the meeting went on, it came to light that Dan may not have left any tracking notes, or written information about what was what. That is extraordinary, and means that someone with the expertise to run the board and the recording program (a recording engineer) will have to sift (along with me) through everything that we’ve done to identify what is useless and ought to have been deleted during the recording process and what works.
We have fifteen additional songs, each consisting of many individual tracks (the drum tracks, snare, kick, tom tom, hi hat, and so forth, the Bass tracks, take one, take two, the Guitar tracks, the Iron, the Congas, the Guiro..The Vocals) the time that it will take to do this work is one thing, the out-of-pocket cost for the engineer, is another. These are dollars that Derrick does not have and neither do I.
I have made quite a serious mistake, in that I gave Dan all the money up front in exchange for his commitment to see the project through to completion. My understanding was that the studio was in trouble and our money would be very helpful. I was happy to do it. One, because I was so jazzed to have a working studio in St. Thomas and Two, I had a commitment from the studio to “see it through”. This kind of commitment from someone in the Islands has always meant hell or high water, shoulder to shoulder, til’ death do us part. And that is what I took the commitment to mean.
However, our off island friend is not grounded in these absolutes of local culture, and has his own cultural interpretation which in retrospect appears to make an absolute commitment conditional, and dependent on factors held secret until the shif hits the shan. Very disappointing development.
Derrick and the studio are in a tough situation, sinking in unpaid debt with at least five uncompleted projects.
I have been telling Dan and Derrick that Jeff is coming from Las Vegas for months and we were scheduled to start this morning, however, (not surprisingly) Derrick has been having arrhythmias and his Doctor has scheduled a stress test and then wants him to rest.
Jeff and I will go over what we have to work with this afternoon and start in the studio with Derrick tomorrow at 9AM. Additionally, Derrick’s wife is scheduled to give birth in two days.
Jeff’s arranged sleeping arrangements have fallen through, and we have spent the day looking for a place for him to stay, we have visited a number of hotels (five) and we are looking at a small boarding house out East called “25 Bolongo”. I smell “arroz con habichuelas” (rice and beans) con sofrito, in the air.
A smell that I know well because after all, I am “El Gringito De Las Virginas” It smells good good good and I’m wondering where it’s coming from when the nice “down de island woman” that we are transacting with, advises us that the only difficulty that Jeff might encounter could be the minor distraction caused by the number of young women also staying there.
A double handful of young women, that turn out to be the current batch of strippers and pole dancers from the notorious Club 75 in town.
We get a look at some of them hanging their wash on the clothesline outside, wash consisting of little more than soap suds, and perhaps a 1/4 ounce of hot tropical Day-Glo paint on a string and “wispy little gossamer dream halters”
Beautiful young calente Dominicanas, who look pretty sharp and pretty sharp. More than anything the impression is of zoftico y calente doctoral candidates. Any doubts that Jeff or I had about the suitability of the accommodation, has of course vanished. He takes the room, and I take my leave.
There is no sign of life at Tut’s house “Consuelo”, so I conclude that I had better see to something to eat. I’d like something wonderful considering that it’s my birthday and I’ve been completely broke for two weeks and today I have a little digit. For some reason I’m thinking rice and beans con Carne, with a little platano maduro and a big fat beso on the side, OR perhaps a plate full of good church picnic macaroni and cheese.
With that in mind I go into a local “Southern Fried Chicken” franchise at Nisky Center and having the opportunity to survey the menu for more than ten minutes (because of the length of the line) and time to reflect that in every single instance that I have bought stuff in this particular franchise, I’ve been completely disappointed, I actually turn around and leave.
This must be the first obvious benefit of becoming 64, because this pro-active discretionary behavior surprises the heck outta me. However, I can’t really give myself too many points, because everybody knows this particular outlet lost the Captain or Colonel’s magic recipe long ago, and even the poultry is suspect.
It’s almost universally accepted that most of these birds were drugged and dragged out of the pigeon flocks that populate the bus Plaza in Old San Juan.
I’m thinking that Tuts and Mary may have made some thing special, but they could also have been called away on a mission of some kind and I am starvin’ hungry. I don’t want to eat something and have had them waste their time, intention and food…so I get a cold cut sandwich and go back down the road. When I get home, I put the stuff in the fridge and go to see Tuts. He says that Mary had prepared something but that she is now stuck in a seminar at UVI…I am touched and want to hold off on eating so we can all eat together. She calls and insists that we go ahead, we do.
“Sandy The Bluenosed Reindeer” A Little Christmas Operetta!
Sandy The Bluenosed Reindeer
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I will be in a small sailing boat called “Stargazer” with Tuts, Captain Timmy Carstephen, Nicky “Mighty Whitey” Russel and The “First lady of ALL The Virgins” The Good Lady Delia. We will be on our way to spend the day with our old friend “Sir Foxy”, (recently Knighted by The Queen Of England, honest) in Jos Van Dyke, in the British Virgin Islands.
As Thanksgiving is the traditional start of the “Christmas Music Season” and because I am a sentimental fellow who really loves Christmas and further because a little sprite of a spirit did entrust me with the responsibility for bringing her story to you,) Here is “Sandy The Bluenosed Reindeer” (A little Christmas Operetta) (Both Music and Script) I sincerely hope that you and your little ones will enjoy “Sandy The Bluenosed Reindeer” for many many years to come. Here is the Music “Sandy The Bluenosed Reindeer” with The Script below. P.S. The young lady singing “Island In The Rainbows” is Tasha McCauley. Unbeleivably, she was only 10 years old at the time. Enjoy!
A Christmas Present for Santa
The story of
“Sandy The BlueNosed Reindeer”A Musical in One or Two Acts
by
Scott Fagan
. All Rights Reserved.
Scott Fagan Music ASCAP
St. Thomas, Virgin Islands
scottfagan@lilfishrecords.com
SANDY THE BLUENOSED REINDEER
RUNNING TIME:
29:11 Minutes (Approximately 40 Minutes with 10 minute Intermission)
Synopsis
A Warm and humorous musical story about a little female reindeer sent to the North pole as a Christmas present for Santa, one Christmas eve a time ago, by the Girls and Boys in the home for almost forgotten children some where in the tropical Islands…
Sandy has been sent to Santa to help him with his warm weather routes, but she will have an awful lot of shiverin’ and shakin’ to do and an awful lot of wondering where she fits in, before anyone discovers the purpose and true value of this extraordinary Christmas present for Santa.
In the end, Sandy leads for Santa when it’s time to go any where around the world that it doesn’t snow, and becomes the perennial favorite of (and there’s an awful lot of) places in the world where all the Christmas’s are hot!
ACT ONE………………………Christmas Eve, a time ago
ACT TWO……………………….As time passed
CAST OF CHARACTERS
THE NARRATOR (A colorful Tropical Island character, male or female)
SANDY THE BLUE NOSED REINDEER A young and very simpatico female Reindeer, with a Blue nose. She will progress in age from Baby to pre-teen.
SANTA CLAUS A right Jolly old Elf.
MIZ CLAUS A warm, maternal and practical Elf lady
THE CHORUS (As many as you like, they will double as…)
THE GIRLS AND BOYS (In the Home for almost forgotten Children)
SANTA’S ELVES (Lefty, Righty, Blackie and Whitey, Brownie, Yellow, Shorty and Longfellow
SANTA’S REINDEER (Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen
SANDY THE BLUENOSED REINDEER
ACT 1.
SCENES
1. Opening scene The Narrator – Now you’ve asked me to…
2. The Home for almost forgotten children somewhere in the Tropical Islands
3. That ‘ol Pelican Pilot
4. When she woke up it was cold and dark
5. My name is Sandy and I’m Cold!
6. This looks like a job for Santa!
7. So Santa and his Reindeer got something that Christmas they didn’t really want
8. Sometimes somethings
ACT. 2.
SCENES
1. Now remember it was Christmas Eve
2. Everyone loves Toys Toys Toys
3. Once Santa had wrapped his wonderful warm arms around her
4. So Santa had to…
5. As time passed…(Island in the Rainbows)
6. Santa and his crew knew exactly what to do. (Sing a Happy song).
7. It was HOT!
8. The Narrator to finale
9. Curtain Call and…
10. Merry Christmas all over the World
SET LIST
Narrator’s backdrop
The Home for almost forgotten children
Sweet Green Islands in the Beautiful Blue sea.
The North Pole
Santas’s Workshop
Santa’s Sleigh
In the West Indie
SANDY THE BLUE NOSED REINDEER
The Songs:
1. THEME Sandy the Blue Nosed Reindeer
2. A Christmas Present for Santa
3. Sometimes Somethings
4. Lefty Righty
5. Toys toys toys
6. Island in the Rainbows
7. Sing a Happy Song
8. THEME (Reprise) Sandy The Bluenosed Reindeer
9. Merry Christmas All Over The World
AUTHORS NOTE:
I would place The Chorus on stage and utilize parents, teachers or other interested adults in The Chorus as desired. The “magical transformation” from chorus singer to costumed character (when doubling) may add to the fun if it occurs in view of the audience
My staging suggestion is simple, have fun and lots of it!
Merry Christmas!
SANDY THE BLUENOSED REINDEER
Act One
SONG # 1 SANDY THE BLUENOSED REINDEER
(Sung By Chorus, as stage is being set, and lights slowly come up)
CHORUS: And now they’ve made a place for her…
in Reindeer history too…
We’ve all heard of Rudolph, who’s nose was shiny bright
and how he guided Santa’s sleigh through the foggy night
But there’s a little Reindeer who’s nose is icy blue
and now they’ve made a place for her in Reindeer history too.
Sandy is the Reindeer who’s story’s never told
Cause who’d believe a Reindeer didn’t like the cold
Who believes in Reindeer who’s little noses freeze
Shivering and shaking and knocking at the knees.
Then one night it happened down in Port of Spain
the other Reindeer got so hot they started to complain
“Let me help you Santa” her voice was sure and strong
and that’s how Sandy found her way into a Christmas song
Sandy is the Reindeer who’s story’s never told
Cause who’d believe a Reindeer didn’t like the cold
Who believes in Reindeer who’s little noses freeze
Shivering and shaking and knocking at the knees.
Now Sandy leads for Santa, when it’s time to go
Any where around the world that it doesn’t snow
The Boys and Girls all love her y’know. there’s an awful lot
of places in the world where all the Christmas’s are hot
Sandy is the Reindeer who’s story’s never told
Cause who’d believe a Reindeer didn’t like the cold
Who’d believe a Reindeer who’s nose was icy blue
but now they’ve made a place for her in Reindeer history too…
.
Lights come up to reveal THE NARRATOR (Male or Female, characteristics are optional)
THE NARRATOR walks to the front of the stage and speaks directly to the audience.
NARRATOR: Now you’ve asked me to tell you the story of Sandy the Bluenosed Reindeer
and I will …But I’m thinking.. you could also call this story “A Christmas Present for Santa”
Cause she was sent to Santa one Christmas a time ago, by the Girls and Boys in the home for almost forgotten Children, Somewhere in the Tropical Islands.
HOME FOR ALMOST FORGOTTEN CHILDREN, SOME WHERE IN THE TROPICAL ISLANDS ( It’s Christmas Eve and a ragged but cheerful group of Girls and Boys are lovingly brushing and grooming a little Blue Nosed Reindeer, they decorate her with ribbons and bows as they sing.)
SONG #2 “A CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR SANTA”
GIRLS AND BOYS: (Alternating lines)
All Because we’ve heard it’s better to give than to receive
Girls Because you never ask for much , except that we believe
All Because you’re such a good soul, and Jolly Jolly too
Girls Because we think that you love us as much as we love you
Boys Because you’re always giving and never never take
All except sometimes a little milk some cookies or some cake
Girls Because she’s so so special,
Boys because it’s Christmas eve
All Because a million times because, Merry Christmas Santa Claus
Girls Up in the sky with his flying Reindeer
Boys Going loop de loop like he doesn’t know fear
Girls Who is the man made of so much fun
Boys He’s willing to share his joy with everyone
UNISON:
Santa it’s you so we thought we would
Send you a present cause you’ve been so good
Kindly and gentle and dear old man, We know you’ll understand
COUNTERPOINT SECTION:
Boys Because we’ve heard it’s better. to give than to receive
Girls Who do we don’t see to say thank you to
Boys Because you never ask for much , except that we believe
Girls Who’s like a dream in a dream that comes true
Boys Because you’re such a good soul, and Jolly Jolly too
Girls Racing the sun to a million places
Boys Because we think that you love us as much as we love you
Girls In every one leaving smiling faces
Boys Because you’re always giving and never never take
Girls Driving a sleigh that no jet is faster
Boys except sometimes a little milk some cookies or some cake
Girls First to get through natural disaster
Boys Because she’s so so special, because it’s Christmas eve
Girls Braving the coldest and hottest weather
Boys Because a million times because, Merry Christmas Santa Claus
Girls Who tries to keep the whole thing together
UNISON:
We’ve sent a Reindeer who’s nose is blue
because we believe she’ll be a help to you
Kindly and gentle and dear old man
we know you’ll understand.
Because a Million times because…
Merry Christmas Santa Clause
NARRATOR: I can just see that old airmail Pelican flying along with his little bundle, wriggling and rolling over to her tummy, foots sticking out front and back, kicking and learning to fly. Foots up, foots down, foots up, foots down, just like you do when you’re learning to swing in the beginning. Foots up, foots down, foots up, can you see her? She’s doing fine… flying along nice and easy and the warm sun shining down on her such a rich chocolate-brown. Shining down on those coconut trees and those sweet green Islands in the beautiful blue sea, just the color of Sandy’s nose.
Like I said I don’t know exactly where they were coming from, but they were going along in the warm for quite some while, and that little Reindeer was kicking foots as strong and as smooth as could be maybe even giving that old Pelican Pilot a rest now and then. Foots up, foots down, foots up.
CHORUS: Sandy is the Reindeer who’s story’s never told cause who’d believe a Reindeer didn’t like the cold
who believes in Reindeer who’s little noses freeze, Shivering and shaking and knocking at the knees
NARRATOR: Y’know, It’s a big and a wide wide world that we live in, and after a time that little Reindeer curled up in her little bundle and took a nap. Just like you little critters do. Maybe she knew where she was going and dreamed a dream or maybe not. I don’t know, but I do know she didn’t know it was going to be cold where she was going, and I do know she didn’t know it would be dark, and that’s just what it was, when she woke up it was cold and dark and she was scared too! Now there’s those Northern lights up there and they light up the sky kind of like a cosmic rainbow so it wasn’t too dark but there’s no electric heaters in the snow
CHORUS: (Comes up under NARRATOR)
Sandy is the Reindeer who’s story’s never told
NARRATOR: (Continues)
and no radiators around the North Pole, so it was cold
Cause who’d believe a Reindeer
and she was shivering and shaking and knocking at the knees
Didn’t like the cold
and if her nose was Blue before,
Who believes in Reindeer
boy, you shoulda’ seen it now
Who’s little noses freeze
That’s just how the other Reindeer first saw her
Shivering and shaking
Standing in the snow, shivering and shaking and knocking like a clock
and knocking at the knees
Her nose was the color of a blueberry popsicle.
DASHER AND DANCER, DONNER AND BLITZEN:
Jumping Jet planes!!
NARRATOR: They said.
COMET AND CUPID AND PRANCER AND VIXEN:
Look at this one, we don’t believe it.
DASHER AND DANCER, DONNER AND BLITZEN, COMET AND CUPID AND PRANCER AND VIXEN:
This looks like a job for Santa!
CHORUS:
Who believes in Reindeer, who’s little noses freeze,
Shivering and shaking and knocking at the knees
NARRATOR: So BLITZEN zoomed over to Santa’s house and got him!
SANTA: Jumping jet planes!
NARRATOR: Said Santa.
MIZ CLAUS: Oh Santa!
NARRATOR: Said Miz CLAUS
SANTA: I don’t remember asking for a Bluenosed Reindeer
NARRATOR: Said Santa
SANTA: I’ve never even heard of a Bluenosed Reindeer
DASHER AND DANCER, DONNER AND BLITZEN, COMET AND CUPID AND PRANCER AND VIXEN:We’ve never heard of a Bluenosed Reindeer either
NARRATOR: Said the other Reindeer
SANTA: Who ever heard of a Bluenosed Reindeer?
DASHER AND DANCER, DONNER AND BLITZEN, COMET AND CUPID AND PRANCER AND VIXEN: We all know the Red nosed one
SANTA: But a Blue nosed one?
DASHER AND DANCER, DONNER AND BLITZEN, COMET AND CUPID AND PRANCER AND VIXEN: No!
MIZ CLAUS: Never!
SANTA, MIZ CLAUS AND THE REINDEER: None!
SANDY: (In a trembly little voice) My name is SANDY, an.. I’m Cold!
NARRATOR: Said the mizzable little critter
SANTA: Swooping satellites!
NARRATOR: Said Santa
SANTA: Who ever heard of a Reindeer that didn’t like the cold? I didn’t ask for a Reindeer that didn’t like the cold…
MIZ CLAUS: Santa , she’s cold
NARRATOR: Said Miz Claus
MIZ CLAUS: And her little nose is Blue, she’s shivering and shaking and knocking at the knees. What are we gonna’ do?
SANTA: Let’s take her in the house!
NARRATOR: Said Santa Claus
MIZ CLAUS: Poor little shivery shaking Bluenosed thing…
NARRATOR: Said Miz Claus.
CHORUS: (In background) Sandy is the Reindeer who’s story’s never told
DASHER AND DASHER AND PRANCER AND VIXEN: Did you see that?
CHORUS: Cause who’d believe a Reindeer
NARRATOR : Said DASHER AND DASHER AND PRANCER AND VIXEN
CHORUS: Didn’t like the cold
COMET AND CUPID AND DONNER AND BLITZEN: Santa didn’t ask for a Bluenosed Reindeer that doesn’t like the cold!
CHORUS: Who believes in Reindeer who’s little noses freeze
COMET AND CUPID AND DONNER AND BLITZEN: We wanted some rocket packs!
NARRATOR : Said COMET AND CUPID AND DONNER AND BLITZEN
CHORUS: Shivering and shaking
DASHER AND DASHER AND PRANCER AND VIXEN: Say, where’d she come from anyway.
CHORUS: and knocking at the knees
NARRATOR : So Santa and his Reindeer got something that Christmas they hadn’t asked for, maybe didn’t really want, and sure didn’t think they’d ever need. That’s how it is sometimes, we don’t get what we want but we do get what we need, and don’t even know it. It happens to me ,
I’ll bet it happens to you too… sometimes.
SONG #3 SOMETIMES SOMETHINGS (Sung by Narrator)
Sometimes something happens in a funny way
something we think shouldn’t happen anyway
Sometimes something happens that we didn’t plan
Something sometimes that we barely understand
Sometimes it won’t help something to try and guess
Somethings we know sometimes happen for the best.
Sometimes something hides the sun and clouds the sky
Something passing as we let sometime go by
Sometimes something disappoints us bringing pain
Rainbows wouldn’t happen if it didn’t rain
Sometimes something happens to us we forget
Something sometimes we don’t know the good part yet.
End Act One
Act Two
NARRATOR: Now remember it was Christmas Eve, and Santa and Miz Claus and all of Santa’s reindeer and helpers and all of Santa’s friends, had quite a bit to do…
SONG # 4 LEFTY RIGHTY BLACKIE AND WHITEY (Sung by Santa and his Elves)
SANTA: Lefty Righty Blackie and Whitey
ELVES: Working together with Santa Clause
SANTA: Brownie Yellow Shorty and Longfellow
ELVES: Working together well just because
SANTA: They want to show it can be done
SANTA AND ELVES: Working together’s lots of fun
ELVES: Lefty Righty Blackie and Whitey
SANTA: If little elves can do it so can we
ELVES: Brownie Yellow Shorty and Longfellow
SANTA AND ELVES: Everybody’s one big family
SONG # 5 TOYS TOYS TOYS (Sung by Santa’s Elves)
Toys toys toys toys – toys toys toys toys
Every one loves toys toys toys
Way up here in Santa’s shop, when we start we never stop
Cause every toy’s a thing of joy and every body wants a toy
Arche wants an aeroplane, Billy wants a ‘’lectric train
Carrie wants more Star Wars stuff, Children just can’t get enough
Toys toys toys toys, Every one loves toys toys toys
Drucie wants a doll that walks, Ellie wants a doll that talks
Frankie wants a baseball bat, Sister Gale a football hat
Holly wants a new doll house, Izzy wants a rubber mouse
Jamesy wants a teddy bear, Katie wants a game that’s fair!
Imagine a world without toys, An awf-’ly boring place
not much fun for girls and boys
But don’t be sad cause it’s ok There’s something we could do about it
everybody sing and shout it! Toys..
LITTLEST ELF: (Just learning his manners yells to the others) Hey! Shouting’s not polite
dont’cha know that?
SANTA: Hmm… Ok then every body sing! Toys toys toys toys, all we want is toys toys toys.
Way up here in Santa’s shop, when we start we never stop
Cause every toy’s a thing of joy and every body wants a toy
Lele wants a two wheel trike, Maggie wants a three wheel bike
Nattie wants and ice cream truck, Orvil wants an Easter duck
Poonah wants a boxing glove Queenie wants a fish to love Roscoe wants a jumping rope, Sarah wants a microscope
Tito wants a frog that sings, Uta wants a magic ring
Virgil wants an oogie board, Wanda wants a pirate sword
Xosa wants a kite that hums, Yone wants a kettle drum
Ziggy wants a cash machine, a racehorse and a Limousine
SANTA: (Looking perplexed) A cash machine? a racehorse? a Limousine?
ElVES : Toys toys toys toys – toys toys toys toys
Every one loves toys toys toys!
NARRATOR: Now once Santa had wrapped his wonderful warm arms around her,
Sandy wouldn’t let him put her down for anything. So Santa had to
check all his lists, get his Reindeer reined,
Pack up his sleigh, thank all his helpers,
give Miz Clause her see you later kiss and take off.. With a baby bluenosed Reindeer in his arms.
Then he had to, drive his sleigh, carry his bag
climb down chimneys, fill stockings, sort and set out presents,
eat his cookies, sip his cocoa and get back up chimneys with a baby bluenosed Reindeer in his arms. If you saw Santa that Christmas you know that one Christmas a time ago, he had a baby bluenosed Reindeer in his arm when he came to your house.
CHORUS: (In background) Sandy is the Reindeer who’s story’s never told
Cause who’d believe a Reindeer… didn’t like the cold
NARRATOR: As time passed. nobody knew what in the world Sandy was doing up at Santa’s workshop. She wanted to be wanted but what good could she really do? Shiverin’ and shakin’ and knocking little Elves off of shelves and all, wherd’d she fit in? It looked like every thing she did was wrong.
SONG # 6 ISLAND IN THE RAINBOWS (Sung by Sandy and Santa)
SANDY:
There’s a place that I know
that I sure wish I could go
Far away, it’s an Island in the Rainbows
Somewhere far across the sea
I can hear it calling me
But I can”t go it’s an Island in the Rainbow
Rainbow days… far away,
Green and Gold and Purple too
Rosy Red, Yellow and Blue
SANTA: How I wish that I knew it were true
SANDY AND SANTA: Maybe someday you and me
we could fly across the sea
see if there could be
an Island in the Rainbows
SANDY: Rainbow days… far away,
Green and Gold and Purple too
Rosy Red, Yellow and Blue
I wish I could show it to you
SANDY AND SANTA: Maybe someday you and me
we could fly across the sea
see if there could be
an Island in the Rainbows…
NARRATOR: She sure was feeling bad , but Santa and his crew knew exactly what to do!
SONG #7 SING A HAPPY SONG (Santa, Miz Claus all the Reindeer and Elves and Joined by Sandy at the end)
I’ve got a secret that I’ll share with you
because it’s something that we all can do
when I’ve got troubles and my world is blue
I just sing a happy song.
Sing a happy song, then things won’t seem so wrong
sing a happy song
Sing a happy song, the world will sing along sing
a happy song
Great grand father’s bedroom drapes were drawn,
we thought for sure the dear old boy was gone,
but just as Grandma sighed “Poor Grandpa’s died
he cried… Sing a happy song!
SANTA: All together now!
Sing a happy song, one I can sing along
sing a happy song
Sing a happy song,then things won’t seem so wrong
sing a happy song
( INSTRUMENTAL DANCE SECTION (Everyone))
SANTA: And a one and a two and a three.Everybody
Sing a happy song, then things won’t seem so wrong
sing a happy song
Sing a happy song, the world will sing along
sing a happy song…
NARRATOR: By the next year Sandy’d gotten too big to carry all the time just like you have, but she still went everywhere that Santa did, so naturally she jumped shiverin’ and shakin’ right into Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve and off they went, and the further south they went the less and less she shivered, and the more warm it became the less and less she shook, and by the time they got to Port of Spain, Trinidad, in the West Indies , it was hot!
DASHER, DANCER PRANCER AND VIXEN: SHEEEESHHH!
NARRATOR: Said DASHER, DANCER PRANCER AND VIXEN.
COMET, CUPID, DONNER AND BLITZEN: We’re worn out, we can’t go another step!
NARRATOR: Said COMET, CUPID, DONNER AND BLITZEN.
SANDY: (With Chorus) Let me help you Santa.
NARRATOR: (With Chorus) Her voice was sure and strong
SANTA: Jumping Jet planes!
NARRATOR: Said Santa
SANTA: Now I know where you belong!
NARRATOR WITH OS CHORUS:
Now Sandy leads for Santa when it’s time to go
any where around the world that it doesn’t snow
NARRATOR: (With CHORUS under) And the other Reindeer love her cause
there’s an awful lot of Reindeer that get tired when the goings gotten hot!
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) Sandy is the Reindeer whose story’s never told
NARRATOR: Y’know sometimes if we have a hard time when we’re little
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) Cause who’d believe a Reindeer didn’t like the cold
NARRATOR: It helps us to understand when others are having a hard time too, and then
maybe we can help them
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) Who believes in Reindeer
NARRATOR: That’s how Sandy is,
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) who’s little noses freeze.
NARRATOR: She knows how it feels to be cold and scared and lonely
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) shiverin’ and shakin’ and knocking at the knees
NARRATOR: and it makes her feel real good to help Santa bring happiness and joy
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) Sandy is the Reindeer
NARRATOR: to girls and boys all around the world
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) who’s story’s never told
NARRATOR: big girls and boys too!
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) Cause who’d believe a reindeer
NARRATOR: Santa doesn’t forget us just because we grow up you know.
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) didn’t like the cold
NARRATOR: So Sandy turned out to be
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) Who’d believe a Reindeer
NARRATOR: a wonderful Christmas present for Santa ,
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) who’s nose was icy Blue
NARRATOR: he didn’t know he wanted, NARRATOR:but he’s really glad he got
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) But now they’ve made a place for her
NARRATOR: Sandy the Bluenosed reindeer
CHORUS: (Under NARRATOR) In Reindeer….
NARRATOR: who’s happy when it’s hot!
CHORUS: (Up for big ending) history too…….
NARRATOR: I wonder how they knew Santa needed a Bluenosed Reindeer anyway…
SONG #8 REPRISE (repeat) THEME: SANDY THE BLUE NOSED REINDEER
We’ve all heard of Rudolph, who’s nose was shiny bright
and how he guided Santa’s sleigh through the foggy night
But there’s a little Reindeer who’s nose is icy blue
and now they’ve made a place for her in Reindeer history too.
Sandy is the Reindeer who’s story’s never told
Cause who’d believe a Reindeer didn’t like the cold
Who believes in Reindeer who’s little noses freeze
Shivering and shaking and knocking at the knees.
Then one night it happened down in Port of Spain
the other Reindeer got so hot they started to complain
“Let me help you Santa” her voice was sure and strong
and that’s how Sandy found her way into a Christmas song
Sandy is the Reindeer who’s story’s never told
Cause who’d believe a Reindeer didn’t like the cold
Who believes in Reindeer who’s little noses freeze
Shivering and shaking and knocking at the knees.
Now Sandy leads for Santa, when it’s time to go
Any where around the world that it doesn’t snow
The Boys and Girls all love her y’know. there’s an awful lot
of places in the world where all the Christmas’s are hot
Sandy is the Reindeer who’s story’s never told
Cause who’d believe a Reindeer didn’t like the cold
Who’d believe a Reindeer who’s nose was icy blue
but now they’ve made a place for her in Reindeer history too…
Curtain Calls
OPTIONAL
NARRATOR: (to audience) And now here’s a Christmas Present for you!
SONG # 9 ENTIRE CAST:
MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL OVER THE WORLD
Merry Christmas all over the world
(Christmas time Christmas Time)
Yes it’s Christmas all over the world
North and South (night so different from the rest)
East and west (special night we love the best)
CHORUS: Ahh – ahhh – ahhh – ahhh – ahhh
SPOKEN: Gladelig Jul, Feliz Navidad, Joy-ah Noel
CHORUS: Ahh – ahhh – ahhh – ahhh – ahhh
SPOKEN:Sheng tang qui-lo, Bon Natale, Jeradvum Kristnovum
CHORUS: Merry Christmas all over the world
SPOKEN: In every corner of the Earth, Man celebrates a child’s birth
CHORUS: Christmas time, Christmas time
SPOKEN: and sings the heart of human kind, and shines the light of love divine
CHORUS: Yes it’s Christmas all over the world
SPOKEN: That the children who are the children who were and the children who will be
CHORUS: Christmas time, Christmas time
SPOKEN: Forever have in memory this magical miracle night so good that is peace and love and brother hood
CHORUS: Merry Christmas all over the world
Christmas time, Christmas time
Yes it’s Christmas all over the world
Every where the soft wind blows, every where that Jack Frost goes
CHORUS: Ahh – ahhh – ahhh – ahhh – ahhh
SPOKEN: Fraulacht Wil-nachten, Bly-gee Kirstdagen, Meli Kalekemaka
CHORUS: Ahh – ahhh – ahhh – ahhh – ahhh
SPOKEN: Hari Natal, Gaha Christnasto, Tanoshee Karitsumasi
CHORUS: Merry Christmas all over the world
SPOKEN: Faraha Malingi Karitmasi
CHORUS: Merry Christmas all over the world…
SPOKEN: Mara-id al-mi-lad, Alice Changa mi lad ha note sri..
SPOKEN: (All) Merry Christmas…We love you Santa!
The End
If you are interested, you will find individual MP3’s for the individual songs, at http://www.lilfishrecords.com
BOOK 3. Sula and The Music Of Morning, As Some Of You May Know, Archie Faringhy
BOOK 3. Sula And The Music Of Morning
On Sundays I make it my business to try and visit with Sula for two or three hours. I bring her a salt fish Pate (pa-tay) and two to four little cans of juice, depending on how much loot I have..
The pate is for her to eat, the juice is so that she has something to offer to visitors and guests during the week.
Sula is 107 years old and still pretty sharp (of mind AND looks) I am one of her “boyfriends” “de Whiteman who is a recording artist” she has three others (an ex policeman, and two Moravian Ministers) right off the bat, along with an ever-growing list of wanna be boyfriends. I have been her boyfriend for over twenty years now and she is yet another one of my sweeties that is hoping that I will make some money.
Sula lives in a little wooden house on the north side of Crown Mountain where she has lived all of her (amazing) life. When she was born (1903) the midwife took a look at her and told her mother that. “The best thing to do is to just leave her in the bush somewhere and forget about her, this little one is just too tiny and fragile to live”
Her Mother wouldn’t hear of it and eight days later, when little Sula was still alive, her grand mother took her in her arms (I tease her that her Grandmother stuck her right in her shirt pocket) and walked all the way to town (“In those days all we had was donkey and donkey cart yu’know and we did’n have none of dose”) to the hospital to see the Doctors.
When Sula was twelve she caught the Typhoid Fever and was not expected to live a single day. Her Doctor (The locally famous Danish Doctor, Knud Hansen) called her his little sparrow and said he refused to let her die. Somehow by the grace of the all-powerful, much prayer and the best medical treatment that the great Knud Hansen could provide, Sula survived Not only survived but thrived, she became a teacher at 13 in the Danish school system in 1915. She is now the oldest living Virgin Islander and may in fact be the longest lived Virgin Islander ever.
We are sitting together on her old red couch listening to the choir and the priest at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul (Sula was born Anglican but joined the Moravian Church at Nisky after the Moravian minister extracted a promise from her mother to switch her if she survived the Typhoid Fever.)
The Moravians are a wonderful community with quite a history of activism here in the West Indies; they are the folks that snuck into the ‘cane fields to teach the slaves how to read and write and then provided the schools that delivered all of the education for centuries. My own childhood education at Nisky Elementary School was among the last echoes of their ‘cane field missionary work.
In any case, Sula is not particular about where her Sunday morning music comes from and together we will listen (in turn) to the choirs at Saints Peter and Paul, The French Town Evangelical Assembly, The Salvation Army, and The Anglican Church at Sugar Estate. I love the singing, Sula loves the songs.
As Some Of You May Know..
Some of you may know that I am a recovering person, for the rest of you, I’d like you to know, I’m a recovering person.
In addition to having a first class case of dipsomania, I am a child and grandchild of dipsomaniacs, by the grace of God, good luck and way too many good people to count on fingers and feet, I have been in recovery (as of this writing) since May 24th 1978.
Recovery was passed along to me at a New York City meeting on the upper west side called appropriately “Chock Full Of Nuts” (not the nice little coffee shops). I have been an activist for recovery ever since. I will write much more about it as we move along, but for the moment..
While living with my Bridey Annie and our twins Lelia and Archie up in the Mountains in San Diego County, it became crazy obvious that I had to do something to generate some kaboosh beyond my pitiful music royalties. consequently, I wound up spending two years and six months at UCLA (January 1987 to June 1989) for training and certification in Drug and Alcohol Counseling and Program Design and Management.
While there I designed and started a program called “BIZRAP” (The Music Business Recovery Assistance Program) “BIZRAP” in turn, divided into two programs “MAP” (The Musicians Assistance Program, run by Buddy Arnold, and “Musicares” (The NARAS-Grammys Program) under Michael Green.)
Since then, I have started or participated in the starting of a number of programs and non profits. I am telling you this because it is so and “things related” will naturally come up again and again..
While going to school in LA, I lived alone in a small residential hotel on Lafayette Street, in Culver City that I called “The Bombay Arms” I took city busses to work (at 4 AM I cleaned “The Kingston 12” a night club in Santa Monica, at 10 AM I took the bus to my second job, shipping posters from a garage in LA, at 4 PM, I took the bus to UCLA and after school, the bus back to the Bombay Arms.)
On Saturday mornings I would take the number 33 (Venice Blvd) to Union Station,in LA and take the train down the coast to Oceanside, then two more buses, (the first to Escondido and the second up the mountains into Ramona). There Annie and our little ones would pick me up in the little Datsun and on we would go to “Witch Creek” eight miles further out-of-town. Just before San Isabel, we’d duck off the old Julian highway, go two and a half miles down “Slaughter House Road”, over the bridge, across the Crik’ up the hill and under the Oaks, to the pad..ah Cabin..ah..pad.
When I think about it I don’t know If I want to laugh or cry, or tell it so you laugh or cry..I do believe that in this instance we could do both at once. It was the craziest juxtaposition of characters and circumstances.
The bright lights in this extraordinary mud pie were the children, our twins Lelia and Archie. Two of the sweetest most even keeled little people I’ve ever known, and there was not a single day or part of a day spent with them that was anything less than inspiring and beautiful. They were champions. We had much fun together. I love them completely.
Archie Faringhy
Annie’s Grandfather Archie Faringhy bought the 100 acre ranch (with cabin) in the late nineteen forties and had started two vineyards and orchards of Peaches, Plums, Apricots and Nectarines with a few Pear trees thrown in for good measure.
Maybe 10 15 acres were under cultivation and the rest of the ranch was still “wilder bush”.
We had (Annie, Lelia, Archie and I) come out from New York to California to visit Annie’s Grandparents a few years earlier, and came up to visit the ranch then. The living area consisted of four buildings three of which were original old-time wood slat constructions and a more modern one (the kitchen) that Archie had built himself in the early sixties. Grandpa Archie was quite a crusty and colorful fellow (and not just because he was a redhead)
He’d been born at Fort.Wachuka, (Thunder Mountain) down in Apache territory in Cochise County, Southern Arizona. His father was a Cavalry man and his was mother was a full-blooded Navaho lady. Archie’s Grandfather Faringhy, was a young man from Flanders who had stowed away on “The Mary” and wound up in South Africa, became a Doctor (medicine, not witch) shipped for America and came west as Kit Carson’s Medical Officer.
Kit and his crew participated in much wild west action and were big time good guys or bad guys, (depending on which side of the fray your people were on)
In any case they had passed this way with Gen. Kerney in the time of The Californios, and seen the beauty of these mountains and valleys. Somehow many years later, his Grandson Archie had found/made his way back and bought a small piece of it.
Archie loved this piece of wild world and so did his redheaded grand-daughter Annie.
Book 3. The Point Of Points..
The Point Of Points
It’s August 19th but I’m not finished with all I had to say on the 17th or the 18th so with your permission I will finish up some of that before getting to this (the 19th). Oops It’s now August 21 and I’m not finished with the 19th yet..hmm..It’s Wednesday night, ok,.now it’s actually Friday morning but I’m trying to catch up with the date and days and it’s getting tricky) , I’ll have to figger this out..Ok Mowedsday, “Wednsfrieday” “Motuewedthurfrisatsundoneday” Hmmm.
I thunked it through and I’m dumping the dates.in favor of the data, I’m quitting, quashing and kaboshing the calendar, in favor of quality and content. Yep!
Ok, lets see, I’ve just come from playing my friend Nicky’s open mike night at Tickles, a popular open air bar in the Crown Bay Marina
Six weeks ago I had a meeting at Tickles with David Edgecombe (the director attached to “The Virgin Islands Songs”). While we were meeting, my friend Nicky (AKA The Mighty Whitey) and a sweet but very juiced slide guitar player named Jack, (a fixture at the Tickles open mike,) thought that I was there to sing..
I was there very specifically to talk business with David, but I promised Nicky and Jack that I would come back as soon as I was free on a Wednesday night. Since then I’d been in the states for four weeks with my little one Holiday, tonight I showed up to keep my promise.
.
Walking down the dock I can hear a sweet soul serenading the bar with his most sincere rendition of “Leaving On A Jet Plane” now I see his girlfriend dabbing her eyes with a coaster/napkin. and empathcize with all, in the most sung and wept over song in the history of the West Indies, since Brown Skin Girl)
At the entrance I’m greeted by a rolling eyed stateside crazy boy, who looks at me and my guitar and wants to know if I know how to play “bonk a bonk a bonk a” ‘cause he’s “The baddest bongo man in the world” and he’s gonna play with me. I ask him where Nicky is..”Nicky?” He says “Nicky? I don’t deal with names man, I’m gonna play with you!”
I start scanning the room, frankly hoping that someone would pop up with a Day-Glo sign saying “ Hey Scottie, Nicky’s not here and open mike has been canceled forever” so I can turn around and split.
However, in escaping the lad with the roiling reality, I dove deeper into the throng and there my fate was sealed..
An imposingly tall lady shot up from somewhere below and with her lovely face inches from mine said “what a cute fellow you are” she towered over me like “The Christ of the Andes” I felt an almost irresistible urge to fall face first upon her mercies, and confess my sins over and over again.. Then it dawned on me that this goddess was Mighty Whitey’s, Mighty Wifey, Janet Reiter, a wonderful screechest and guitar strangleist in her own right.. I asked if she were here to screech and yowl she said “yes and was I?”
I allowed as I’d be screeching and a yowling too and we agreed there was some screechy yowlin’ just around the bend. She then pulled me to her tender mercies delivering what surely has to be among the kindest and most charitable hugs ever. Changed my whole attitude about open mike night and left me feeling downright up-spired..
Waiting to go on, I began to suss out the patrons. We’re in an open air bar in the islands and most of the types are very familiar to me. It’s like “Ghosts of Barrooms Past meet Ghosts of Gigs Gone By” hard luck drinkers living in the melting hulls of old fiberglass schooners, (very much like an “upside down in the water” version of “Trails End Trailer Park”) deluding themselves that their “lives of high adventure” are something more than the predictable symptoms of mid to end stage alcohol addiction. College age crews of the mega “stink pots” that fill the marina, along side their (sweatered and Bermuda shorted) privileged bosses. A few taxi drivers (their wives and children at home) “yanking” and posing as they squire the perennial goofy stateside chicks who come all the way to the islands to get banged by a married taxi driver. A few bright-eyed seekers with their beautiful true-believer girlfriends, discovering that “traveling broke don’t make it” and your standard interchangeable loud and tipsy groups of flowered shirted tourists. I’m hoping that somewhere among them beats a heart still seeking a song well sung, while thinking “Scott, what the hell are you doing back in this situation? You rode this pony to ground thirty-one years ago,” and answering, I promised my friend.
I hear my name, I jump up on the bandstand and I’m on. There to my right is Morgan Rael steel pan at the ready, there to my left is the REAL best Bongo man in the world, Richard Spencly. To the front the best piano man in the Islands Danny Siber, and behind, a bass (Matt) and drum (Perry) rythem section that is ready! Fortunately some of my songs are fairly well-known in the Islands, so with Nicky, Janet and classy flute Lady Dawn Dobson standing by, we were able to launch right in to LaBiega Carosuel/Tutsie and Cherrigo altogether, we did six including SOON Where My Lover Has Gone The Virgin Islands Song and Captain Creole
The long and short of it is.. that after all was said and done, playing and singing together with these folks for those folks, was simply, the greatest fun. We had an absolute blast, ya shouldda been there…. Another reminder that Music is most certainly transformational in the most wonderful ways, and that is the point of points.. tonight.
Saturday. 6:59 AM Today is one week back. It’s a bit confusing. I’ve been awake on and off since 1:30 dreaming about a “Star Wars prequel Episode” titled “Someday, A Better Way” The story is about a generation of idealists who are gently but cynically persuaded that using a harmless mind/spirit stimulant will help them to further their agenda for a world filled with peace and love. Yes indeed it is the story of the sixties, only in the rocket world costumes of the galaxy far far away rather than the blue denim glory of the galaxy far far out.
BOOK 3. Hidaway..The BLOOK!..Lindbergh Bay and The Texas Chili Queen..
BOOK 3.
Hidaway..
The BLOOK!..
Lindbergh Bay and The Texas Chili Queen..
August 17, 2009
Hidaway..
It is pouring rain this morning and it is beautiful.
Tuts is at the window with concerns about the junkyard in the jungle just behind the house. He says that the “Domincano” that rents the little house in the jungle, has been going to the dump and dragging scrap metals back to his (rented) house and now, because hurricanes are headed this way and the scrap metal will become murderous missiles, (killing at least four neighbors if one of them hits)
Tuts wants us to go to The Daily News and use my “celebrity” to get the editor to make a reporter come down to the house, climb up the rickety ladder to the roof, take photographs and do an expose about the junk in the jungle which will then stimulate the local environmental agency to make the guy get rid of his junk.
He is disappointed when I question (considering all the other important things that he is passionate about, like getting public bathrooms at John Brewers Bay, which I have promised to move on the moment he wants me to) whether this is the best was to use my “mojo” with the editor of the Daily News, or whether there might be another way to get this done. I suggest that we take photos of the things that he his talking about, Tuts agrees, he will get a camera from his son Marcel and all together, as a little mob, we will take the photos to the Daily News. Let’s hope that the Hurricane passes somewhere north of Greenland.
The world is a fifty dramatic shades of gray with clouds on the mountain and still, heavy air every where. It is completely evocative of the feelings that I tried to capture in “Hidaway” all these many years ago.
Rain Clouds cover the mountain
Raggy Ann Cinderella
Spaniards search for the fountain
Drifting for Isabella
Boys that lie on the bathroom floor
looking for Hideaway
Silk and silver and satin
All the secrets of a stranger
Crying crystals and laughing
All the dangers of the Ocean
Still I try and catch your eye
looking for Hideaway
It is beautiful out in the weather, I’m on my way down the road and up to the College ne University. The shades of grey, strong pungent smells and great gusts of wind are fantastic and exciting to me. After parking, I pick up a flower, fallen from a flamboyant tree, so that I can someday accurately describe it for you
August 18th 2009
I need my publicity photos for a story the local paper will be doing on me. So, I started searching for it on my computer last night with no luck, and resumed searching here, there and all over the computer at 6AM this morning. I am surprised and confused to discover that I can’t find it.
I have so much stuff in the poor thing that it takes half of forever to get it going.
How can it be that I can never find the important stuff, which is why I save all this stuff in the first place, and why I lug the blasted little suitcase every where I go. The photos were here we made posters from them and have utilized them in a variety of ways.
Ok, so now I’ve found one but not the right one, which just further emphasizes the quantity that are missing. I want to maintain a positive attitude about the computer but this is not good. If they ARE in the box and I can’t find them that’s one thing. but if they were somehow lost or deleted during some disc cleanup or automatic self-maintenance process that’s another, and that’s what I’m afraid has happened.
I spend an awful lot of time with the magic box, to the point that I sometimes think that my thinking and behavior is being “reconditioned” (which is interesting because I’m not saying that our thinking is all that marvelous to begin with), but if the blasted things are not reliable and are inconsistent and are reconditioning us to even more dysfunction, then that’s not good.
I am further frustrated with this time gulping photo search because I have an important meeting at the studio to prepare for.
I will tell you frankly, I don’t know how in the world I am going to be able to do this thousand words a day when you consider the fact that I (after 15 years on the qwerty) have not yet broken twelve words a minute.. (lets see…that’s 720 minutes an hour..no wonder this is taking so frigging long!)
My experiences in the studio recording “The Virgin Island Songs” so far (and we are only half way though) are like a twelve tome (or should I say tone) A to Z encyclopedia of the unexpected. Sometimes trying to communicate in a recording studio (meaning trying to turn competing crescendos of non-verbal impressions into intelligible sounds that two or more of us may recognize) is like trying to stuff and seal two Hurricanes in a thimble, or jam a heard of mango drunk West Indian Elephants into a DC 7 that’s already taken off and is halfway to Puerto Rico. Yes, yes, I think that’s an accurate description
Anyway, the aggressively judgmental, angry white Canadian fellow that owned the studio and ran all the customers away, has left the Island. His business partner, a local “true believer” has taken over. I did my preparation, held my projections to a minimum, spoke little, listened much, and to my absolute delight and surprise, I could not be happier with the meeting that we had.
You will come to know more about the studio story over time, but believe me, it was not a good or happy scene. We are scheduled to spend two hours on the 25th in preparation for worlds champeen guitar man Jeff (Medina) who is coming in from Las Vegas on the 26th..
The BLOOK!
After the meeting ,I went to the University to check my email and found one from a good fellow that I’d met while doing a gig at “Sparkys Waterfront Saloon” in St. Thomas, in 1981 and who had recently expressed an interest in doing a book about my Rock Opera SOON..
Here is what he said.:.
“Scott,
It took a little longer than I thought but I heard from Fulcrum.
They won’t buy the book on a proposal- they want to see several
chapters. That’s reasonable but I’m not sure I want to do this on
spec. I’m feeling a little like a poorly formed hurricane, wobbling
this way and that. But a lot less dangerous.
I’d like to keep approaching and avoiding this project, if you don’t
mind- continue to see where it leads.
If you have no objections to me proceeding, I’ll be in NY in September
and if I can sneak away to the library I’d like to get back to the
Duberman archives and see what else is there.
Also- I know you were connected to Steve Paul’s Scene. Did you know
Havens? I may have someone who can get me an interview. And I believe
you knew Bob Lenox. I will be in Berlin in October and, if he’s still
living there, I’d like to sit down with him.
I don’t know where, if anywhere , this is going but if you don’t want
me to continue, let me know.
Hope all is well and all the best.
Steve”
Dear Steven,
Thank you for the kind words.
That’s (Duberman) an interesting idea. If you don’t find it, I recently got a copy of a live bootleg cassette recording of SOON that may reflect his changes. We can listen to that and compare it to a SOON script that I have that belonged to The great Kookoolis. (Kookoolis was a beautiful and simpatico ultimately “hard luck” fellow)
I would imagine that Martin Duberman was/is embarrassed to have taken the job with SOON as he had no “artistic right” to do so (particularly considering that he was “slid in” as a “unilateral” producers solution while we were in the midst of the natural conflicts flowing out of “art and Commerce”) and likely knows that he contributed nothing. SOON is an ambitious musical creation and Duberman among others, (in my view) missed that point completely.
Bobby Lenox was at the Scene as part of my band “The Fantastic Inner-Galactic Tomorrow Cathedral Tamarind Orchestra” Jimi Hendrix came to the Scene after Monterey Pop. At first as “The Jimi Hendrix Experience” and then hanging out and jamming perhaps essentially because (I suspect) of the quality of the chicks. The chicks (and Groupies) at the Scene were the best. They are why many of us stayed around. Steve Paul was always broke, there was next to no money at all ( well..the chicks had some, and that is what we lived on)
To my knowledge, David Clayton Thomas was only there with BS&T. Some of the other gents from BS&T (Including Al Cooper) had been more of a presence because of their prior involvement with “The Blues Project” which played The Scene a few times. Danny Kalb (Guitar with the BP) was a really decent fellow.
Tiny Tim was there in those days as well and (for his own special reasons) held me me in a place of “high esteem” always coming to the pad for advice on (of all things) relationships with girls. He was a real sweetheart. Steve Paul was quite an interesting fellow in his own right, very bright and creative. Mort Shuman and Kookoolis and I recorded Steve Paul doing monologues, or what he called “rapping” against music that Mort provided. They were really unusual, full of ideas and imagery and quite good. Lord only knows what happened to them. I hope that Steve has managed to save them somewhere.
Looking forward!
Scott
He said..
Scott,
That’s great stuff. have you thought about writing your own story?
Here’s what I said
Dear Steven,
For most of 65-66 I was the “House Singer” at the Scene, Richie was the House Singer at the Au Go Go.
What is your interest in Martin Duberman?
Looking forward!
Scott
He said..
Scott,
I’m looking for a copy of the Soon script in the Duberman archives. I’m curious to see what changes were made between the time you were fired and the opening. The last time I was at The NYPL I found an angry letter to Duberman from Greenwald supporting you and Kookoolis, suggesting that changes had been made.
According to my reading Lenox, David Clayton Thomas and Hendrix were at The Scene too? Is that right? I remember seeing Havens in the audience at The Au Go Go wearing a beautiful, flowing dashiki at a BS&T show shortly after David Clayton Thomas joined the band
The note you sent the other day was wonderful. Have you thought about writing your own story?
Steve
I said..
“Dear Steven,
Richie and I were on the same bill at the Cafe au Go Go for quite a while in the winter of 65 or 66 It was Richie Havens, Scott Fagan, David Clayton Thomas and Jimmy James and The Blue Flames. As I recall we got something like $5.00 a night each (from Howard Solomon) and all the macrobiotic rice you could eat (from the waitresses). One cold winter night I was “Discovered” there by Herb Gart, signed with him, came back to the islands for a quick turnaround and went directly from Duffy’s and Trader Dan’s to “The Cafe Lena” in Saratoga New York (where it was 25 degrees below zero).Down right balmy for you folks in Minnesota, still..
As you know “Jimmy James” was also “Discovered” at the au Go Go around that time by Chas Chandler, taken to England to be returned to us as Jimi Hendrix, and David was “Discovered” there by Al Cooper and taken into Blood, Sweat and Tears.
We thought that Richie had missed the boat, however…
Bobby Lenox and I email back and forth all the time. He is in Berlin, his health has not been good of late so don’t tarry. We were in “The Fantastic Inner-Galactic Tomorrow Cathedral Tamarind Orchestra” (which is what I called my band) together in 66-67 and have co-written a few pretty good tunes. We were put on the bill at The Rheingold Music Festival at The Wollman Rink in NYC in the summer of 66 or 67 with Flatt and Scruggs and Doc Watson..I was out in front in my Neru Jacket doing our heavy protest thing when I thought I saw the biggest, most beautiful gossamer butterfly flit by..then another and another. The bass started playing funny and Bobby’s Hammond Organ made a weird crashing sound..I looked back over my shoulder to see the boys all scrunched down behind their amplifiers yelling to me to “Look out, Look out” just then one of the butterflies exploded against a pole and I realized that they were throwing whisky bottles at us.
We have much in common Bobby and I. Yes, push ahead by all means, I am very hopeful.
I am currently in St.Thomas working on “The Virgin Islands Songs” and will be looking forward to hearing from you.
Break A Leg!
Scott”
He said..
Scott,
That’s great stuff. Really-have you thought about doing this yourself?
Steve
So my dear amigos, this “BLOOK” (which is sorta what I really call the blog/book/(with music) hybrid) that I am writing and you are reading, is the direct outcome of those communications.
.
Lindbergh Bay and The Texas Chile Queen..
After a potted meat and mayo sandwich I went over to Lindbergh (The Beach)
I have been going/coming to Lindbergh since we first saw it in 1951
It is our first morning in the islands and I am looking down at Lindbergh Bay from the breakfast balcony of The Caribbean Hotel. There are flowers all around and Humming birds and Banana Quits are darting in and out of everywhere. A cool morning breeze is moving gently, the air seems edible, it smells so good.
I am watching a young boy and an old man holding hands as they walk together.They are slowly zigzagging along the strand of ivory white sand. And I say to myself, wow….
Back in the present, I am disappointed to see that my favorite shady spot under a certain sea grape tree is completely taken up by a line of plastic tourist chaise lounges, upon which a number of classically “palest of the pale” people are reclining,
This of course means that I will have to fling down out in the blazing sun (well it’s four O’clock in the afternoon, so while not actually blazing, it is still hot)
Anyone who has been going to the beach in the islands for close to sixty years knows one thing if nothing else in the world. You gotta find some shade!..
I continue looking around and realize that the wise local gentleman, working for the hotel on the beach, has (using his OWN experience in these matters) placed all these frigging plastic chaise lounges in the exact spots that HE would choose for himself) this is a problem.
.
One would like to think that personal experience in these matters would provide some reliable advantage; however, these touristas are enjoying instant benefit from experience not their own. Some would say, “it’s the American way” others “The early bird gets the worm..or shade”
I hope this hotel is paying this local elder gent well for selling out our secrets.
I immediately begin to suspect that the mental meltdown promised to us all, is starting to manifest in me, because contrary to everything I know and believe, I fling me stuff down right out there in the blazing (well not quite blazing, but still pumping a good if spotty sizzle) sun.
Anyway. The water is cool and refrescante and just beautiful.
I have discovered recently that I can lie on my back in, or almost, in fact probably, ON the water for the longest while, and I’ve been wondering if I ought to try spending the whole night lying on the water to see how well I might sleep. (no rolling over though,). I’ve discovered that if I turn my palms up just beneath the surface of the water I can feel just enough resistance from the “plane” to “push” against it, and that way maintain an even keel. I’m thinking how interesting this discovery is, and what I ought to do with it, when I hear very strong Texas accents heading my way.
Two “top heavy” older folks are stepping gingerly through the calm clear Caribbean Sea, it looks like these folks may be used to tip toeing around broken clam shells, tar balls and Lord knows what else, However, this water is so clear your big toe looks like a football and you can see the sock lint beneath your toenails.
Still as every tourist will tell you ”ya gadda be careful never know what’s hiding underneath the sand, could be a hungry 60 foot parana shark or a mean bushwackin’ flatkindafish with a pointy whatchamacallit waiting ta slam ya right inda fandango” or worse. Anyway, they looked like simpatico folks and ’cause me mudder taught me to be polite , I said “Howreyeh liking that water?”
The man said “Luuvin it” and just like that, we were conversatin’. “Were you here for the Chili Cook off last Sunday?” he asks, and I say that I had just come back from the states on Saturday and had promised to visit my 107 year old girlfriend up in the mountains on Sunday, so regretfully, I had missed it. He then said “Ah won fourth place and mah wife there won third, she mixes all the spices”.
We had a great chat about Chili and the various cook offs around the country, it turned out that they are pretty consistent winners, and she is sort of “super chili champ” and in fact He had won this trip by taking first prize (using her recipe) at a big Chili event in Texas just last week.
I asked about the water in Brownsville Texas., and they said it was brown. That it was brown all along the Texas coast. I added that in fact the water was brown all through Mississippi and Alabama too, until you got just east of Mobile Bay. Then, it becomes the most beautiful iridescent blue reaching an absolute peak of perfection in Destin, Florida
He wondered how hot it got down here in the winter and I said “it varies just a few degrees one way and the next”..I said I’d been in this very same water on Christmas day a number of times. And further, that one of the hottest places I’d ever experienced was Dallas Texas, but that the theater group I was in Dallas with, took me to an Ice skating rink to cool off and it was wonderful. They said yep, that must be the Galleria and I said yep that sounds about right.
Anyway, our Chili chat turned out to be one of the most surprisingly refreshing conversations I’d had in the water at Lindbergh, ’cause first of all I am not in the habit of talking to people in the water, I am much more used to lieing on my back talking to the sky and secondly, I’m afraid folks have gone a bit sour on Texans in this part of the perdinales. These days there are possibly more Texans on the Island than Palestinians and while the Palestinians in St. Thomas are seen as unpleasant, arrogant and wealthy, the Texans are seen as just plain old unpleasant and arrogant
.There are bumper stickers on the island saying “Somewhere In Texas, A Village Is Missing It’s Idiot” However, I think people who are promoting anger and intolerance for one another, are no less than village idiots themselves
Doody and Babs (their real names) were nice regular folks from Texas with all the qualities and faults of nice regular folks from anywhere. We had a nice little moment in time together. Godblessem.
.
Back at the pad, Tuts reports that the son of a lifelong friend of ours has been shot to death.
Tuts is rightfully upset and on a rant about the Godawful proliferation of guns and shootings in The V.I.. As he says (and often) “”We have not and do not manufacture any guns here in St. Thomas so every one of them came in by boat or plane. You can’t tell me that The Feds don’t know that the Arabs are bringing in these guns to sell to ignorant young black children, what I don’t understand is why do they allow it? Why don’t they stop it?”
All I can do is remind him again that he habitually overestimates the intelligence of white men and expects too much of them. I say (as I always do) “The people themselves have to take the action to bring about change” but it sounds (even to me) like the lamest of Okee Dookee responses.
The fact is,it is beyond belief that the Feds would allow the island to be flooded by guns and drugs and illegals from every corner of the earth. The island has somehow become inundated by Palestinian merchants and associated young men. Local folks are convinced that they are all disrespectful of black people and practice overcharging and short-changing as a way of life.. The local folks also believe that these are the people that are smuggling and selling the weapons.. I of course, am trained and inclined to prejudge no one (except Texans) and so am more on the “wait for proof trail” Ah..you do know that I’m joking about the Texans right?. Godblessem..and all the rest.
Scott Fagan's Mem.wa? 