Saturday, February 24, 2024
I remember as a teenager in the 1960s, looking forward to the Easter holidays, saving up my money, the little that I had, to go to either San Pedro or Chetumal with my friends, or to Crooked Tree with my family. Needless to say, going out to San Pedro was the most exciting trip to look forward to. Many beautiful girls would be out there, incredible beach parties and dances over the weekend! My friends and I would try to catch a ride with people we knew, or pay, I think it was about 2 bucks to get on the Elsa P, one of the boats that serviced the island. We didn’t know where we would stay; one year we slept on the beach that whole Easter. We would take our own food, no restaurants, except Elvi’s, which was a hamburger stand back then. I remember I went one year to San Pedro with 5 bucks and a tin of sugar corn. I had the time of my life for 4 days and actually returned home with the sugar corn! Life was good.
San Pedro was much smaller then; life was much, much simpler. With a population of about 500, unpaved sandy roads (not streets), a movie theatre, 2 hotels, Holiday hotel and Jim Blake’s, and of course the Catholic Church, in the center of town. My rich friends stayed at Blake’s House, the rest of us depended on the kindness of strangers or slept on the beach, as I mentioned before. Back then the town limits began at the airstrip and ended at where the Phoenix is now, what used to be Paradise hotel, owned by Jerry McDermott. Everyone knew everyone else on that island, a close-knit community, but always welcoming to the Easter throng that descended upon it, year after year. On Holy Saturday nights there would always be a big dance at Big Daddy’s and the fee was 5 dollars. We would all be outside, all young people, listening and dancing to the music, free of charge. We were minors, but we’d all be drinking rum and coke and smoking and skinny dipping late at night; romances bloomed, some even resulting in marriages. Oh, the ecstasy!
These days, San Pedro is more like Cancun or Miami Beach. Hotels and restaurants are plentiful, and paved streets and traffic jams and tourists and crime and mucho dinero! If you are a poor or broke teenager you would not choose that location for your Easter vacation, unfortunately. Progress always comes with a price, a steep price that only a few can afford. Being born at the right time makes all the difference. In my time, life was much simpler, much easier to live carefree and fearless. After all, what could possibly go wrong? That was our mindset; everything is gonna be alright, echoing Marley’s song. We would go back to school so happy, so content, lying about our exploits over that memorable weekend! What a time, what a ting!
Look, I know we can’t relive the past, although I try so hard to. But I think of our teenagers today, and how different their lives are from ours. They are far smarter than we were, less innocent and much more proactive! But I believe that they are missing out on the awe and the adventure and experience of the newness of everyday; back then we couldn’t even predict the weather; we had no internet and smart phones and social media. I don’t believe that they can appreciate the concept of kissing someone or holding hands with someone you care for and the exhilaration those brief encounters produced. We were braggadocios but still innocent in many ways. I’m speaking for myself in particular.
Belize has changed so much, as it should. San Pedro has changed also, hardly recognizable from those days of innocence in my teenage years. But with change comes progress, we can only hope that the changes will be for the better and never for the worse. That idyllic sleepy village is now one of the country’s largest economic engines, and a source of pride for San Pedranos, and for Belize in general. But at what cost?
Glen