Sunday, August 13, 2023

I was reading one of the publisher’s columns about Spanish Caye and the surrounding areas, about the fishing and the abundance of fishes that were there for the catching when he was a child. Those are the columns I enjoy most, about childhood and innocence and discovery and freedom, about being safe, not troubled by all the violence of our now. I think that we need those stories to remind us that we’re still humans, that we are not just Facebook and Instagram and Tik Tok and all the other mediums that deprive us our dreams, of our imaginations running wild. I believe that these technologies stifle us, dilute our creativity and turn us, especially young people, into robotic copies of ourselves.

The publisher goes to sea, I go dah country. I spent a lot of my childhood holidays in the country, lagoons and ponds and pine ridges and black sand and fruit trees and chiggers and ticks that would suck you dry of your blood, and worms from eating unwashed fruits. At the end of summer your grandma would give you worm oil, the worse torture in the world, and you would get rid of all these worms restlessly wandering about in your stomach. Yuk! But those had to be the best of times, and especially the food!

Now, there was no electricity, no gas stove, no microwave, nada. The kitchen was always adjacent to the house with a big fire hearth, usually in the corner. I would go with my aunts and uncles to cut wood! The wood would be stored under the fire hearth or outside the kitchen, that was the fuel. I’m older now, but I’m positive that the best tasting food ever cooked was on those hearths, and in a cast iron pot! Boil up, cere, rice ahn beans, stew pork or any meat, with kuknat oil or kuknat milk? Roasted corn, or roasted chicken to put in the escabeche, mi mouth di waata. Maddas! The same goes for bread or Johnny Cakes or fry jacks, or any baked goods. The fire hearth was magic, gave the food a certain flavor, a certain taste that no modern invention could ever compete with. Those meals made you realize how wonderful life was.

I go to the country today and the ponds are all dried up, the lagoon is drying up, fishes are scarce and modernity has stolen the luster of village life. No more storytelling at nights, especially ghost stories, it’s all tvs or iPads or the blasted phones! Thank goodness the horses and cows still roam free and stop the traffic in its tracks. Thank goodness that some of us are still alive to remember when. Thank goodness that we experienced life at a time when we were not aware of the “outside.” We were green and happy and content, and we had our fire hearths! I still remember watching the dying embers, late into the evening, after the ghost stories ended!

“The rainbow comes and goes, and lovely is the rose.
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare,
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, whe’ever I go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth!” Wordsworth

Glen

Ed. note: just for the record, Grandma didn’t dose Glen with worm oil to deal with worms in fruits. Worms in fruits and vegetables are harmless, except for those who might suffer from allergies. That worm oil was for the worms he might have picked up walking bare feet, and from all the roast pikayri and game meat he ate.