My preamble: I’ve been this way before. It was such an important lesson for me. Call it my first conscious experience with proclivity, my first awakening that not all people are the same. It would take me awhile to accept that people had a right to their proclivities, mind you.

I couldn’t understand why my younger brother, Ron, and my young cousin, Dave the Dude, didn’t care to play football with me. I thought everyone loved football. It wasn’t possible that those boys really loved going to matinee at Majestic Theatre, and playing cowboys and Indians, much more than playing football. I thought it was SPITE, bad mind, MEAN, especially on my younger brother’s part.

The MCC was sacred ground. I loved being there, listening to the old guys, smelling their cigarette smoke, eating peanuts, and watching my heroes, in their resplendent uniforms, lining up to come on the field, running across the field, chasing football. There wasn’t anything in the world as exciting. Allow me to whisper some of those revered names – the Mugga, D-Line, Big Fred, Rummy Martinez, Peeta, Columbus, Malanga, Big Mole, Lee Mole, Gyas Dougal…and on.
I thought what those boys needed was an evening at the MCC. It took some doing. Those movie-hound boys used to go to matinee morning and evening. But I managed to tear them away. I can’t recall if I threatened to beat them if they didn’t come. It never occurred to me before, but it does now…maybe the movie playing at the theatre that evening, they had seen it a dozen times before. Anyway, I paid for their tickets and they agreed to join me.

Thirty cents, the price of three tickets, was a sizeable fortune for eleven-year-old me, but it was worth it if they saw a game and “catch the fever”, and became fans. I’d never have to beg them to play football in the afternoons with me again!

It was a bust. When I told them the name of the man in goal for BEC was Bowza, they started singing: “Bowza, Bowza, was a bear, Bowza, Bowza, had no hair (sung to the tune of Smokey Bear).”

I guess their parents would have said that they were just being nine-year-old boys. They spent most of the evening playing chase behind the bench, and wandering around. I remember the game had a climactic ending. It was high drama in the evening sun. Everyone in the stadium was on the edge of their seats. I sneaked a peak, away from the heated action, to see what they were doing. They were busy trying to climb a tree at the back of the stadium.

These boys, they didn’t love football. Both of them ran the Boston Marathon when they grew up. I hate running. I think I would like running more if I had two good legs. I don’t. But if I had, I don’t think I would ever have loved it so much I would have participated in the most gruelling sport man has ever conceived. I hate driving. Some people love to be behind the wheel. Oh, those boys loved the Indians in the movies. They loved making bows and arrows. I loved the cowboys. I loved pop-shot guns.

There are a lot of us in this world, you know. A lot of people with oh so many different minds. Maybe that’s why there isn’t a boring moment under the sun.

If I were a smart one I would have understood the lesson in the story about Jack Sprat and his wife. Remember, one couldn’t eat fat, one couldn’t eat lean, and they were so accepting of each other’s proclivities, without a fuss they licked the platter clean. I could have saved two-thirds of my hard-earned 30 cents for a better purpose.

In the world of mind stimulators, we find there are people who love cigarettes, and people who don’t. There are people who love weed and people who don’t; people who love rum and people who prefer whiskey. That’s how it is.

We all love food. But some people’s proclivity for food is an obsession. Wow, did we really take so much cake that we climbed all the way into third place in the contest for world’s fattest nation?

One day at 1970’s Compre, I overheard one of our teachers from foreign say to some students: “That’s why your women are fat!” She was the real trim type, so she kud taak. And what was the reason why our women are fat? She said it had to with the cassava and the koako and the plantain. But some people who ought to know say that the flour is the trouble.

When my belt needs another hole, I dump the beer and go for the rum. But someone who ought to know about these things told me I was fooling myself. They said that all the sugar from the cane is right in the bottle. My, that is so discouraging. By the way, I understand the marijuana smokers have no obesity problem. But consumers of rum and beer, especially beer, do.

Ms. Sandra Coye, who seems the type weh noh frayd fu nobody, is the only person I’ve heard making blunt, hard commentaries about our bloating. And right about now Dr. Pitts must be hiding his head under the desk for pointing out that we can’t boycott our essential sugar industry. Da troo, but he shouldn’t have been the one to say so.

It’s a vicious cycle. The more energy you consume, the heavier you get. The heavier you get, the more energy you need to move around. The monster Coke and the lemon pie and the chunk of cake have us hooked.

Sometimes the proclivities of others are troublesome. One such proclivity is the male-liking-like thing. For the opposite-liking male, it is an absolute stunner that not all males jive with Fine Young Cannibals when they sang: “She drives me crazy!” How is it possible that you can lock a guy in a room with an interesting girl and he doesn’t need any part of religion to bring him home safely?

We don’t understand this proclivity, but we know it exists. True, it really does take a while for some of us to accept that there are people who are really that way. But having read about it, and heard about it, and having seen two men hop down church steps arm in arm, their hair full of rice, well, ah, we have to accept that it is what it is.

It’s astounding. And what is equally astounding is that there are people who believe that ALL these people with this proclivity, are products of environment. Some of them, maybe there are some who are lukewarm and got turned that way. But the flaming ones, no, for them it is what it is.

The first time my heart beat real fast I was about six years old. One doesn’t have to express one’s feelings to a girl. One can keep their feelings on the down low, for one’s reason or reasons. But one knows what is going on, on the inside. You will tell me that environment could have made my heart beat that way for a boy? Well, no, sir. This is chemistry. This is Biology. That is proclivity. And some have a proclivity to like the same sex. Yap, in rare cases the heart rate increases when it meets like.

Bah, we are aware that males who like males have a proclivity to do something. The Catholic Church has a message for these people. Don’t do that thing. Be celibate. Some of us who can’t speak for the Church, at least one of us, advise such males to buy a rubber doll. If you are absolutely hopeless, if your proclivity overwhelms you, well, there’s always the closet that the court said is your right.

If I say, do not bring your cigarettes around (personally I love smelling cigarette smoke), would I be guilty of hating if I say to the little chimney, don’t puff your smoke around here?

Men who like guys want to get upset when you say, please, no, not that way. I saw a picture of a man and a woman in that position. Astounding! Why would they want to do that? Why isn’t the design to make little ones sufficient? Well then, you are bored; can’t you think of something else? Color me red, color me blue, it’s unwholesome to people who don’t have that—proclivity.