I would not record or publish this nature of a report unless the rest of the day was uninspiring.]
That’s odd, I cannot find a single blog word about my famous holiday in Barbados back in 1983. I was a lean mean sex machine back then. The likely explanation is the account is hand-written and will have to wait for my real retirement to be published. Those records exceed twenty million words! Until then, let me depart from my blog rule of focus on the present, and here are some of the high points as they come back to me.
I arrived in Barbados late 1983 single on a mainly couples flight. The devastatingly beautiful hotel manageress took an immediate shine to me and fixed me up with a detached private suite in the west wing of the Rockley Beach Hotel, two miles from Bridgetown. To my surprise, the majority of tourists were Canadians. The hotel was also full of Canadian hookers, who were instantly on duty once the US Army took over all vacant hotel rooms (the Grenada thing). If you Canadians ever wonder where all your tax money goes, the island is a plum political posting for the lazy offspring of your politicians. They work at various travel agencies and such, living in luxury in an exclusive area called Champagne, where the only Barbadians are maids and servants. I asked one of these agents how I could apply such a job (which then paid $100,000 tax-free per year) and they kindly told me I lacked the “correct” family credentials, that the jobs were by appointment.
I was extremely popular at the hotel, for a new game had just hit the market called “Trivial Pursuit”. Only the American version existed and any team that had me as a member would easily win. “How many states border on the Pacific Ocean?” It was also the first time I played a slot machine. My first coin, a “beewie” (the local dollar) won me $17 and the room could not understand why I wouldn’t continue playing.
In all, I have fond memories of Barbados. The airport had been “quarantined” by the military and I was stranded for a month. It turns out that joke of a war was a NATO operation, so I received (by law) full pay when I returned home. Prices skyrocketed overnight and everyone ran out of cash, but I had earlier made friends with Tony Barrow, a massive fisherman. We worked all morning on his fishing boat, and went looking for women every evening. Looking only, for there seemed to be five men for every available female, which I’ll explain in a moment.
Other memories include the island hot salsa, called “Chef’s sauce”, and Crazy-Legs, a Toronto fireman, who weakly warned “it burns going in and it burns coming out”. By that point, I was fishing for my own food in the ocean, since my hotel room had a full kitchen at a time when others were paying $8 for a jar of peanut butter. I like octopus, and when the soldiers drank all the beer, well, the delivery driver was Tony’s cousin.
The hefty prices even before the war gave me an aversion to visiting small islands. Everything seemed imported and heavily taxed. I took a bus tour up to the north end and saw a lot of waves and caves. The water on the Atlantic coast is grey and ugly compared to the blue water of the Caribbean. The northeast area is called “Little Scotland” for good reason, and the tour owner treated us to a steak dinner, which for some reason is a rare dish in Barbados. Maybe something to do with the lack of cattle spreads on the 15 mile wide island.
Most often, I ate salty fish over at Tony’s place, with his huge family, most of whom appeared under the age of six. Multiple wives and girlfriends are common among the alpha males on the island, and families of more than 15 children are expected. I had my snorkel and fins and caught a trophy shell, the last time I ever killed anything for sport. The local bands were damn good but generally, there was little to do until the manageress got off work, sometimes at 1:00 AM. This led to my ancient proverb that islands are like British Columbia: pack along absolutely everything you need to enjoy yourself because you won’t find it there.
The high point was a lunch at the Hilton up the road. You’ll find it, there is only one road. A couple of navy types were talking code which I translated to Tony, which they found amusing. Turns out they were the commanding officers of the USS Skipjack or Thresher (the one that didn’t sink, they gave me a ball cap). When I explained that my military knowledge was common to every Soviet schoolboy, they laughed and invited me on a tour of the boat next day. Alas, I had to catch the plane that evening, and thus missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Yes, life was very interesting back in my richer days. I point out that most of the hotel clients were far richer than I, so that is by no means the only factor here. I don’t go on holidays to sit at some hotel bar and watch baseball reruns while the wife maxes out the credit card. Who knows, if I make it to retirement, I’ll have plenty of places to re-visit.
The answer is five. Five states on the Pacific. You are forgetting Hawaii.
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