Stredwick

I remembered the first harvest I went to. I think I was in primary school at the time. It was held at the Grateful Hill Methodist Church. I think the harvest may have been held in the basic school. There were a lot of things on sale. Normally in a harvest, church members donate thing to the church to be sold to persons attending the harvest. At this harvest there were a lot of fruits, baked products, and agricultural produce. There were also craft work on sale. Once you know that there will be a church harvest you try to have some extra money to buy some of the products.

Have you ever been to a country fair? We used to have so many of them. We used to have them on Boxing Day, Easter Monday and on Independence Day. Normally we would have the fair in the day and then a dance in the night. Some of the places where fairs were held were Grateful Hill Primary School, Cassava River Primary School, St. Faiths Primary School. We also had fairs in Above Rocks and at Glengoffe High School. Apart from the fair during the day, we had a cricket match. The fairs would have ferris wheel rides and many other things such as catching a greased pig. Food and drinks would be available for sale right throughout the day into the night. People would come from all over to attend these fairs.

We first had piped water in our village when a pipe was put at Ashley Gate. Before that we had to go to the springs or rivers to fetch water. Women had to go to a place called Flat Rock to wash clothes. No sooner had the pipe been put in than fights over water began. Some families consisted of eight or nine persons at the time. They would put a huge washtub under the pipe and each member of the family would full their jug from it. They would not move that washtub until every vessel in their yard that could hold water was full. Other persons would object to just one set of people preventing others from getting access to water for more than two hours sometimes. As a result it was the families who had the strength in numbers and brute force who prevailed. After a while my grandmother got fed up of this and so we got water piped into our yard. Eventually everybody started taking in piped water into their homes. But people living in remote areas still went to the springs or rivers for their

W hile I'm in favor of a flexi-work week I think the people's religion and their customs must be respected. A flexi-work week means that the work week can be flexed. In other words the times when one comes to work can be changed. The times when one leaves work can also be changed.I remember a story a colleague related ton me several years ago. He was a Sabbath keeper and worshiped on Saturdays. The company wanted him ton work on Saturdays but he refused. Instead he chose to work on Sundays but the company still wasn't very pleased. Eventually he had to leave. If  companies adopt a flexi work week then prospective em p loyees should be told what to expected of them.

This is my second stint of being unemployed. The first one was from September 2012 to July 2013. I've been unemployed since January 2016. I have only attended two interviews, I think they were preliminary interviews. I was not however granted a second interview. I don't know if I will find a job. I think my age may be working against me. A former colleague of mine told me that she was unemployed for three years. I will be trying in the next few months to get a job.

I've told you that I had to carry sugar cane from the fields to a cane heap by the roadside. I also had to go to the bushes and cut firewood. We usually roamed over more than twenty acres of land looking firewood. We usually cut  of the dried limbs of treed. We also used an axe to split dried tree trunks. We would use the bark of dried banana trees to lash the firewood together in order to carry it on our heads from the bushes. Some of those times could be enjoyable depending on which fruit crops were in season. Mangoes were the most enjoyable. We would climb the trees and spend hours eating mangoes.

I used to wait on the milk truck at Ashley Gate. It would take us to the the entrance of Golden River district. We would then walk the other half mile to school. The truck was driven by a man name Lion Thames. If he was indisposed it would be driven by his wife, Miss May or Bobs Henry. The truck took cows milk to the condensery in Bog Walk. The truck would collect milk from dairy farmers and store it in metal containers. Both boys and girls used to travel on the truck in the mornings. If we were lucky in the evenings when going home we would get a lift from one of then truck driver going our way. Occasionally we would catch Mr. Thames truck when he was returning from the condensery. Otherwise we would have to walk the five miles back to our homes.

There are a wide variety of fruits in Jamaica. I will try to find out the family of these fruits and their usage and also their bearing seasons. We have oranges, grapefruits,tangerine, mangerine, sour oranges, lemons, limes, shaddock.There is the apple family,otahiti apple, star apple, rose apple.There are several varieties of mangoes. These are East Indian, Julie, Bombay, Number 11, Long Mangoes, Hairy Mangoes, Sweety Mangoes, Beefy Mangoes and many more. We have sweet sop, sour sop, custard apple, among others. We have the jackfruit, naseberry and others.  We have both sour and sweet guavas, Spanish guavas.

If  You Win Big, Don't Lose It by Austin Mitchell         I was in Wally Duke’s bar when Jake Harriot came in. Now what the hell was happening, I thought. First Reece Duggan and now him, maybe the others would soon be in town. Jake spied me and came over.           “What’s happening Russ, it’s a long time I haven’t seen you?”           “I thought you didn’t remember what Norris looked like again, Jake?”           He laughed as he took a seat on a bar stool beside me.           I was serious though, my cousin had been hurt by these guys before. I wasn’t going to stand around and see them rob her blind.           I was drinking a beer and I bought him one.           What had really happened was that one of my female cousins, Raquel Reed, had won the first prize in the Racing Pools. This was a huge chunk of money that if she was smart she would never be in need again.             I knew a man who had won it some years ago. He now owned several buses, cars and

                                                   A Fixed Election Date Jamaican's will soon have a fixed election date. This was one of the ruling party's election promises. In his budget speech the Prime Minister did say that the legislation was being drafted. The United States has a fixed election date. It also has a date for the inaguration of the new President. I don't think we can set a date say September 30. If that day falls on a Saturday will Seventh Day Adventists go out to vote? If it falls on a Sunday will people who worship on that day go out to vote? My advice would be to say fix the date like the last or first working date of a month. If the month chosen is October then set the date at the first, or the the tenth or the last working day of the month. I would prefer it to be the first or lat working day of a month so that persons aren't confused.

People have been criticizing the banks for the exorbitant fees they charge. They give you minimal interest on your money. They make billions in profits each year. I am not taking up for the banks but they have a lot of administrative charges. Also if  the banks, especially the largest banks start losing money it would be a signal that something was wrong with the economy. I do however think that they can give a little more interest on savings deposits. I remember opening a checking account at this particular bank and had to soon close it because of the amount of charges I was incurring.

I believe that discipline in schools should be maintained at the highest level. Discipline in our schools have deteriorated to such a level that we have to employ a dean of discipline in nearly all high schools. And if that wasn't enough Safety and Security Officers have to be assigned to several schools. A few years ago extortion was rife in several high schools. I'm not sure if this practice has been totally eliminated. The other day several boys and girls were caught in an uncompromising position in a house in a community. Sometimes you see these children going and coming from school and you wonder at their levels of learning.

             Back in the old days I always dreaded going to the dentist, not because I was afraid of the needle but because I might not get through. You might reach the clinic at six in the morning and hear that there were only fifteen tickets given out and people had already come for them. If you are having a terrible toothache all you can do is go back home and buy some tablets to ease your pain. I remember having a toothache for an entire night. I stuffed the cavity with a tablet, pour alcohol on it yet there was no ease up. When I reached the clinic the next morning I wasn told that all the tickets to see the dentist have been given out. I knew that the clerk had given some of the them to his friends.           I could never believe it was so easy to see a dentist when I went to live in Kingston. You didn't have to wait for weeks to have an extraction done. Of course there were quack dentists around but I've never gone to any of them. Once one of them extracted a tooth for

Most countries in the world have trains. It is said that Jamaica had one of the first train service. However many people doubt the feasibility of restarting the train service. Trains are very expensive to run. My understanding is that it might affect the agreement with the various toll operators. It is also being said that the trains could relieve our roads of a lot of these heavy vehicles whose constant use help to mash up our roads. It might provide a safer way for school children  to travel to school. Will the trains be able to charge competitive fares and still make a profit? If the trains are to run again there will have to be a lot of rehabilitation of the tracks. So I say by all mean bring back the trains but before you bring them back do a proper feasibility study. It doesn't make any sense starting the service and then running out of money in a year's time.

When I was going to primary school I had to stop for one week to carry ugar cane from the field up to the road for the trucks to take it to the Bybrook Sugar Factory in Bog Walk. I think it was about the ending of May or the beginning of June. My father planted cane on our land and he rented adjoining lands to plant more cane. Jay Phipps also planted cane on the Phipps property. They would employ other men to help them in the field. Some would help to cut the cane while others would take it out to the cane heap. Sugar cane farming was popular in those days. Stanley Marshall, Vernal King, Mr. Oliver, Aston Thompson and Mr. Gordon were some of the men I remembered who planted sugar canes. The workers ate a lot of food and sometimes had two or three helpings at lunch time. My mother and grandmother were the cooks on our estate and I'm not boasting, they cooked the best food I've ever had. Not all the workers were agreeable and sometimes there were disputes over pay. Some of the wo

                                                                                The Cheating Gamblers                                                                         by                                                                  Austin Mitchell           Charlton was gambling with a group of youths. They were playing crown and anchor. Charlton is a forty five year old man and is a professional gambler. Sometimes he is a three card dealer, other times he is a crown and anchor dealer.        On this particular Saturday night they were gambling on the outskirts of Keswick. Charlton is a man from Norris, who is banned from entering Keswick. The men he was gambling with are all from Keswick. He was banned because he rode away from a game owing a man and a woman, money. He has not returned to pay up his debts despite several warnings.             Charlton had thrown the dice and rolled them in his cup and put the cup back on the table. He invited the men to put d

All of my book have been POD. I think that the prices are still too high even when choose the lowest price available. It is difficult to see how anybody is going to buy any books, especially fiction, at these prices from a little known writer. I know my prices when it comes to fiction. When I convert the US$ prices back to the Jamaican currency I shake my head as these prices are way too high. Frankly if given the choice between fiction and non-fiction I would go with the non-fiction. I remember when I used to study. Now Western stories are my favorite books, but there were times when I had to choose my study materials over those books. So my question again, why are the prices of POD books so high? Is it the price of the printing material used.

The amount of fatalities on our roads seemed to be getting out of hand. Only today a bus carrying school children and adults crashed into another vehicle. The crash resulted in five persons being killed and several injured including  some of the school children. The police have theorized that the driver of the bus was speeding. The driver ran away from the scene of the crime. Over the years there have been too many accidents on our roads involving school children. A law should be introduced where it is mandated that any vehicle containing school children may only travel at a certain speed. Some of these drivers are known as 'Shotta Drivers'. These drivers drive at these speeds because they want to make as many trips as possible. I think every parish should have a school bus system.

Pradial thieves or pradial larcenist are people who reap without sowing. They are the scourge of any farming community. They steal livestock, vegetables, fruits, tubers, all sorts of farm produce and dispose of it for their own benefit.The government has sought to counter this scourge by putting in more patrols. They have also encouraged farmers to register and to use specially designed receipt books. I'm not sure just how successful these measures have been. As times get harder it seems that people resort to all sorts of unethical practices. People have complained to me that they have seen people picking their mangoes and when they call to them they tell them that they didn't know that they were the owner. People raid other people's fruit trees when they know that they are at work. Sometimes people have put out warning that they have just sprayed a crop of vegetables and it has been stolen. As a result people shy away from buying from street vendors. So I suppose the good

Almost ninety five percent of Jamaicans do not have their right surnames as a result of slavery. We were given the surnames of our slave masters. This was what happened all over the Caribbean, and the American. Anyway, what I really want to concentrate on is pet names people were known by. Sometime we didn't know their real names. Names like, Son-Son, Papa-Son, One-Son come to mind. Other familiar names were Bwoy-Bwoy, Whitey, Brown-Man, Yellow-Man, Girly, Miss Daughter, Mamma G. Other names were Big Boy, Little Man, Blacka, Man-Man, Miss Little. Nobody felt offended as sometimes it was your parents or friends who gave you that name. I believed that most people in our village had a pet name. Some persons even had nicknames which they abhorred but I won't go there.

My favorite fruit has got to be the custard apple. You can hardly get it thee days. I suppose if I went to the Coronation Market I would get ample supplies of it. The mango season is almost upon us. Trees are laden with mangoes. Many of them will go to waste. Almost every year we have a glut of mangoes. This happens with other tree crops too. My favorite mango has got to be the Number Eleven Mango. There are other tasty mangoes like the East Indian and the Julie.We eat a lot of mangoes in Jamaica. The East Indian and the Julie mangoes are prized for their succulent taste and fetch good prices.

I have heard the news that the police have arrested four male teachers for sexual misconduct with their students. There is talk that more background checks need to be done on thee teachers before they are employed. But many of thee teachers are employed straight out of training college. So maybe this is where the monitoring should take place. But they could display very good behavior in college and graduate only to show their bad side a few years later. Teachers, especially male teachers must realize that many of their female student idolize them. What make it so bad is when that teacher takes advantage of such students.  Teachers must realize that they are role models to their students and they must act the part. If they feel that they can no longer play that role then they should leave the profession. There are many distinguished teachers, some still serving the profession. This is but a small blot on such a noble profession. Surely we cannot let a few soil up the good name of men an

My Short Story-Bring Back the Good Old Days I decided to publish my short stories as anthologies. I’ve done four anthologies so far. The first one is ‘Bring back the good old Days’ and consists of seven stories. The first story is about kleptomaniac, Syd Bethune and the troubles he and his like-minded friends got into. The second story’ Bubbles Baby” is about a young woman and what happened to her after she lost her baby. The ‘Story of Dixie Jonas’, tells about a woman plotting to leave her con artist live in lover and the ensuing dangers. In Dally Gray’s story we have another jealous husband suspecting his wife of cheating.   Who killed Son Tai and chopped his wife and children? Suspicions fell on several thieves around the area. But were they the guilty ones?   Celestine is determined to punish whoever stole her money even if it’s one of her children. In the Inheritance, will Wally find love at last or will it elude him again?