Jamaican Till I Die!

When I was young my uncles use to call be both "infahma" (informer) and farmer:   I would tell my grandmother on my uncles every time I see them doing something they should not be doing, so "infahma" in Jamaican Patios was informer and At an early age I developed a love for farming, a loved for the soil. (farma)  My grandmother did not let the small plot of land around her house go to waste. She could not afford to and so she utilized as much of the land as she could to grow food and I was there every step of the way to help her. At the center of our farming world was the chickens and it was my job to make sure the chicken coop was cleaned, chickens watered, fed, eggs collected and fighting birds kept apart. This was a job I did with pride, except on one occasion when one of the hens laid her eggs under the house. It was my job to go under the house and collect these eggs but on that day both the hen and the roaster did not want that to happen. The hen ...

In the game of politics there are two types of players who disgust me, the first is the politician and the second is the die-hard party supporter.   The Politician and the Party All politicians disgust me even the ones regarded as a good politicians, in fact they disgust me even more simply because good politicians should be an agent for good but they have mastered the art of playing and sipping champagne with the devils in their own party. They lack the power and will to turn to their own party members and point the finger of shame at the evil doers and as such they are just as guilty. Just the sight and sound of most politicians is enough to send shivers down my spine because Politian’s are liars’, they will say anything, do anything for power and they have all mastered the art of taking the people for fools. In fact the Jamaican politicians show nothing but contempt for the people and the constitution. It makes me really sick to watch these clowns perform their circus...

This is the year I thought the young gunners would have come of age, this is the year I thought Wenger would have prevailed and the great experiment paid off but instead we have been knocked out of all competitions and our chances of winning the Premiere League is slipping away before our very eyes. The season has been very disappointing for me as I am forced to come to the conclusion that our current crop of players is just not good enough. We have a lot of skillful players who play beautiful football but something is missing in the guts and heart department, they are just not Arsenal enough, they are too easily intimidated by opponents and some mentally, don’t even show up on game day. Arsenal has not won any trophy in 6 years and the blame for that rest squarely on the back of the manager. As far as I am concern this should be Wenger’s last chance, I am now prepared for life at Arsenal without Mr. Wenger as the manager but who will they replace him with? I like Wenger but I lov...

*****I dreamt Jamie was at my house, but not my house.   I don’t know why I dreamt of her… .  She was at my house, but not my house.  A big, old, drafty clapboard house.  Painted green and cream.  There we sat with mugs of tea, talking about the incredible job of child rearing.  She telling me how she let her two (I thought she had three?) fall asleep in her bedroom in a bed jury-rigged to a ceiling track so she could easily slide them over to their bedroom when she finally went upstairs to bed.  Dreams are silly things sometimes...***** But it was Jamie who lived in the clapboard house.  A beautiful, old, limestone and clapboard house in Maryland; the foothills of the misty, mystic Blue Mountains.   A house with a name: Lliana Lodge .  I never knew houses had names.   Long ago…yesterday, in a grade seven summer with common entrance behind us and childhood a close second, our teachers rewarded us with two field tri...

Born and bred in Kingston and St. Andrew, that is the place I call home but it is the rural parish of Portland with its capital Port Antonio that I hope will be my final resting place. This is where I have instructed my family to spread my ashes. If Portland was a woman she would be my first and only love, it is the place where I am at peace, a place where the stresses of everyday life melts away. Nothing matters when I am in Portland, the world takes a back seat when I am in Portland. My love for Portie started at a very young age back in the 70’s. At that time my aunt was the general manager for a couple of Portland’s finest hotels and I would spend almost every school holidays with her. Port Antonio was freedom to me as our aunt had no idea where we were or what we were doing. Well until she got the bills we ran up on our exploration. Back then we could go from property to property order things and tell them to put it on our dear aunts bill. Over the years we amassed a legi...