Jamaica
In the late 1950s, on my first vacation to the Caribbean, I had an amorous time. (If whoever will return the gold DeMolay ring I'd worn since a teenager and gave away in a foolish romantic moment, I'll pay.) A late night trek to the ocean beach, after an illegal crawl over a private wall, resulted in my seeing silhouetted palm trees, white-capped water, and a beautiful face with the whitest teeth imaginable. My hotel was veh-ry Bwitish, one could not move from the assigned table, and it was within walking distance of the vivid downtown scene. And this was to be just the first of five different Caribbean islands on a special tour one of the airlines was offering.
Dominican Republic
I continued my travels. However, the Dominican Republic had a Warren Smith on its "Don't-Let-Enter" roster, so I saw only its airport and speculated as to who my namesake was and why Trujillo feared him.
Cuba
I arrived in Camaguey, Cuba, the very day Fidel Castro took the city on his way to Havana. I glimpsed the empty parks, the closed cinemas, the schools with no students. But two handsome seÐors in a car talked with me and, learning I was from the States, offered to drive me around. Although I no longer live dangerously, this stranger graciously accepted their kindness and was not allowed to reimburse them for the gasoline, which was scarce at that crucial time. On the way to the airport I asked for their addresses, so I could repay them somehow. To my surprise, I learned they were a couple.
St. Kitts-Nevis
Because everything in Cuba was closed down, I flew on to St. Kitts. Here, I surprised my 3rd class hotel owner by playing accordion in the next-to-empty bar; the colorful lady who owned the place (rumored to have killed a man in some kind of boat incident off the coast and in front of the hotel) showed me the instrument, and soon I had the bar filling up with music-lovers. To her surprise. Especially to mine! From the first person I met (a Mr. Christian , a fireman whose vehicle routinely chased every plane as it came in for a landing) to students and teachers I talked with at one of the schools, everyone was so very friendly. [Later I was to learn that Gilbert Price's grandmother had been born on the island--Gil, amusingly, had thought St. Kitts was somewhere in Africa.] On a side excursion to the island of Nevis I met a high school soccer champion, Tony Hull , who volunteered to show me Alexander Hamilton's birthplace. From Tony I learned that Hamilton had African in his ancestry, but also I learned that "Caribbean" comes from "Carib." When I inquired how it happened that his hair was straighter than most, Tony told me he was part Carib. Then he suggested that some day I should visit Dominica, that there were 400 or so Caribs still alive on a reservation there. This bit of information was to lead to some interesting episodes.
Antigua
In Antigua, I stayed at Olive Jardine's rickety hotel, a place which, like Queen Victoria's beautiful old lace dress, had deteriorated gracefully. On my own, I scouted all around the capital and, one day, walked to a beach some distance away from the hotel. "Hello, white man," a 4-year-old called out as I passed one house. It was the first time I had ever felt what being in a minority really is like! Olive's nephew, the bartender, Alvin Cornelius , was a friendly, handsome brute [who years later invited me to his wedding in the Bronx for he moved to the city and became an executive in the United Nations's printing department]. When he invited me to go fishing on the ocean with several of his buddies, I jumped at the chance. The scene was amusing, one pink chap in a little motorboat with several next-to-naked Africans, each standing upright with a spear! I had visions of being on the Congo, except we were out on the Atlantic Ocean. My new friends caught many fish, including one little round puffer which, when speared, looked like a baby's face, then, like an inner tube that had been punctured, diminished in size as its body was pierced. Poor baby! When suddenly they all jumped back into the boat, it was evident we'd come upon sharks and, being unable to swim, I was really happy that they decided to return to shore. But what had happened to me was that I had been out on the ocean with no hat and insufficient baby oil: I got horribly, horribly sun-burned! And next day I was to leave for Dominica.
The airport for this island republic of fewer than 85,000 people is a long way from Roseau, the capital city. I was red from the sunburn and really hurting. When Ms. Tavernier (I could never determine if she'd ever married, but Garfield Tavernier was her son) and her sister greeted me at their downtown Cherry Lodge Inn, I asked for and was given some Noxema or some kind of a balm. But I went to my room and although told when dinner would be served I never arrived for it. Amazing, but I was knocked out for one entire day! When I did come out of my room, Ms. Tavernier asked where I'd been for the entire previous day! I was never so sick before . . .nor since!
The chap from St. Kitts, Tony Hull, had now moved to Dominica, so I looked him up. But he seemed busy, so I ventured out on my own. Garfield was a good guide, and I not only got to see the downtown area with him but also he took me to a spot a little outside town where guys went swimming. It was, in essence, a stream in which to take a bath. Naked. So here I was, the only pink guy standing around with several dozen amused kids and men;they seemed as amused as I was. And Ms. Tavernier was equally amused when we informed her where we'd gone and told her the naked truth.
One day, I visited the Roseau Library. After signing the guestbook (just under the name of famed writer Alec Waugh; apparently, I'd just missed seeing him), I befriended the librarian (Mrs. Riviere, whom I later sent volumes of books). It was there I met Peter Gittens, or that was the name he first gave me; later, I learned he is Peter Blanc . "How can I get in the US Army?" he asked. "Don't," I advised. But he was serious, and he took me to 5 Castle Street where his parents lived and where I think I saw some of his siblings. I never, however, met his father but I did meet his mother, a friendly, kindly lady who worked in some capacity related to medicine (a nurse or a nurse's aide?). Peter and I one day visited an interesting thermal spring, and we exchanged mail addresses.
Fast-forward to 1976. Peter, who had
now fallen out of airplanes dozens of times (was in the U.S. Airborne
Troops), asked if I would help bring three of his siblings here.
I agreed, and up came his sister Lydia and his brothers Jimmy and
Simon.
IN 1977, at my Connecticut school, I started a drive for textbooks for schools in Dominica and actually was able to get hundreds and hundreds of good but cast-off books. Several kids accompanied in someone's station wagon as we drove up to the loading platform of the ship that would take the load (the union men refused to let us go in front of them, so we were the last to unload our boxes).
In 1979, at the time of Hurricane David which left 60,000 to 80,000 Dominicans homeless, I wrote in journals such as New Canaan's Advertiser for humanitarian aid.
I addressed the textbooks mentioned above to Edward LeBlanc, Primier, and wrote a letter explaining how I'd previously visited the island, had met his son Ewart (who was not a teacher but was in some teaching capacity there), and hoped the books would be of use. I added I'd seen in Ebony his photo and a recent interview in which he had said he did not like (a) white colonialists and (b) neckties. But he reportedly did like (a) music and (b) poetry. "Sorry to report that I am a white Connecticut Yankee and wear neckties," I wrote, "but we do share an interest in music and poetry." To my surprise, Premier LeBlanc invited me as a Guest of the Government of Dominica when they celebrated their Statehood, a start on their independence from Queen Elizabeth and Great Britain, on 3 November 1978.
I returned to the same Cherry Lodge Inn, which made Ms. Tavernier happy because the other foreign guests were staying at a first-class hotel. I'd no sooner arrived than Ewart LeBlanc , the primier's son, delivered a box filled with rum, whisky, cola, etc., courtesy of Mr. LeBlanc. And, later, the prime minister himself drove to the inn to pick me up.
The statehood celebration was fabulous, particularly because I was sitting next to him and Mrs. LeBlanc! Representatives were from various nations, and on the dignitaries' stand there I appeared . . . in an outrageous zoot suit, my huge tie dangling down halfway to my knees! LeBlanc was laughing and laughing, for he knew I was acting the role of ridiculous white colonialist with necktie, and we hit it off immediately! At a private party held at the home of one of his relatives, I was the only pink chap present. When approached by a surly man asking, gruffly, "How come there's a Limey at our party?" I suggested he ask my friend Edward. Edward, not the Premier. That was the perfect squelch, and all was OK. I didn't dance, but I certainly had my share of rum and goodies. .
One day Edward, for now I could call him by his first name, drove me and son Ewart to a restaurant. There being no menu, I was asked, "Do you want to try the national dish?" Well, when asked such a question by a country's leader, how could one dare say no! The dish, I was told, was mountain chicken. Ah, I like chicken, and I envisioned chickens being raised in one of the island's many tall mountains (they're not really that tall, but that's how they're described in this island that has 365 rivers, one for each day of the year). To my surprise, the dish turned out to be . . . frogs' legs, something I'd never before tried. [When Edward visited New York some years later, I invited him to Chez Suzette on 46th St., a place I knew that served his island's national dish. He, of course, ordered New York sirloin steak!] During the lunch, the subject of postage stamps came up. Ewart told his dad he thought the Americans printed prettier and better products. Edward, however, noted that English printers charged less. I took Edward's side in the argument: it's the bottom line that counts.
On the day Edward and I went on an automobile tour of the city, he was curious as to why a Swedish flag was on someone's lawn. I volunteered to find out, finding that the people who ran a store were from Sweden. Edward decided not to make an issue of the flag, and we never quite knew whether as we drank our soft drink they recognized him. As a special present, he gave me a beautiful small table of Dominican wood and also a copy of a book of poetry he had written. (Later, I mailed him Thoreau's Walden because of his interest in carpentry, self-reliance, and living close to nature; still later I gave him a work of Langston Hughes.)
On this trip, I was to meet the island's governor, the island's major musicians (including one who was going with the governor's daughter), the island's leaders (one of whom later became the governor), etc. In short, a memorable trip!
Garfield one day accompanied me to the Carib reserve at Salybia. I'd rented a Land Rover. (The only other person I'd ever read about who'd visited the reserve was Jacqueline Bouvier Auchincloss Kennedy.) After the long trip over many bad sections of road, we turned up a hill and headed toward the area reserved for the Indians. I'd told Garfield that we get "cannibal" from the British way of pronouncing caribales , that long ago the Caribs had a reputation of being warlike (like the Spartans rather than the Athenians). When I picked up a perspiring Carib hiker, a big knife in his hand that he used to cut coconuts, we learned he was related to the Chief. Yes, he said, he'd introduce me. And then, before I could stop him, teenager Garfield asked the guy if the Caribs still were cannibalistic! I somehow kept looking straight ahead, but seated just behind me was an angry Carib with a very large knife in his hand!
The Chief was Doville Francis . He looked almost Japanese, very definitely
Asian. I gave Garfield my movie camera and tried to talk French with
the chief, except
Garfield was absolutely needed to speak in the island's patois. I was
asked
if I wanted to treat the chief to some liquor and, saying yes, found
about
20 appeared from nowhere to get their drinks added to the tab.
(Garfield
whispered to me not to drink the vile stuff being served, so I
discreetly
emptied my glass onto the ground when no one was looking.) Is there a
Carib
language? No, the chief lamented, only a few words had been passed down
and
remembered. (He uttered the word for a white person, embarrassed
because
it had negative overtones, but to me it was simply an interesting
sound.)
Is there any music? No. Is there any art? Just the dug-out canoes, one
of
which served as the pulpit in a little Catholic church I visited. Is
there
a Catholic priest? Yes, from France . . . and in the distance I viewed
him
and several of the kids, aha, he had sired. Are there big problems?
Yes, it was next to impossible to keep the Carib women from having sex
with
the black Dominicans. Of the several hundred on the reservation, fewer
and
fewer were "pure" Caribs. . . . Also, I toured the school, later
sending
the school kids a replica of the Moon, which teachers wrote later had
intrigued
the kids with the names of its sites, such as the Lake of Dreams, the
Ocean
of Storms, the Sea of Nectar, the Sea of Crises, etc. No, we explained,
I was not the astronaut who brought the globe back from the moon.
When I told Mr. LeBlanc about my visit to Salybia and my talking to the chief, he asked what the chief had said. I demurred, but he kept insisting. "Well," I finally said, trying to be as diplomatic as possible, he said to tell you, "Give us back our land." This really amused Mr. LeBlanc, and suddenly I detected that his island's majority had the same problem with Indian reservations that my country's majority has.
Because of my love for the island, when I returned to New York I wrote a column for Dominica's pro-LeBlanc journal, The Educator, then syndicated it in all the other English-speaking islands in the Caribbean. [Royston Ellis, its editor, and I have been close friends ever since.] Further, in New York I recorded the Swinging Stars, one of the island's best musical groups. Edward's brother, Gabriel LeBlanc , and I have maintained a friendship over the years, as has Edward's son, Ewart (whose wedding in the Bronx I attended, as did Edward and Gabriel). Ewart, once my guest in Connecticut, is now a (handsome, capable, delightful) Xerox executive in Rochester, New York.
During the 1970s Peter Blanc (a/k/a Peter Gittens) had made his way to the US Virgin Islands and had somehow joined the US Airborne Troops. Although I was actually a stranger, he arranged with me to keep his savings in my bank. Once he finished his service (he fell out of airplanes dozens of times!), I dutifully presented him with all his savings. It was then he asked if he could bring his siblings here for, owning a recording studio, I could list them as employees, etc. Somehow I consented, and on 23 September 1976 they arrived at the airport. I recall driving them to see the Statue of Liberty at night, to eat at the cafeteria that was open all night and was a favorite of taxi drivers, and to the Bronx, where Peter arranged for them to live. "They" were his sister Lydia and his brothers Jimmy and Simon .
I could not have guessed, then, that Simon
would become one of the best
friends I have ever had! For Simon
Messier Blanc and I immediately hit it off.
Dominica is known for
its sprinters.
Simon once came in #9 of 9000 during a race in Central Park, and even
today
he runs 6 or more miles at a stretch.
Simon in Washington, D.C.
Simon
and His
Daughter, Marie