Hey Kim! – Yup, toeing the line, maybe a likkle over, but going back now
Gerryg123 – I can get away with ignoring them, they just think I’m old and am hard of hearing.
PGW, Big Shiny and Just Chuck – re Gizzadas. I am really reluctant to reveal my source. But I’ll seed a clue in the photos that follow.
The other night we went down to Susan’s Bar for our pre-sunset libation. Susan’s Bar is located on One Love Drive between The German Bar and Swordfish. It’s a small, basic structure located on the sea side of the road. It seats maybe, six or seven patrons. You walk in the front door and you can see all the way through, out the rear door to the waters of the Caribbean Sea out back.
Susan's Bar
Noches, the bar cat, was lounging comfortably on one of the few bar stools. I considered asking him to move, but one look at him told me he wasn’t going anywhere. He’s the cock-of-the-walk. I found another stool. It’s a well-stocked bar, all the liquor displayed behind it in shelves that go way up, there are ‘custom-made’ Red Stripe bottle pendants that light the bar top. The wiring to these lights looked a little dodgy. I wouldn’t want to change a bulb in one of them, in fact I wouldn’t put my hand anywhere near them.
Noches - don't mess with him.
The bar has a, homey, convivial atmosphere. Susan is very nice, the ultimate bar hostess. She has an open friendly manner and makes you feel immediately at home. She has a projection TV displayed up against the rear wall of the bar. While we were there it displayed music videos with the occasional commercial. One commercial caught my attention. It was for a weight GAIN product. At first I thought it was a spoof commercial, a-la Saturday Night Live. But as I watched it I realized that it was legit. It had testimonials and before and after photos; before - a young skinny Jamaican girl with a down expression. After; same girl, but smiling and showing off her big booty. We laughed.
'The Scream' - Jamaican style.
Speaking of weight gain, we joined the Fitness Express gym. It’s on the road to Sav in a little plaza just beyond the Texaco station, a twenty-five minute walk from our place. It’s a good little gym, new equipment, small and basic. Good music and it’s AC’ed – a plus. We do the gym three times a week back home, so since we are living here for the winter, we thought we’d keep it up, otherwise starting up back home would be brutal.
Yesterday we were walking to the gym along the roadside and I noticed it was unusually quiet. All the cars, buses and motorcycles were driving at a reasonable speed, no beeping and there was no maniac passing going on, as is the usual case. I mentioned it to Bea. “What’s up? This is weird!” It was weird, but in a nice way.
We were approaching the Negril Police Station when the reason for the good driving behaviour became apparent. Two cops, one armed, and a cruiser were parked at the police station entrance watching the traffic pass by.
Then we noticed that the roadway, on both sides, was lined with small brown paper bags sitting upright on the ground and spaced about twenty feet apart. The bags were half filled with beach sand and atop the sand were the remains of burned down candles. It was odd. We couldn’t figure out what they were for. The sacks lined the roadside from the Shell station all the way out past the Texaco. I asked one of the pump attendants at the Texaco about the paper bags.
She explained that someone had been killed on that stretch of road the day before in an accident. In the evening, the local residents lined the road with paper bags and lit the candles. Then they paraded up and down the road, played music and sang. So the bags had been part of a roadside memorial and vigil for the accident victim, Jamaican style.
