With all the talk related to Negril's future, I just had a great day dream of times past. It was 25 years ago this week and I was on my 1st reach to Negril with my wife and son's mother who has since past away. For some reason I can remember it like it was yesterday. We hopped on a tourist bus at MBJ and headed west and what an adventure it was, we didn't get very far out of MoBay and we made a stop at the "LollyPop" where we got some Red Stripe and had my 1st taste of champagne soda. We were so excited and for what seemed like forever, we bounced our way towards Negril on what I believed they called a "road". Once we got past the airstip, the bus made several stops at different hotels like the Mahogany Inn, Poinciana and others to drop visitors off. We finally made it to our hotel, T-waters, and thought we had died and gone to heaven. As fast as we got checked in, we changed into our swim suits and raced to the beach and dove in the beautiful blue water and immediately lost our room key, the front desk let us back into our room but told us they couldn't get us a new key until the power came back on since they had to cut one with a machine. When I asked about the loss of power the response was "No Problem Mon" the power goes out every day bout dis time.
It was this trip that it seemed everyone in Negril was celebrating the release of Nelson Mandela from his long incarceration and it was electric. In celebration, Third World did a show @ Kaiser's Cafe and it was the most amazing I show I have ever witnessed, visitors, and the locals that could afford it (which weren't many back then) packed in, people were on the walls, roofs and anyplace they could get a view, they played for almost 3 hours with nothing but 1 short break. I believe it was on this reach we also saw Yellowman @ deBuss one night. Things were much quieter back then, there were very few cars on the road at night but there were plenty of land crabs crossing the road, we would see locals with a kerosene soaked cloth torches and a burlap bags hunting for them along the road and into the brush. The road would be loaded with flattened crabs in the morning. We spent many hours at Marks bar which was a makeshift bar that leaned against the outside wall that separated the T-water property to the one to the west. This was long before Mark's Hurricane Bar (round bamboo) and years before he moved it to Green Island. We spent many hours on Bloody Bay, we would take our scooter through the woods to the beach and rarely see another person, it was heaven. I became obsessed with Cosmos, Cheap Bite, Rasta Pasta (road to Sav) and Mavis and Sons. I have been to Rick's just 1 time in my life and it was on this trip, I just didn't like it and having to buy beads to pay for our drinks, it felt like a carnival as a kid that you bought a ticket from a booth so you could go on a ride.
The exchange rate was 6:1 and Red Stripe at Marks were 5j as were pattys and coco bread from a vendor, it was a simple time then. I fell in love with Negril on that trip and have been back over 25 times since. Each time something is new and something old has been lost. No matter what happen in the evolution of Negril, the memories may fade, but it shall always have a special place in my heart and soul. How about you?
