Many who have read my past posts know that we always stop to see our friend Markie up in Red Ground. We met him about 16 years ago when we were trying to get access into what we called "Porter's Cave" in Red Ground. Markie was the only one who would take us down and we have stayed friends over the years. We always bring down clothes for him and have also brought sheets, shoes carving tools and what not. We take him out to eat a few times each visit to try to get some skin on them bones! Anyway, we walked up to Red Ground and stopped at Miss Alice's store to see if she had seen Markie. He hadn't been around that morning so we walked through Red Ground toward the Red Dragon. As we passed a couple of woodworking shops I looked in to see if I could spot Fuzzy who sometimes helped out. I first met Fuzzy in 1972 when we were both in our early 20's. Later he worked for many years at Blue Cave Castle and we would see him every visit. Well, I didn't see him at any of the woodworking shops and we headed toward town. I heard someone calling "hey friend" and again louder till I turned around and it was Fuzzy. He was reasoning with some of his friends and saw me walk by. It was good seeing him again and I asked if we could stop at his house when Markie took us on our annual 2 hour walk through deep red Ground.
A couple of days later we decided to take a trip to Benta Falls, one of the few places we hadn't visited. On the way home a couple of miles from the Falls, Janet said "There is a Pressa One Love sign!" I asked our driver to go back and sure enough, Pressa and Eva have a little cook shop way out in the country, We caught up with them for about 10 minutes and then headed back to Negril.
Yesterday I bought a really nice walking stick from Markie. I always overpay for everything I get from him, but it helps him. As we were walking back from town somewhere near Chicken Lavish we caught up to an older Jamaican walking our way. I said to him, "you know it is quite funny that 2 older gentlemen wearing hats with backpacks on and each is carrying a cane." Neither of us were using our canes, just carrying them! We both got a chuckle about that and began to talk as we walked. It seems he has been in Negril forever and we talked about Porter's Cottage, the cave and he mentioned grandmom Johnson and Jenny. I asked if he remembered Neville.....oh yes, he grew ganga back in Red Ground. He remembered Clive and Barrington too. I told him a story about El Presidente and the cave and he replied, oh yes, he was quite the drinker. We chatted until we got to a gate on One Love Drive and he invited us onto the property to look around and check out the ocean. He is a caretaker of the property. His name is Monroe. It was quite a trip down memory lane with him/
Regards,
Bob
Monroe
Markie
Pressa and Eva
Fuzzy
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