Memory Lane

What a strange sight to behold on the streets of Kingston in 2013! Am I seeing right? Do you think the man with the donkey cart would mind if I take his picture or would he tell me a few choice Jamaican “claawts” not sold in our finest fabric stores?!!!

I am amazed and most fascinated at seeing a man on a donkey cart on our busy thoroughfare. It seems as if he is selling coal or something. Wow! I have not even seen a real donkey in decades!! Well, because of my “exuberance” at seeing this sight I was told that the reason for the decline in the donkey population was because they were “sold” to the Haitians by our locals as meat…actually they said they were exchanged for guns…yep…guns for meat trade!! How utterly quaint! Did the Haitians know that they were being given donkey meat instead of beef?? EEEEEEEWWWW!!!

Donkey

Anyway, I was glad to see the man with the donkey cart even though he was trying to move quickly out of the path of a speeding coaster bus. It reminded me of a time in my youth when donkey carts ruled! Do you remember when a man would pass along the road buying pint bottles? “Heee pi-nt bakkle” (was that supposed to be half pint and pint bottles?) he would almost sing as he went along.

Oh! There was also the Rasta decked out in his full long garb and head wrap who sold brooms! Remember those straw brooms? Of course we all had them!!!! His refrain was one that we would sing from the confines of our homes lest he thought we were buying brooms “House broom, yard broom and cobweb brooooooom man….Broooomie…”

Then you had the peanut vendor who sold his ital and salted nuts from a whistling cart...mmmmmmm those you got nice and hot!

Worthy of honorable mention is our dearly beloved “Fudgie” who would ride through the neighborhood on the weekends or weekdays if it were summer holidays to sell fudge, icicle, ice-cream cones, ice cream cake, nutty buddy and zooper dooper (ice cream sandwich for the young buds reading this). You could hear the horn from down the street as he called out “Fudgie, icicle, ice cream and nutty buddy…”

 In time he upgraded from a bicycle to a bike and so you had to be quicker on your feet to get the money and shoot through the grille before he flew by on his bike. Otherwise you would have to run as fast as you can and holler out “FUDGIE!!!” as loud as you can so he can hear you and turn back.

Did we CARE that fudgie was handling money even as he served you an unwrapped cone??! NOPE!!!

Before the introduction of hand sanitizers, did it occur to us that maybe it was not the most “healthy” thing to buy certain things not knowing where or how fudgie relieved himself?? NOOOPE! We did not care one iota. We thoroughly enjoyed our cones! Germs and all!

Now that I am on a roll down memory lane, I recall some rather strange words and expressions that I heard as a child from a now deceased relative who seemed to have had her very own vocabulary.

For example, one day I overheard her talking rather loudly on the telephone to her friend about the chilly weather:-

“Mi say Mazie, what a way laast night cowl? Mi tell yuh say mi did cowl bad, bad, you never feel it?”

(I do not know what Mazie’s response was or if she was cold or not...)

“Mazie, a piece a cowl lick mi in a mi efficacy you see, mi could hardly drop asleep!”

Naturally, I have been trying to figure out ever since which part of the anatomy is the “efficacy”. Furthermore, nobody else seems to know where it is either! Perhaps the “efficacy” is close to the “salime bone” which might be broken if you suffer a fall? Who knows for sure.

After years of hearing “Ellie, pass di pun pan fi me” I really thought that “pun pan” was actually the correct name for a “pudding pan” because that is what she called it.

And how can I forget her expressions of “Yuh want fi go a wukhouse?” I subsequently discovered that “wukhouse” (workhouse) referred to prison! Apparently back in the days being sent to prison meant that you had to do hard labor. Yes, you actually had to WORK! No vacation time watching t.v., getting fat and having a good time behind bars.

Also on the list of favorite phrases to use was “PUPA JEEEEZAS” to express surprise or when disappointed and/or surprised you would likely hear “JEEEEZAS WEP’” – Jesus wept….why?

Even though I am a roll down memory lane and enjoying the fun memories, I have to hit the brakes and roll into bed as it is now past my bed time!

What are your fondest memories of yesteryear?