The Shark Lady

THE WHITE FILE
As Regatta nears, memories of the Shark Lady abound
 by P. Anthony White
As the 60thrunning of the National Family Island Regatta nears, we recall in this space some interesting vignettes of former regattas in George Town, Exuma which today lend expansion to the merriment and the mystique of sloop racing which is today truly the national sport of The Bahamas.

In particular, much of that mystique surrounding the regatta has been the assortment of characters, visiting and local Exumians, who have played little and major roles in the growing popularity of the regatta.

We recall some time ago – perhaps in the late 1960s – when the late prime minister Sir Lynden Pindling attended what was then the Out Island Regatta in George Town, and ran into the late Gloria Patience, who was competing in one of the races, along with her traditional “crew” ex extremely attractive, scantily-clad ladies.

Sir Lynden greeted her warmly, asking, “how are you doing”, since Gloria was at the time well past the 60-year mark.

In response, Gloria stooped slightly, picked up the prime minister, and grinned in his face. “That’s how well I’m doing.” She said.

That was vintage Gloria Patience, “The Shark Lady”of The Ferry, Little Exuma who over the years led a charmed and matchless life, daring to do what others shunned, challenging most of the restrictions and limitations of orderly society, and, quite frankly, consistently doing her own thinglong, long before than expression became chic.

Gloria died in 1986, when she was 85 years old, and had she been yet been alive for this year’s regatta, Gloria Patience would have been 95. However, in terms of years of what over the years she brought to the Exuma table, she was unforgettable and irreplaceable.

Ah, it was truly a festive occasion when she turned 80 back in October of 1997, and the cream and the simple folk of Exuma came together in rambunctious co-minglement to celebrate the occasion.
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At that time, reminiscences abounded as person after person spoke of Gloria’s various escapades which often tentacled far beyond the borders of her home in The Ferry, and indeed far beyond Exuma and The Bahamas.

A few years before that, for example, when the United States took the position to remove the special detection balloon near the old airport ((which has been used to help in the interdiction of illegal drug smugglers) Gloria decided she had to do something.

She telephone the American ambassador in Nassau to complain about the impending removal, but apparently got little satisfaction, so she politely kissed him off, saying she would call Washington instead.

Gloria then proceeded to telephone the White House in Washington, saying that The Shark Lady wanted to speak with President Bill Clinton.

The President came on the line and she complained about the balloon removal, saying that it was of great assistance in keeping the druggies out of the area. The U.S. Chief apparently started gong into some winding explanations.

“That’s beside the point, Buckie Boy,” she was heard to say, then reminded the President that instead of spending billions in an elaborate space programme, the United States should spend the funds on solving problems right at home.

That was the daring, devil-may-care style of the feisty barefoot lady from The Ferry who in her diversified lifetime bore nine children, all of whom dutifully attended that celebration of her 80thbirthday, along with 23 grandchildren and 25 great grands.

Up to that time Gloria Patience hadn’t worn shoes on a regular basis for many, many years, and although elegantly bedecked in a long white dress with a high sequined waistline, he feet were still decorated simply with coloured beads which sparkled against the light as she danced with her son, Joey, who, understandably, thought the world of his most extraordinary mama.

She was born of Long Island parentage in The Ferry back in 1917, the year the United States entered World War I and the year Tsar Nicholas abdicated the Russian throne.

She migrated to Nassau and upon marriage became Gloria Lewless, giving birth to the proud nine. Her husband passed on, and she eventually met and married George Patience.
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Gloria moved back to The Ferry, and took a special interest in the sea. She used to fish for sharks, and sold the jaws and teeth to Americans who used them for chains, or to mount on mantleplaces.

That was how she came to be known as The Shark Lady.

But Gloria Patience was also known as The Barefoot Lady, and that’s quite a different story.

She began entering her boat, “The Barefoot Gal”, in the Out Island Regatta, mostly for the fun of it. Then in the early 1970s she would take on an all-girl crew of four or five Americans who came just for regatta.

The difficulty was that once the race in which she entered got underway, a number of the other entered boats inevitably seemed to lose direction and turned to follow the “Barefoot Gal”, which often seemed to be going in the opposite direction.

Apparently in the heat of the afternoon and way out yonder on the sea in Elizabeth Harbour, Gloria’s crew would divest themselves of the top half of their swimsuits.

Whilst the sailors tried to catch up with the “Barefoot Gal” for a closer look, dozens of spectators on the shore peered at the scintillating scene through binoculars quickly passed from hand to hand.

To Gloria, fully suited at the helm, it was sailing business as usual, and if some guys wanted to run off the course just to ogle, well . . .

At the birthday party, old timer Reggie Rolle, who had survived two wives and was not earnestly seeking a “youngish” bride, spoke of Gloria with a special kind of delicate warmth and tenderness reserved for people proud to be octogenarians.

With small bright eyes set deeply into his jet black face, he recounted occasions when he would be at sea “fishening” and would spot Gloria fighting with the sharks.

Back then the young Father Peter Scott, only recently installed in Exuma, spoke with traditional eloquence of Gloria, a member of his flock, and the retired Catholic priest, Father George, himself past 80 eulogised the Shark Lady in knowing terms.

Yet perhaps it was Elliot Lockhart, at the time the Member of Parliament for Exuma and who had known Gloria Patience all his life, summed her up most appropriately:
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“You are a woman of depth, a woman of character. We shall continue to honour you, to revere and respect you as an example to young women and men of Exuma. The family will never be the same without Gloria Patience.”

The late Howland Bottomley, “Mister Regatta”, who had at that time lived in Exuma for 41 years, spoke thus of Gloria:

“There is a hunger for where you come from,” meaning poetically that the woman in bare feet who was so excited by the sea, who spoke her mind with a lusty determination, and who really didn’t give a tinker’s damn if somebody disagreed with her, personified what real Bahamian womanhood should be all about.

Many years before that in El Toro Restaurant in Nassau after work, Pam Smith sat in a corner of the bar smoking and sipping rum and coke.

Those were times of hectic political intrigue, when the beautiful people of the world were in their hey-dey, and when The White Boy was fresh out of Manhattan with hefty afro, Lord & Taylor continentals, and filtered cigarette holder.

Gene Toote was there, as well as Napoleon McPhee and Box Weeks as Pam stressed her particular point.

“I appreciate a woman of strong convictions,” The White Boy said.

Pam laughed. “You should meet my mother,” she responded.

Pam was there at the birthday party as more than 300 people from five different countries sang Happy Birthday to her mother, the thoroughly delightful and unforgettable Gloria Patience.

30

What is the real hard history of majority rule day?

 P. Anthony
(For The Punch – 10 January 2013)
by P. Anthony White

Today, 10 January, just over eight months since the “new” Progressive Liberal Party again became the government of The Bahamas, all is not well as prime minister Perry Christie and his administration face some worrisome challenges, particularly with regard to the embarrassing fiasco at the National Insurance Board.

Today, 10 January, also marks the 46thanniversary of this date back in 1967, when the PLP first became the government, in coalition with Labour and an Independent, with the late Sir Lynden Pindling as premier.

That event ushered in majority rule in The Bahamas, and all modern Bahamian history and sociology take relevance and significance from that happening.

Indeed the late Sir Randol Fawkes and Sir Alvin Braynen were grudgingly though sweetly part and parcel of the revolution had to be recognised and acknowledged for their roles as independent accommodators of that historic people’s achievement.

Nineteen-sixty seven was a year of some marked movements and occurrences on several diverse fronts.

That was the year surgeons began experiencing problems with the new technology of heart transplants, and when a short war broke out between Arabs and Israelis, with Israel emerging as a regional power.

In this region Donald Sangsterwas Acting Prime Minister of Jamaica, and Vere Bird, Sr became premiere of Antigua.

In the movies in 1967, “In The Heat of The Night” was rated best picture and “Bonanza” was the most-watched television show.

In New York City, The White Boy was winding up his educational odyssey.

Yet in the region and around most of the free world, what had happened in the small British colony of The Bahamas caused a stir.

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Although independence was not to come until 1973, sections of the international press insisted on likening the outcome of the 1967 elections to those activities in African territories resulting in freedom from colonialism.

At home that perception was fine with many, many people, since it attracted international sympathy and rendered the local leaders of the revolution somewhat greater champions.

Indeed it must be admitted that both at home and abroad, the 1973 independence mood and celebrations paled by comparison to the drama and the hoo-ha on 10 January 1967.

The adoption of the musical them from the movie Exodus (“This land is mine, God gave this land to me”), coupled with the analogy of the new premier to Moses and the Biblical significance of The Tenth Day of the First Month (10 January) had conspired to render the PLP’s 1967 victory a matchless national wonder.

And indeed it was. Only a fool would balk at that reality. Only political paranoia would cause rejection of that momentous item of Bahamian history. Yet history is a continuously evolving affair. Like time, it marches on, and new developments, new technologies, and new human perspectives require wise men and nations to keep apace.

The sad alternative is to become stuck in time, to become a slave to an irrelevant time or period, and as a result to be rendered almost useless to the real, modern, today world.

Progressive from 1967 the PLP, as the government until 1992, much to the credit of the late prime minister Sir Lynden Pindling, moved with the times, letting in new light and technologies, and embracing many opportunities for advanced national development.

If there were shortcomings and negative commissions and omissions which led to the party’s defeat in the 1992 general elections, they stand beside the accomplishments like National Insurance and the College of The Bahamas, but can never in honesty erase them.

However, when that political wheel turned in another direction with that unforgettable election of 1992, which ended the quarter century rule by the PLP, a new political, historical and developmental era descended upon The Bahamas. A new culture and a new generation of modern Bahamians began to dominate The Bahamas.
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The country sensibly faced those new challenges with modern tools and new and modern political and developmental ideas. The clear indication was that under the new government of the Free National Movement and its leader Hubert Ingraham, the promise of a new culture would indeed become reality, even at the expense of the prime minister’s popularity inside his own FNM enclave.

Those Bahamians who were still unemployed, those citizens who safety was jeopardised by criminal elements, and those forward-looking local entrepreneurs seeking economic break-throughs all wanted to be presented with a new, modern set of plans for relief based on that refreshing new culture.

They all appreciated the historical and historic significance of what happened in The Bahamas in January of 1967, even, in the case of the youth, if they had only read about it or had been lectured on it.

Yet they understood well that their needs could not be met, their problems solved, or a bright future guaranteed by a nostalgic step backwards through the looking glass into the wonderful memorabilia of 1967.

When the Free National Movement captured the government in 1992, it was primarily because the Bahamian people were reacting to the difficult and dark realities of the time. Back in the late 1970s, for example,

The White Boy was forced to take the decision to relocate with his family to the Cayman Islands and then to the Seychelles, because politics had, deliberately or otherwise, prevented his economic progress in his hometown. But leave that there.

When the government changed in 1992 after 26 years of PLP rule, the voters had shelved the magnetic wonder of 1967, had stripped off the rose-coloured glasses, and had seen life fully and seen it whole.

When in 1992 the people voted overwhelmingly for the FNM, it was out of utter necessity and common sense, and not because anyone thought any less of the significance of 1967.

That was why, when another election came in 1997, it was difficult to understand why so many responsible figures in the then opposition PLP, led by Perry Christie who is the present prime minister, would have wanted again to attempt using the dram and the glory of 1997 as any pivotal part of any serious election campaign.

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Whilst there might indeed have been pockets of fairly senior citizens to whom the PLP which brought majority rule and the Square Deal and free high school education would have been considered a sacred cow never to be repudiated, that lot would have been a quaint minority.

Even today a majority of modern, intelligent PLPs are not sheepishly impressed with the 1967 razzmatazz. They are certainly proud of their PLP, and most probably will continue to vote or the PLP because they believe a new PLP order, especially that launched last year as a platform Charter for Governanceis still possible. However, they ought sensibly to leave the 1967 PLP on the historical shelf.

Political parties and movements and causes and personalities change. They change because the people and the communities they serve are ever evolving. Any political organisation or personality stuck in a time and mentality frame is doomed, like the ghost of Jacob Marley, forever to walk the night.

The Free National Movement which contested the general elections of 1972 and 1977 would not at all have been expected to have captured the polls in 1992, except that those Bahamians who voted FNM in 1992, and who became admirers and supporters of the party understood completely what had happened in 1972.

They had come to appreciate and applaud those original eight dissidents who had walked away from power and glory to found a political three which would not bear fruit for a full twenty years.

Indeed even now, when the PLP is the government, if they have not yet done so, the present leaders and frontliners of the ruling PLP could still learn a valuable lesson from a study of the FNM, why the party kept losing, and how and why the party won in 1992.

For four elections after the 1967 revolution which brought majority rule, a majority of Bahamians voted PLP because – coupled with the fact that they could see change and development taking place around them and they were politically trained to believe that the opposition FNM was the white man – the glowing spectre of 1967 was forever emblazoned before them.

That corporate vision was shattered in 1992, even though, in 2002 and again last year in 2012, the new PLP under leader Perry Christie was able to reach deep into the political consciences of old and new PLPs, and not doubt of others among the populace willing to go again with the party that brought majority rule.
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Today on the 46thanniversary of majority rule, it is almost vulgar to involve that singular glory in the mud and the mist of partisan politics. Rather, wreaths should be laid to the champions like Clarence Bain and Milo Butler and Uriah McPhee and Carlton Francis and Doris Johnson and remember how they always kept things in perspective.

Of course today’s new PLP and prime minister must lead the way in that new direction . . . for what it’s worth.

30

Bill Cartwright: A last farewell to a nation’s hero

For more than four decades in The Bahamas, stretching back to 1968, successive governments have failed properly to recognise and pay tribute to nationals who have contributed significantly to the development first of the colony, and then of the Bahamian nation.

Back in June 1972 as the Progressive Liberal Party government had set out the terms of independence the following year, the government caused the House of Assembly to pass a Special Resolution honouring and acclaiming the late Sir Milo Butler as a National Hero.

Independence came on 10 July 1973, and on 1 August that year Milo Butler, having been knighted in the queen’s 1973 Birthday Honours, was sworn in as the first Bahamian governor-general.

All that was quite fitting, yet at the time there were yet alive three Bahamians whose early vision, defiance, and revolutionary spirit had initially set the stage for majority rule, and for independence.

They were Henry Milton Taylor, Cyril St. John Stevenson, and William Wilton Cartwright. The three had established the Progressive Liberal Party in September 1953, twenty years before independence.

All three, to one degree or another, had suffered deprivation and dispossession because of what they had dared to do blatantly in the face of the oligarchical regime then governing the colony, yet, quite frankly, successive new peoples’ governments had failed to go again to Parliament with a proposition of new Special Resolutions to designate the three as national heroes.

A new government of the Free National Movement came to office in 1992, serving until 2002, when the PLP again became the government for a single term. This was succeeded in 2007 by the FNM, which served until May of 2012, when the PLP again became the government.

By May of this year two of the three founders of the PLP – Sir Henry Taylor and Cyril Stevenson – had already passed on to another kind of glory, but the third founder, the final keeper of that original revolutionary flame, William Cartwright, was still barely alive, in a home for the aged, cared for, literally, by good Samaritans.

That was until one month following this year’s general elections. In a way, the chronicle of Bill Cartwright continues to be a sort of neverending story in The Bahamas, and perhaps rightfully it ought to be, all things considered.

Finally this past Monday we laid William Wilton Joseph Cartwright to rest in Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Cemetery on Shirley Street, following a two-hour funeral service at the Anglican Church of St. Gregory the Great on Carmichael Road.

Bill Cartwright, as noted, was one of the three founders of the Progressive Liberal Party. He passed away on 7 June, four months short of his 90^th birthday.

The funeral, if one may be forgiven such a description of such a traditionally sad and mournful affair, was a splendid occasion upon which leading representatives of Church and State spoke of the departed social and political revolutionary in quite fitting terms, with family members and others in the church nodding in quiet acknowledgement.

Among those in attendance was the Roman Archbishop Patrick Pinder, no doubt in recognition of the fact that William Cartwright had for most of his life been a practising Roman Catholic.

 There were no tears shed.

Regardless of the disconsolate condition of his final years, when Bill Cartwright was forced to lean so heavily on the care and kindness of strangers, there was a diverse number of Bahamians who could relate to several stages of his life, either directly or else through tales told by their elders.

For example, one such was a fellow named Samuel Alexander Miller II, who was about 13 years younger than Bill Cartwright, but who was funeralised at Bethel Baptist Church on Meeting Street on Saturday 16 June this year, two days before Bill.

They used to call him “Bodyguard”, and he hailed originally from Knowles, Cat Island. In his final years he resided in a building at the corner of West and South Streets, opposite the gas station.

Even when Bodyguard’s health began to fail, he would sit inside the door of the residence, watching the world pass by unless and until some friend stopped by to say hello and spend some caring, quality time with him.

Each day a few years back he used to make his way slowly down West Street to sit and chat with regulars at the Bethel-Robertson bar near to Meadow’s Street, and often he would move across the street under the fig tree where he sat on a bench or box and impart pearls of wisdom to the eager, thirsty souls who desired to know, such as The White Boy.

Bodyguard delighted especially in relating old time stories of Cat Island, and we vividly remember his versions of some of the things that happened back in 1949 when Bill Cartwright was making his first bid to become an elected Member if the House of Assembly for that district.

That was about four years before the establishment of the PLP, and Cartwright was at the time an enterprising relatively young Bahamian in the real estate business, with an office on Bay Street.

Bodyguard told of how Cartwright had gone ahead as an independent and nominated to run for one of the two Cat Island seats. At that time Cat Island was pretty much a political stronghold of the powerful Harold G. Christie, but apparently that did not faze Bill Cartwright.

On the last night of his campaign, Bill Cartwright took along his old friend, Dr. Claudius Roland Walker, who was one of the candidates for the Southern District of New Providence, and who was considered a man of great persuasion on the campaign trail.

Cartwright especially wanted Dr. Walker to help him convince the patriarch of The Bight settlement, Sammie Swain, that for the first time he should consider voting for a black man.

Cat Island was a two-man constituency, and Dr. Walker appealed to Sammie Swain to try at least to convince the people to split their votes. Later Bill Cartwright was to tell of how greatly impressed he was with the powerful argument advanced by Dr. Walker, who had already won his New Providence seat.

The Cat Island candidate then put to Swain the plain question concerning the way the patriarch would vote the following day, and persuade others to vote.

Sammie Swain, after thinking deeply, informed Bill Cartwright that he, Swain, was fond of both Bill Cartwright and Harold Christie, so what he planned to do was to vote for Christie, and pray for Cartwright.

Both Christie and Cartwright won the Cat Island seats, and four years later he went on, with Taylor and Stevenson, to establish the PLP. In 1972, the bulk of the political movers and shakers in the new Free National Movement had actually been at the heart of the PLP before disenchantment had set in.

In fact at the outset, the original members of the Free PLP used to boast that they were indeed the “keepers of the dream” – the dream of freedom and social and political development initially advanced back in September 1953 when Bill Cartwright and two other Bahamian visionaries look that quantum political leap.

Now Bill Cartwright is gone, but his and how two valiant founders of the PLP will be a neverending story in the modern Bahamas, and beyond . . . for what it’s worth.

In today’s Bahamas, who truly deserves a happy Father’s Day?

This week, five and a half months into the year 2012, The Bahamas recorded its 66^th murder, that record outdistancing any in any year thus far in modern history.

A few of the murder victims were women, but by far they were men, a good number of them “known to police” as persons with criminal backgrounds, some of them mowed down by criminal opponents.

Some of the male murder victims were fathers, young and middle aged, which means there exists children, perhaps hundreds of them, who will grow up fatherless, as thousands of others through the years before have been forced to do.

But that is the way it is, and the mournful way it will continue to be through the end of this year, and beyond, save for dramatic social or moral reform, or, of course, divine intervention.

This Sunday The Bahamas, along with most of the western world, will observe Father’s Day, an idea born in Spokane, Washington just over a century ago, and made official in 1972 by former U.S. President Richard Nixon, who declared that the third Sunday in June each year should be set aside in tribute to fathers.

In that declaration Nixon explained that the Father’s Day observance ought to be “in honour of all good fathers that contribute as much to the family as a mother, in their own way.”

For many years that American tradition of Father’s Day has been followed by countries all over the world, including The Bahamas which cannot truly boast of any superabundance of good fathers that contribute as much to the family as a mother, in their own ways.

This Sunday across the bothered Bahamian landscape, in churches and at lavish lunches, thousands of Bahamians will fete fathers, good, bad, indifferent, gone missing, or simply, as the late Archdeacon William Thompson used to describe them, “worthless and good-for-nothing”.

Yet over time this country has had its share of caring fathers who tried their best, but who far too often find themselves, as they grow nearer the grave, neglected by offspring who know, but who simply do not give a tinker’s damn.

Far too many once caring fathers are left to lean heavily on the Christian charity of strangers.

Not many blocks south of Mount Fitzwilliam down Blue Hill Road, where the Governor-General resides, there exists a graphic reflection of what we truly are in this nation of nearly 39 years.

At that somewhat famous crossroads Over-the-Hill, there exists an historic church stretching back before emancipation, and atop of which there is a concrete cross stretching high into the heavens, as if beseeching special intercession for God’s dispossessed.

That is the point of conjoinment with Grant’s Town and Bain Town where in the faces and in the lives of so many in the surrounding area there is on the ground the pained and wounded, a sad and sorrowful reflection of the real Bahamas.

Morning after morning there sit a tiny congregation of elderly, obviously indigent Bahamian men, now and then accompanied by who seems an equally depressed and disadvantaged old lady in need.

They sit on boxes,makeshift benches, and sometimes one or two perch with a kind of decrepit elegance in wheelchairs, seeking alms from the stream of motorists who must stop at the juncture waiting for the light to change from red to green.

Those waiting there at the corner, like others long before them sitting at the Bible’s Gate Beautiful are proud and no doubt prideful fathers and grandfathers and perhaps even great grandfathers who no doubt wonder what happened to human and familial gratitude.

We remember well how about five years back there was a funeral service for an elderly dear departed lady, and the young woman reading the Epistle or New Testament Lesson was so consumed with deep grief as she made her way through the scriptural passage.

The departed was the “grandmother” of the young lady, the quiet and almost fragile Sabria Armbrister, and the surrounding story was one of caring and concern which could have taught the Bahamian nation volumes about caring and concern, despite the indifference and neglect of blood relatives. 

Sabria was at the time not even 30, and for a long time back in the 1990s she used to grieve over the death of her own grandmother, finding herself often at the graveside in St. Joseph’s Cemetery, putting down flowers and reflecting with a lingering, relentless fondness.

There was no blood relationship between Sabria and the departed matron over whom she grieved with a kind of beautiful sadness at St. Agnes Church that Saturday afternoon, and therein existed a tale of compassion, amazingly exuding from a lovely young Bahamian with apparently little time for discos and the cataclysm of the fast lane.

Sabria had played a major role in what, in the late 1990s became the Grandmothers and Grandfathers Association up at the Geriatrics division of the Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre, where a good number of the elderly residents were in need of caring relatives.

In the programme, caring members of the community, like The White Boy, were prevailed upon to “adopt” a grandmother or grandfather, paying visits from time to time, remembering birthdays, and on occasion taking their “grandparent” for an outing.

It was a wonderful testimony of true caring and outreach, and strong bonds were formed between grandparent and “child”. As one of those “children”, The White Boy was at the time nearly 60.

Of course time would eventually overtake a grandparent, and death, the inevitable, had to be faced. That death came to Sabria’s grandmother, and the girl was completely distraught, so entirely connected she had become with the old lady.

Why is there today such a dearth of Bahamians who care so deeply for the elderly of the land, even when the elderly is a flesh-and-blood mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, or even an old aunt, uncle, or cousin?

Indeed why is there so little carting or compassion, like the gentle Sabria’s, simply for the withered old woman who years ago used to live down the street in the old neighbourhood?

Many, for whatever reason, do not find themselves ensconced up at the Geriatrics Hospital where at least there is orderly and efficient care, even if close, personal love is missing. Instead they fend for themselves in the outside world, often living alone, never quite knowing what the next day will bring.

Incredibly, the children and grandchildren of some of them, both up at Sandilands and in that outside world, are fairly prominent citizens of the community, some of them, well, economically comfortable. No one, except perhaps God, knows the whys and wherefores of their indifference and disregard.

What is indeed known in this community, however, is that there are far too many elderly folks sitting at crossroads, some who are blind led by children or other guides, as they make their way to regular and familiar places and people where there is a reasonable assurance of a hand-out.

And all this in a land where, despite the effects of the recession, there is often yet the boast of economic success and prosperity, where, it is said, there is a greater percentage of of landed, middle class, and wealthy blacks than there has ever been before.

Well, if truth be told, many of those sitting and waiting patiently at the crossroads daily are the forebears of some of that same fortunate ebony, wealthy, not a small number of whom find themselves present to prayers in church, raising their hands to heaven.

Yes, they raise their hands and their voices, but perhaps dare not raise their eyes, fearing they would eyeball God.

Yes, this Sunday the fathers of the land will be gaily feted and showered with praises and prayers and thanks, and that is well, especially for those who, as the stained Nixon put it, contribute as much to the family as mothers.

However, in the days and weeks following, there will continue to be at the various crossroads, corners, junctures, on porches and roadsides all over the modern and successful Bahamas, the elderly, forgotten, and dispossessed.

They, except for the love and caring of such as Sabria Armbrister and such as her revolutionary Grandparents Club would, in the words of Robert Frost, have, “nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope.”

Nevertheless, a Happy Father’s Day to all, especially the worthy . . . for what it’s worth.

WHITE FILE: Thanks to the BCB, too many still walk in darkness

(Punch – 9 January 2012)

“I have always been glad of the company of my fellow sinners.

But, Lord, preserve me from these paper saints.”

ANONYMOUS

Last week the Royal Bahamas Police Force unveiled a bold strategic plan to make the year 2012 safer for citizens.

As part of that programme, Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade said that the Force will depend heavily on the Church in The Bahamas to assist in the massive effort to ensure that in the new year there is not a repetition of the bloody and lawless scourge of 2011.

As 2011 drew to a close, the Bahamas Christian Council issued a statement calling for peace, stating: “We appeal to all Bahamians to end this year and begin the new year in a culture of thanksgiving, prayers and intercessions. To do anything else opens the doors for a new year far worse than this dying one.”

The Council called on Bahamians everywhere to remember that the depth of thecountry’s social and moral problems all need divine intervention.

It was refreshing to hear the Christian Council speaking out in such a meaningful manner, but we were nevertheless bemused to read in a local newspaper last Friday a headline, “Call for Ban on Porn”.

The headline was followed by a story which revealed that the Bahamas Christian Council had called for a ban on pornographic movies appearing as part of on Cable Bahamas’ programming.

It seems the Council, following some intensive “research” on the subject, handed an official recommendation to the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority’s draft Code of Practise for Content Regulation.

Interestingly, the Council said it had arrived at a position on the matter after watching twelve X-rated films at the home of a senior citizen. The level of titillation in the room during those dozen showings must indeed have been frenzied, no matter how holy and devout and divinely led the members of the viewing panel.

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But let us not hastily judge the judges. Our chief concern here is that through the many years the Bahamas Christian Council has appeared to be extremely selective on the pubic issues the Council decides to address, to protest against, and, where sufficiently genuine and important, to attempt adjustment or change in the government’s posture or the public’s mindset.

We recall come time back when the Council raised a hue and cry against the arrival of a cruise ship whose passengers happened to be homosexual and lesbian couples. Yet time after time there are cases of gay Bahamians, some of them teachers, who sexually molest innocent children.

The protestations and recommendations of the Bahamas Christian Council are, to say the least, as the saying used to go, as quiet as a church mouse.

There has, of course, been the neverending case of the Council’s position on the matter of the numbers business in The Bahamas, an issue stretching back to years before majority rule.

It has been an issue with which successive governments of the old United Bahamian Party, the Progressive Liberal Party, and the Free National Movement have wrestled, but could arrive at no point of resolution because, it is widely believed, of the influence of the Bahamas Christian Council.

The Council, an organisation with what has been seen as a litany or flexible principles, has traditionally said NO to gambling, beginning in the early 1960s when the UBP government refused to bow and allowed casino gambling by issuing exemptions to the colony’s anti-gambling laws.

The Progressive Liberal Party government of the late prime minister Sir Lynden Pindling back in 1979 actually drafted legislation which would have legalised a lottery in The Bahamas. The matter went to Parliament for a First Reading, but never went any further.

The then powerful Bahamas Christian Council’s continuing position on gambling powerfully prevailed. Politicians were not prepared to risk their popularity and electability by angering the Church.

That position prevailed, ironic and hypocritical in its nature, despite the quite obvious fact that so much of the proceeds of winning numbers-players ended up each Sunday in the collection plate, to a great extent funding the rich and expensive lifestyles of pastors who shamelessly ascend pulpits and rave against gambling.

WHITE FILE . . . 3

Again and again over the years ministers of the gospel, real and spurious, married and single, have been accused of depraved social misconduct in their churches and in the community. Some have ended up before the courts, some in cells at Her Majesty’s Prison.

None can recall the Bahamas Christian Council expressing little more than disappointment that one of its own has fallen from the throne of grace and offering regrets to the affected families and congregations.

It is sad and unfortunate that last week the Bahamas Christian Council might have rendered itself ridiculous in the extreme with the statement regarding the broadcasting of pornographic movies as part of the programming of Cable Bahamas.

The BCB pushed the point that the decency and standards of The Bahamas will erode over time because of the showing of pornographic movies, and urged URCA put the protection of children above “the perverted preferences” of adults, going further to recommend times when explicit movies may be shown.

“Children are staying up later and getting up earlier, and many of them have radios, televisions, and internet access in their bedrooms. Accordingly, we believe that the watershed period should be between 11pm and 4am,” the BCB said.

Well, it would seem that is a matter of responsible parental control, and church pastors from their pulpits have an infinitely greater authority and responsibility to influence parents than Cable Bahamas or URCA.

In fact, just what the hell are members of the Bahamas Christian Council doing watching twelve dirty (or “art”?) movies in the home of a senior citizen who, the Council claimed “is ignorant about parental controls and who in any event can’t operate her set top box.”

The Council noted that the woman’s house was frequented by many minors who understand how to use the remote control to navigate the channels and view the pornographic content.

Clearly, it would seem, the Christian Council’s job is to deal with that situation where it exists, in the home and in the congregations. That is part of the proper and effective guidance, education, and shepherding of the flock, and hardly an issue aimed at attracting headlines whilst, somehow, the flock is still merrily watching porn.

WHITE FILE . . . 4

Back in 1973 when the late Dr. Reuben Cooper, as president of the Bahamas Christian Council delivered the Independence sermon on Clifford Park, he chose his text from the second chapter of the First Epistle of St. Peter. The words of that text remain extremely relevant today:

“You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light”

Thanks to today’s Bahamas Christian Council – more concerned with closing an eye here, seeking the headlines there, speaking out only selectively everywhere, and too often ignoring the ignorance of the people – far too many Bahamians have yet to experience that marvellous light.

30

Memorable deaths and funerals we have known

(For The Punch – Issue 18 July 2011)
THE WHITE FILE by P.  Anthony White

 The people who pretend that dying is rather like strolling into
the next room always leave me unconvinced.
Death, like birth, must be a tremendous event.
~ J. B. Priestley ~

          Up through the years many writers, and especially poets, equally in former times and in the present, have had a morbid, incessant obsession with death, cemeteries, and the afterlife.

           Yes, even here in The Bahamas we live day after day, week after week with death and funerals, and, like the Irish who have always been passionate about death, wakes and funerals, death is hardly ever simply a passionate episode.

           Perhaps the most demonstrative example of that morbid, incessant obsession with death, funerals and cemeteries was the quite lengthy 19^th century poem by the English writer Thomas Gray titled ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.

           In that work, the poet actually took his time walking through a cemetery in Stokes Poges in England, pausing to comment on what might have been in th elife of  the person buried there. At one point he paused to write:

 “Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire,

Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed

Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.”

            We recall back in 1959 how when we were only a youngster at school in New York the late American jazz singer Billie Holliday passed away after a long and tragic battle with drug addiction.

          They organised a memorial service  for the occasion, held on Riker’s Island, which sits in the East or Harlem River, midway between, between Manhattan and Queen’s. Thousands turned out and under the food lights paid endless tributes to an ebony songstress who had turn out simply and ruinously to have become an angel flying too close to the ground.

          Then around midnight came the announcement over the loudspeakers that they were about to turn off all the lights, and invited all in the audience to light a match or flick on a cigarette lighter. In the bleak blackness thousands of little lights flickered, and from the speakers came Perry Como’s voice intoning that haunting song:

It is better to light just one little candle,
Than to stumble in the dark!
Better far that you light just one little candle,
All you need’s a tiny spark!

If we’d all say a prayer that the world would be free,
The wonderful dawn of a new day we’ll see!
And, if everyone lit just one little candle,
What a bright world this would be!

          It was a sad, sombre, and  serene scenario in a city which seldom knew utter peace and quietude, but those who were there will never forget New York on that touching occasion when the death of a black megastar singer practically brought to tears the city that never slept.

          There was another occasion in Brooklyn in New York back in the 1960s when a beautiful Bahamian girl from East Street perished tragically.

          Ethel King was truly, as they say in modern parlance, drop dead gorgeous. She was part of the great King family of East Street, which had deep roots in Cat Island. Her sisters were Octavia, former registrar of insurance companies, and Gladys who, like Ethel, had migrated to New York.

           A brother, Roy, had studied law in New York and eventually became a judge in Rochester in upstate New York.

          Ethel had had an unsuccessful marriage to Percy Pinder Jr., son of the entrepreneurial elder Percy Pinder who in fact had been the first to build and operate a movie theatre Over-the-Hill. After she and Percy separated she used to be frequently on the arm of the late Ernest Strachan, then employed in the French Department of the United Nations, before he returned in Nassau to become Chief of Protocol for the Bahamas Government.

           Ethel took a job in Manhattan and was living in an apartment in Brooklyn. The full story will probably be never known, but there was apparently a young Puerto Rican fellow who fell desperately in love with Ethel who, it seemed, was not interested.

          Once morning as she left her apartment for work, walking through the basement of the building, the young fellow accosted Ethel and perhaps for the last time pleaded for her heart. According to the New York Amsterdam News, when she again spurned him he opened fire on her with a handgun, and then turned the weapon on himself.

          The two were discovered lying next to each other on the ground of the basement.

           The funeral for Ethel, who had grown up in St. Agnes in New Providence, was held not long afterwards at the Episcopal church of St. Mark’s  in Brooklyn. The little church was packed with Bahamians living in New York, and scores of others who travelled to the city for the sad occasion. Among that Nassau contingent was Lynden Oscar Pindling.

          Back in New Providence some years later – in early 1969 – there occurred the death of  a bright and promising young thespian who had striven since his teenage years to master 6the stage in The Bahamas and in so doing to bring along other youngsters with a yearning for the footlights.

          Basil Eric Antonio Saunders was a truly ambitious lad who quietly felt his reach should always exceed his grasp. After studies in London he returned to The Bahamas and began teaching English and drama in the public school system, whilst, along with The White Boy who had been his childhood histrionic partner, continued acting, producing and directing. At one point he had a stint as an insurance agent, but his heart was never really in it.

          Yet at an early age B.E.A., as many referred to him, developed diabetes, and at only 31 years old he passed away. The town was stunned that one so young, so talented, so brilliant, so filled with a lust for life should have been plucked so prematurely from that life.

          It seemed half that town showed up at St. Agnes Church for one of the most mournful yet flambouyant funerals seen in Grant’s Town, after which he was buried in the extreme northern section of the church’s cemetery on Nassau Street next to Gibbs Lane. To mark the occasion The White Boy penned and published a poem on the life of Basil Saunders. The final stanza read thus:

“Now up against the northern wall

where friendly footsteps seldom fall,

when others last to withered end,

you’ll still be smiling, childlike, Friend.”

The community was in a dither back in early May of 1990 with the passing of Sir Cecil Wallace Whitfield who had for some years been afflicted with cancer. As Leader of the Opposition he had been  treated at home and abroad at the expense of the Bahamas Government, and had returned home to carry on his political assignment as best he could.

          He died in a Florida hospital surrounded by family and political colleagues. In the Free National Movement there was widespread speculation about the future leadership configurations of the party, especially since general elections were just over two years away.

          Orville Turnquest was at the time deputy leader of the party. That was about six years after Hubert Ingraham and Perry Christie had been fired from the PLP cabinet of  Sir Lynden Pindling. Ingraham, then an independent Member of Parliament, had thrown his parliamentary support behind the FNM.

          Whitfield had pretty much handpicked  Ingraham as his successor, and subsequently the party’s Central Council concurred.

          The ornate funeral was held at Christ Church Cathedral, and amongst those paying  tribute to his old childhood friend and political nemesis was Sir Lynden. The interment was in the Eastern Cemetery, where his father, Kenneth Whitfield, was buried a few years earlier.

          Of course ten years later, in 2000. Sir Lynden himself succumbed to prostate cancer, and after some deliberation the decision was made to have the funeral services conducted at the Church of God on East Street.

          Following the funeral,  at which Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham spoke, there was a massive procession – joined in by political friend and foe alike – down East Street, west on Wulff Road, north on Blue Hill Road, then west on Meeting Street to St. Agnes Cemetery on Nassau Street.

          There the body was received by then Anglican bishop Drexel Gomez and St. Agnes rector the late Fr. Patrick Johnson, assisted by The White Boy. Afterwards Sir Lynden was entombed in a special and imposing mausoleum in the cemetery.

          Bahamians have over the years continued to have a fascination for funerals in all their forms and fashions, and it never really matters the identity of the deceased if there is something special about the arrangements.

          A few years ago with the brutal murder of fashion designer Harl Taylor, mortician Ted Sweeting introduced to The Bahamas an interesting new embalming trend imported from the United States, whereby in the viewing room of the funeral home the full-clothed body was sitting in a chair in front of a desk with pen in hand as if engaged in work.

           For two days it seemed the whole Bahamas had beaten a path to Sweeting’s Colonial Mortuary on Blue Hill Road just to have a view of the fantastical scene.

          And so death, wakes, funerals and the celebrations afterwards are still rudimentary parts of Bahamian life, and will perhaps persist in that way for hundreds of years, so long as Bahamians continue to be born, to live, and to die.

In The Bahamas Ignorant Armies Clash by Night

- for The Punch – Issue 24 March 2011
by P. Anthony White

“ . . . we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”
Matthew Arnold, DOVER BEACH

This marks the second occasion upon which we have commended the Member of Parliament for Bamboo Town, Branville McCartney, in this space or another, for a display of integrity.

Earlier this week Mr. McCartney, who had been elected to the House of Assembly in May 2007 as a candidate for the Free National Movement, announced that he had resigned his membership with the governing party.

After the elections, in which the FNM was successful and became the government, Mr. McCartney was appointed a state minister, first for Tourism, and subsequently of Immigration. Early last year he resigned his cabinet post, citing an opined difference with the government with regard to policy, but nevertheless expressing his continued support for the FNM and the government.

Again on that occasion, in this space or another, we traced political history back to 1970 when the late Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield led seven other Progressive Liberal Party Members of Parliament in supporting a House of Assembly vote of no confidence in the PLP government and in prime minister Lynden Pindling.

At that time the Member of South Beach, the late Carlton Francis, a former headmaster and educator, who was Minister of Finance, on his feet in Parliament reminded the eight dissidents that “there is a path for honourable men to follow when they find they can no longer follow their leader.”

The eight, of course, voluntarily or not, went in a different political direction from their leader, and the result ultimately evolved into the Free National Movement, which served as the government of The Bahamas from 1992 until 2002, and has again been the government since 2007.

For the record, the eight had taken the honourable path suggested by Carlton Francis, and which he was himself eventually to follow when as a cabinet minister he disagreed with the PLP government’s plan and policy to extend casino gambling in The Bahamas.

Today it seems Branville McCartney has chosen to follow that honourable path by tendering his resignation from the FNM, just as he did when he resigned as a cabinet minister.

Twice in relevantly recent times that has happened in the opposition Progressive Liberal Party. That was the case when Malcolm Adderley resigned his Elizabeth House of Assembly seat, prompting an early 2010 bye-election which was won by the PLP’s Ryan Pinder.

It happened again last year when the PLP MP for Kennedy, Kenyatta Gibson, left the PLP and walked across the floor of the House, allying himself politically with the governing FNM.

That is the way things are done by honourable men and women, especially in critical times when political leaders need to be able to rely on their loyal members and supporters, and most especially when leaders need to count committed Parliamentary heads in matters such as the BTC debate now taking place in the House of Assembly.

Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham has already announced his principle that should the House of Assembly vote go against his government’s decision to sell 51 percent of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company to Cable and Wireless, he would consider that a vote of no confidence in his government, and will call early general elections.

We have been around, politically, and we are not certain, from where we sit, that all FNM MPs are acutely aware of the significance of what will take place as a result of the extent of their support of the BTC resolution and how they vote, or of the significance of what the prime minister said with regard to that vote.

Hubert Ingraham, none can afford to forget, especially not at this juncture, long ago proclaimed that he is a man who says what he means and means what he says, and has not yet to date gone back on that proclamation.

Back in 2001, when Mr. Ingraham took the decision that he was ready to step down from the FNM leadership, he caused the party to hold a special convention for the election of a leader-designate. Of the three principal candidates vying for that post – Tennyson Wells, Tommy Turnquest and Algernon Allen – Mr. Turnquest emerged as the winner.

There was a great deal of bitterness in parts of the political camp of the FNM, which was at the time still the government of The Bahamas. That bitterness, and sometimes outward criticism of the party’s leadership, coupled with the issue of the February 2002 Referendum, conspired wickedly to energise the opposition PLP to mount its biggest and most expensive and flambouyant election campaign ever.

The FNM government lost the February 2002 Referendum, and on the heels of that defeat, in the May 2002 general elections, to a great extent because of division and disgruntlement in the party, and not necessarily at the rank and file level, the FNM went into a lost the 2 May 2002 general elections.

Up through the years from time to time, both the Free National Movement and the Progressive Liberal Party have suffered the political pain of fracture in the ranks, fracture sometimes so severe that it erodes party strength and public support, none of which is politically healthy near election time.

We write often of the disastrous 1977 general elections, when the opposition was split completely in half. Many argue that a huge contributing feature in that split came about because in the Free National Movement a dispute arose about the party’s candidate for the South Long Island seat.

On the Cecil Wallace Whitfield side the preference of a candidate was Tennyson Wells, a Long Islander, whilst the Bay Street faction favoured another Long Islander from Mangrove Bush, James Knowles.

There was to be no compromise, yet the impending fracture in the party had to do with infinitely more than the candidacy for Long Island, nor, as others contended, did it involve any sinister attempt of the old Bay Street diehards to regain control of the opposition in the hopes of returning Bay Street to the government.

It had more to do with a clash of strong political personalities in the opposition. Although a forceful, fearless and charismatic individual, Cecil Vincent Wallace Whitfield was also doctrinaire and dogmatic. He believed – and perhaps he had every right to harbour such a belief – that the Free National Movement was his political baby and that was that.

Others in the party, some of them veteran and seasoned politicians, no doubt respected and admired him, but were not prepared to follow blindly. There were yet others who had in another place gone through that “One Man’s Dream” syndrome, and would not endure another running of the episode.

The upshot of it all was a split, with the FNM led by Wallace Whitfield and the new Bahamian Democratic Party headed by Kendal Isaacs. Yes, when came elections, in South Long Island James Knowles was the BDP’s candidate and Tennyson Wells carried the banner for the FNM.

The PLP was able to chalk up a massive win at the polls in that election, a victory rendered even more massive because of the political disarray in the opposition. Yet through wise and tolerant dialogue, the fracture could have been avoided.

If personalities had been prepared to come to the discussion table, checking their egos at the door, that 1977 elections need not have been so disastrous. There was no way even a combined opposition could have triumphed, but at least the fundamental political chord would have remained intact for the next confrontation.

There was the case in the Progressive Liberal Party leading up to the 1997 elections when the party altered the constitution to call a leadership convention to allow for the election of two co deputy leaders to serve under party leader the late Sir Lynden Pindling. The outcome was that Perry Christie and Dr. Bernard Nottage, both former ministers in the PLP government, were elected to those offices.

Following the 1997 election, however, Sir Lynden resigned both as party leader and as a Member of Parliament. There was the need for a new party leader. The candidates were Christie, Nottage, and Philip Galanis. Actually, after the first ballot Bernard Nottage polled more than Christie, but not the required 50 percent.

There had to be another ballot. Philip Galanis pulled out of the race, and Perry Christie sailed to victory. At the next PLP convention Nottage again ran for the leadership, This time Christie stumped him.

That did not go well with Bernard Nottage, who apparently felt that something had gone awry. He soon resigned from the PLP, and went on to establish the Coalition for Democratic Reform, where, in fact, he was joined by such as Phenton Neymour and Charles Maynard, both of whom are now FNM cabinet ministers.

No doubt again much pain and political fracture could have been avoided through consultation and open argument around the table, with egos checked at the door, and party generals and political middlemen kept at bay.

For years in The Bahamas far too often around the political executive table and in the trenches there is mindless warring which dilutes the organisation’s forward battle thrust, and especially at times when there is a desperate need for all hand on deck, and fully accountable.

The ancient writer Thucydides presented an account of a battle during the Peloponnesian War which occurred on a beach during the invasion of Sicily by the Athenians. That confrontation took place at night, and the attacking army became so disoriented that in the darkness some of the soldiers were actually killing each other.

There is a lesson there for politicians and political organisations who cannibalise inside their groups because they often confuse friend with foe, lashing out left and right, sometimes ignorantly, often with sinister deliberation, seldom pausing to ponder the possible effect on the cause at hand.

That has, over the many years, been the sad case in both the PLP and the FNM, both as government and as opposition.

Back in the 19th century, the English poet Matthew Arnold commented on such a situation, no doubt drawing on the battle account rendered by Thucydides centuries before, whilst honeymooning with his bride near Dover Beach, Kent in England, penned the classic poem, DOVER BEACH, some of the last lines of the final stanza which reads:

“Ah, love, let us be true
To one another . . . we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”

Far too often in The Bahamas have political battles been lost because supposed allied soldiers war on darkling plains like ignorant armies clashing by night . . . for what it’s worth.

Happy Birth to former parliamentarians Frank Howard Watson and Kendal Wellington Nottage, both born on this date in 1940, a very good year.

Finding Peace Against the Raging Tide of Politics

P. Anthony

THE WHITE FILE For The Punch – 20 December 2010

by P. Anthony White

General elections, in The Bahamas tend to bring out the “ugly” in Bahamians who take the issue perhaps far too seriously, forgetting that there will come tomorrow when, like it or not, they will have no choice but to live with one another.

We remember a situation back in 2007 just after that year’s general elections, in which the Free National Movement had emerged victorious. There was bitter resentment on the part of some supporters of the losing Progressive Liberal Party, especially the young.

One evening in the upstairs bistro in Coconut Grove, the old fellow who was always hanging loose there chalked up his cue stick as he prepared to break the balls for a game of pool with his young police friend from Hospital Lane.

Nearby his nubile young lady, resplendent in a pair of tight-fitting blue jeans and a blouse the colour of brilliant morning sunshine sat sipping a tall glass of Mother Pratt and cranberry juice, watching the man with a deep love and adoration which seemed to bloom with intensity each passing day.

It was twenty-seven days after the general elections, and yet among a group of young fellows playing dominoes in the northeast corner of the establishment there was raging an argument over the outcome of those tempestuous polls.

The old fellow shook his head from side to side with a mixture of disgust and sadness across his brow as he broke the balls, sending the yellow six into a corner pocket as his young opponent chalked up.

On the television monitor above the bar where the buxom barmaid stood with her hands under her chin there was projected the PPV movie, The Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith.

The other set in the room was tuned to ZNS TV-13, which was carrying a live broadcast of the 72^nd annual session of the Bahamas Baptist National Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention from St. John’s Cathedral of Native Baptists on Meeting Street.

In the corner as a young man dressed in a flaming red T-shirt with the message “It’s A Matter of Trust” slammed a domino tile on the table, he blurted out, “Take that. You’all PLPs ain’t never going to accept that cut hip we done give you’ll.”

“Accept? Accept that you’all done tief some seats and now you’all won’t give the PLP all our Senate seats?” That was one of the other young men at the domino table, as none of them, amazingly, missed a beat in the game.

“Hey, you fellows don’t start that s— in here again,” the barmaid shouted. “The election finish so just go back to what was happening before May 2^nd. Play nice now.”

It was as if she were scolding a couple of youngsters running around the schoolyard, but then that was pretty much reflective of the general attitude in far too many parts of the community these days.

The old fellow listened to the exchange in seething silence as his young pool partner shot fruitlessly.

Then the two of them paused and, along with his amused young lover, set their gaze on the television and the Baptist convention broadcast where, ironically, the subject was peace and national unity following the recent elections.

There bringing greetings to the assembled delegates and guests in the ancient and historic church was the new Minister of National Security and Immigration Tommy Turnquest.

Said the Minister: “This 72^nd Convention comes at a very propitious time in the life of our country, because it is a time when, more that ever in recent times, The Commonwealth of The Bahamas stands urgently in need of healing and of the divine intervention of Almighty God.”

Understandably, that passage completely passed the young fellows playing dominoes and continuing their ferocious political argument centred on the results of the election.

The only difference was that they were now talking in softer tones following the chastisement of the barmaid, who was by this time herself glued to the convention on television.

“Yinna tief Blue Hills,” one said.

Another retorted, “Yeah? Well everybody know you’re tief MICAL.”

“Well, everybody know . . . ”

The old fellow could take it no longer. Slamming the cue ball hard on the table, he bellowed.

“Everybody shut your goddam traps and come over here and listen to what they’re saying to you.”

None of the young fellows moved, but halted their domino game and turned to watch the convention from their corner of the room.

They continued to exchange angry whispers through the remarks by the president of the Bahamas Methodist Conference, and then through a concert piece by a young Baptist band. The old man had sat next to his lady, holding her slim wrist as together they watched.

The preacher was the immediate past president of the Bahamas Christian Council, and in addition to calling for political reform and public disclosure of campaign donations, he too voiced the need for healing and unity.

Neglecting such healing at this time, Rev. William Thompson said, would remain at the nation’s peril.

Only two days earlier when he addressed the Bahamas Christian Council’s National Service of Repentance, Healing and Unity, the Anglican Archbishop of the West Indies had implored Bahamians to stop fighting over the May 2^nd elections.

On that occasion the Most Reverend Drexel Gomez noted:

“Although (the) election is resolved, people are still fighting the election, and we have to leave the election behind us.”

Archbishop Gomez warned that The Bahamas has allowed politics to “get out of hand.”

They were all preaching abiding truths – the highly-placed politicians, the church leaders, the editorial writers, even common folk like the sage old man hanging loose in Mother Pratt’s constituency – and there was no doubt whatsoever that they were perhaps practicing that peace and unity at their respective levels.

Indeed the wonderful spectre of the assemblage in the front row at St. John’s Church last that night – the Governor-General, the Leader of the Opposition, the Minister of National Security and Immigration, and alongside and behind them Government and Opposition parliamentarians – bespoke utter peace and unity.

But how far and how swiftly and how effectively was that message traveling? Who was then and is today taking a firm stand among the corridors of the simple and the unlettered, as in that corner of the upstairs bistro and saying with some authority and finality, enough is enough, and then taking the time to explain exactly why?

Rev. William Thompson was still preaching when the old fellow donned his hat and took his young lady to the front door. He had voted proudly for the FNM on May 2^nd, and she, well, she was a proud member of the Progressive Young Liberals.

“You fellows finish listening to what the man telling you on TV,” he said, then put his arm around the slim waist as he and his young love walked down the stairs, together into the night.

Those two, at least, were enjoying sweet peace, perfect peace.