Septembers to remember

RECENTLY, I visited my home town for familial reasons. To get there as usual, I had to pass through surrounding communities. I had gone back many times before over the decades, but this time around it struck me heavily how much the place had changed. I wasn’t alarmed, but I kept wondering about the retrogression.

The once-vibrant, noisy, chaotic, ‘vibesy’, newsworthy, heavily populated, fertile, neighbourly space, where fights, drama, ‘mix-up’, etc, were part of the community ethos, has evolved into a quiet, laid-back, drab and uneventful district, where I struggled to see one child on the road where ‘road football’ was played every evening.

While the surrounding communities are not as quiet, there are signs of decadence everywhere. Abandoned yards, some of which are devoid of houses, are all over the place. There are derelict houses, decomposing, in ruins. Bush has totally taken over some lots. Yet, juxtaposed against them are many new concrete structures, some of them multi-storied, and/or unpainted/unfinished.

My own childhood yard is gone without my being prepared for that loss. I refused to look over there, where my life started, where I dreamed about being rich and famous, where there was love and much laughter, pain, tears, joy and sorrow. Significant moments in Jamaica’s political history passed when I lived there, and I still have memories of such.

Despite the empty spaces and disappearing people, there are three spots: the place where the postal agency once stood, my first primary school, and the property where the branch library was established, where the memories came walking out from the deep recesses of my ageing brain and took me back way in time. These spots prepared me for my future professional endeavours.

I remembered the first day of grade one as if it were yesterday, and the name of my teacher, the sight and sounds, the taste of guinep, and the old woman who was selling potato pudding from a basin. The school has some modern buildings now, and I saw no vendors lined out at the front along the road. I really didn’t like the bathroom facilities at that school, and the students who were bullies.

I can recall names after more than four decades, and incidents that were not pleasant. But, that was where I started to write down things that were important to me. The Government used to give us free exercise books. We could not take them home, as they were kept in a cupboard. In them we practised our penmanship and wrote compositions such as ‘Myself as a dog’.

AI would have come in handy then. LOL! Yet, I am glad it wasn’t around; it would have killed my penchant to imagine. I changed primary schools at grade four. And I have to say my primary school life, academically, was a total disaster in terms of preparation for the Common Entrance Exams which I did not pass.

Absolutely nothing was done to get us to pass the English, maths and mental ability papers. In one sitting, I was almost knocked out by the cigarette odour emanating from the invigilator’s clothes. I was devastated when I did not get into Cornwall College, my dream high school, initially. I knew I was bright from I came first at Miss Green’s Basic School, but Montego Bay Secondary School was now beckoning. I would have none of it.

A second chance

So, when Herbert Morrison Comprehension High School and Cornwall College (CC) gave us a second chance by way of a test, I grabbed that chance, choked it, squeezed it forcefully, and told it that I must get into CC. I didn’t care about the other papers, but I delved into the composition I wrote about my family, and I knew then that it was that paper that pushed me through the gates of Cornwall that September morning.

The branch library was my home in the summer. Before it was opened, a red VW bookmobile would visit a church property every other Monday evening. When I first attempted to join the library on wheels I was told I was too young, but I could read. After a while, a permanent building was found for the library. When the door was opened officially, I was the first child through it. And I still remember the scent of those new books – our smartphones, our tablets, our computers, the worlds in which I lost myself.

Directly across from the library was the postal agency, where we would wait in the sun until the postmistress arrived. And sometimes, after all that waiting, she didn’t turn up, or there were no letters from the German, Priska Meminger, and the English, Tracy Green, my favourite penpals, strangers from abroad that we communicate with through pen and paper, and postal stamps, our social media at the time.

On my journey back to my present home, I could not help but think about how unattractive and forlorn my childhood community is, in 2024. But, I have my memories. And, as I passed my first primary school, I remembered the Septembers in the rain, walking with our wet canvas shoes in our hands, and a million teardrops fell.