This Day in History

Friday, July 15, 1977

Got up at 6:35. Dressed, after washing up. Pops started to cook. Neal came. He was born on April 12th, has a brother in Queens, NY, USA. His mother gave us an Otahite apple each, his father gave pop a bunch of callalloo. Fed Greta & Guerly. Helped with fire. Ate. Rested. We heard "Strange Homecoming" before eating. Rested, Got up. Discussed opportunities and the poor with A-. Then heard "Dulci" in p.js after showering. Ate rice and fried red herring for supper.
I ate:
  • Breakfast: slice of red herring omelette, flour+maize meal+sardines foxfires, orange+banana chutney, 1 cup fever grass tea & honey.
  • Snack: 1/2 cup callalloo and maize meal soup
  • Dinner: foxfires, maizemeal+callalloo+green banana+rice soup
We must have had some money that day; we ate a lot. Either that or there was a walk to Biscayne that I didn't write about, since green banana was something we would have had to buy. Also, it was a Sabbath for us, the beginning of the "Feast of Tabernacles" (like it is today), which is why we had such a big breakfast.

Left to our own devices, I spent a lot of time in my head... note the use of the words "maize meal"... my word for cornmeal. That soup sounds good...

I had no concept of "Queens, NY, USA" back then. I remember it being so exotic. Too funny. Now, I know all about it... I'm also amused at my discussing "opportunities and the poor" with A- (she was the girl I mentioned in an earlier post who's father beat her). This was a direct result of our um, Socialist teaching back then, and also Jamaica's experiment at being a Socialist country. Later in the diary I list the names of the cats... one of them was "Red Sun". We read a lot of Chinese literature from the Mao days back then. Which is worth reading: ideas are ideas and can be good ones. It's people that screws everything up.

And Neal; I'd forgotten all about him. I think he was one of the kids that would periodically appear out of the brush and hang out with us. I vaguely remember having a crush on him. But I'm not sure. Speedy across the street; he was much cuter but he was also about 17 years old, and in Jamaica, 17 was "a man" so he was too old for me to have a crush on.

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