Island I: An Introduction

It is never to soon to begin thinking about going to the island. One year, Friday after Thanksgiving, I began to lay out some clothes for the annual trip – to take place in March. My children thought that I'd gone mad. And so I had. Just glancing at that pile as it slowly grew each week helped me get through late fall and winter that year. This early packing system became an annual tradition.

Packing Early

Perhaps you have a similar place and do desperate things as I have done, in order to get there, first mentally, later physically. Good for you. I will not ask you the name of your place, if you do not ask me for mine (besides you won't like the sharks in the surf or the roosters in town); though, for purposes of this discussion, we can call my island Saint James.

It takes nearly all day to get there from New York: longer if you live further west or in Europe. There is no golf course on or near the island. I'll bet half of you just crossed it off your list. Thanks.

First,  we stand in a long line at the airport to board a big plane, sometimes the first of two. For several years, we've queued up near the same family, yet we have never introduced ourselves to them nor they to us. They will get off to stay on a big island, where there is a neat club with a pool, a golf course, a clubhouse: in other words, all the "comforts" of home. I have been there once and felt as if I were, well, still at home.

After landing on that big island we jump into a van to catch a little, sometimes a very little charter, bump along clouds above the sea, then land, with luck, on the first try on a smaller island, not yet our island. Feeling the excitement of being closer, we get into another taxi/van, get to the water-taxi dock, load all our stuff, head across the harbor, land at Government Dock, where Reggie or Minister loads us all in yet another van for a very short ride to the house we've rented for several years.

Saint James Bay

It is pink and white and sits across a narrow road looking at the harbor,  small boats at their moorings, and back to the other island from where we came. Sitting on the porch each morning in my white enammelled rocking chair I can see large motor yachts crossing in the channel with a local harbormaster aboard headed down to one of the two marinas. 

The people of Saint James and workers who've just come over on the ferry will be walking by on Bay Street one way and another. Captain Bob will be going to open his fish shop, Queen Conch going to open her royally fine lunch counter. Chico will ride by on his bike, having already tied his little yellow boat, Cocktail Hour,  to the nearby dock, to see if we want fish that day, or lobster, if the seas are calm. Old Herman will make one of several passes wearing his sun-washed shorts, walking barefoot, though he  now seldom guides for bonefish in the flats or bottom fishes with families. All of them will warmly greet me or just wave.

The islanders have become my idea of true celebrities. But if you're prone to look for the usual celebs, you can see them too. You might nearly run over a young Irish heartthrob actor with your golf cart as he exits The Landing, looking worse for wear. Or, if it's very near Easter, an international designer will nearly run you over as you leave Anthony's Farm out to the south of the island.

Doll House

"Farm" is not exactly the right word for Anthony's: large garden would be more correct. Anthony doesn't grow much there anymore, since his heart began to trouble him and he had to slow down. When my children were much younger and we rented a cottage across from the Farm, we thought that God must look and speak just like Anthony; that is, if God is a rather large, quite dark brown man with a white beard, wearing a pith helmet, faded overalls and speaking the King's English better than the King very, very slowly.

After a couple of days on Saint James, you no longer care about the slow service at the Lounge, an afternoon squall, a wait for lunch at Sip-Sip, no more charcoal at Piggly's and no more whole wheat bread at Arthur's Bakery, or, piece de resistance, that long, long wait for fried chicken, peas and cole slaw at Angela's, while listening to a loud sermon coming from her radio.

As Chico the Philosopher said to me one year, "Tom, you here now. See what I'm saying?"

And I begin to see.