Hotel & Tourism Marketing Blog

Caribbean Consulting

Merchandising w Marketing w Distribution w Profitability

'So what', I kept telling myself, 'I've seen it all'. Virginia's Frigidaire was the crowning experience of my six year career in life on a tiny island, isolated from the outside world in the Caribbean.

As I threw grass to the cow and watched the calf prank up and down through the flat above the house, I kept convincing myself, 'I've seen it all'.

My daydreaming and my illusions about having seen it all were quickly shattered when my brother Guy came up to the cowpen with a pack of bush on his head, and started telling me about the new sheep the Governor had brought to the island. Being the youngest in the family and accustomed to authority from above, who was I to argue with him? But inside I laughed: 'What's so new about a sheep?' In those days the Government was accustomed to have sheep and other animals imported to the island and, besides, it is a well known fact that a sheep could never be bigger than a cow. Even the men at the breadlines, known for their tall tales, would never have suggested that a sheep could ever be bigger than a cow. But Gus insisted that it was, that it even had a motor and wheels, and could run faster than a donkey.

He had to be kidding. It was a well-known fact that only the Government's two wheelbarrows had wheels, and there was no way I could imagine what a motor looked like.

The next day all the boys in the village were talking about it, but no one had seen it. I kept thinking, 'Guy's going to get his bottom peppered when our father finds out he's been fooling everyone in the Quarter'. But some of the older people claimed they had been at Fort Bay when it landed, and that two boats had to be strapped together to bring it on shore.

It couldn't be. Just couldn't be. Imagine grown people trying to convince themselves that two boats had to be strapped together to land a sheep for the Governor.

But all through the week the rumor persisted, and the bigger boys planned an excursion the following Sunday to The Bottom to see the Governor's new sheep. After much pleading the older boys decided that I could go along, but that if I got tired no one was going to carry me. So Saturday evening I took to bed early so as to store up my energy for the following day's safari to The Bottom to see the 'Great Sheep'.

As we approached Crispeen, the bigger boys got more and more excited about the experience that lay ahead of them. When we stopped for a rest, overlooking The Bottom, they all shouted: 'There she is! By the Radio Station!'

Indeed there were quite a number of sheep pastured there around the building, but nothing that I could see which looked like anything to get excited about.

We had descended the long flight of steps to The Bottom, and were just about passing the Public School, when it happened.

'Hear it a-comin'', someone shouted. And indeed I too could hear it a-comin, but what it was I could not imagine, until a square thing with a man sitting on top of it burst round the corner, while I took off as fast as I could through the bushes for the closest tree, and didn't stop until I reached the top.

With tears flowing like water I waited until the noise went away, before venturing to look down from the tree, I wan't the only one in it. There were at least three older boys perched in the lower branches, watering the tree with their tears and crying out loud enough to drown the noise of the Great Sheep.

It was many weeks later, after plotting a thorough approach, that I ventured within fifty feet of the monster. The greatest thrill of all came when I finally mustered the courage, along with a few other boys, to run up to it, touch it, and then take off with lightning speed to the nearest tree.

First motor vehicle being landed on Saba on March 17th 1947. Driver is Mr. Oliver Zagers.

It seemed like a lifetime before I was able to produce enough boldness to sit on it and get my first Jeep ride. The year was 1947. I remembered my mother writing a letter with that year on it, and I thought it was a number used for writing letters, and that the number never changed.

For me, I couldn't care less whether the number changed or not, because I was six years old then, and after the Frigidaire and the Great Sheep, I had seen it all.

This page was last updated on 06/29/2008