With these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Nothing remains quite the same
With all of my running and all of my cunning
If I couldn't laugh I just would go insane
If we couldn't laugh we just would go insane
If we weren't all crazy we would go insane
... Jimmy Buffett
The first time I went to the Bahamas was in August of 1975 or 1976. My sister, Cindy, was stationed on Eleuthera Island and I was living in Atlanta. I decided to go for a visit. Now the world was a different place in the mid-1970's, and a lot of the things we take for granted today just didn't exist back then. People went to the Bahamas, but they went to Nassau or Freeport. Rarely did anyone vacation on Eleuthera.
Eleuthera is a long skinny island, about 110 miles long. If I remember correctly, the airport was at one end and the Naval Facility was at the other. Cindy didn't live on the Naval Facility but she did live near it. I was not allowed on the facility. Though I had a high security clearance when I was in the military, I was no longer in the service. Even if I had been, no matter how much of a security clearance you have, there's this little thing called "need to know". Well, I didn't need to know what was going on at her facility, so there was no reason for me to go there. The Naval Facility on Eleuthera was decommissioned in 1980.
Cindy picked me up at the airport, but my suitcase didn't make the whole trip. My plane had stopped in Bimini and, apparently, so had my suitcase. It went on to Jamaica and Puerto Rico (places I have still never been) before it finally made it to Eleuthera, on the day I was leaving to go home. Fortunately, Cindy and I were still the same size in the mid-1970's. I had donated all my Navy uniforms to her, so she had no problem loaning me a few things to wear while I was visiting. After all, we were in the Bahamas. How much clothing does a person need?
The ride from the airport to her apartment scared me silly. It was the first time I had been in a country that drove on the left side of the road. It was dark before we got to her apartment and I just could not get used to seeing car headlights coming at me from the "wrong" side of the road. I don't know how she ever adjusted. I've been back to the Bahamas many times, but I have never operated a vehicle of any sort while there. I consider myself lucky when I make it across the street without being run over, since invariably I look the wrong way before I start across the road.
Her apartment was pretty basic, meaning it didn't have air conditioning. Like I said, it was a bit of a different world back then. She had some fans, and there were tropical breezes, but it can get downright toasty in August on a tropical island. Another thing I had some difficulty with was milk. I am a big milk drinker. In the mid-1970's the milk on Eleuthera was all imported (it may still be for all I know) and was frozen before it was transported. Well, milk looses at little something once it's frozen and then defrosted -- something like taste! It becomes watery and bland. I'd like to think they have figured out a better way of importing milk by now. Maybe someone got the bright idea of raising dairy cows. I hope someone did something, because that stuff was awful.
One night Cindy took me out to eat at the one and only restaurant on the island. This was the first time I ate langostino, which is a crustacean somewhere between a very small lobster and a really large shrimp. It was, of course, delicious. The rest of the time we ate at her apartment, or at little local café type establishments. She also took me to this really interesting place where the width of the island is so small you can stand with one foot in the Atlantic Ocean and the other in the Caribbean Sea. We went for some walks around the town area where she lived. One day while we were walking along a seawall barrier, Cindy grabbed my arm and pulled me over to go around a fishing line that was cast into the sea and laying on the wall. I thought she'd gone a little bit batty on me, until she explained, then I knew she was loco. One day not long after she had arrived, Cindy had stepped across a Haitian woman's fishing line and the woman had chased after her to put a curse on her. She told Cindy that by crossing her fishing line she had jinxed it so she was putting a curse on her to get even. There were a number of Haitians who had escaped to the Bahamas during the turmoil after Papa Doc's death. Papa Doc had ruled Haiti with a mix of a rural militia, personality cults and Voodoo. A large portion of the Haitian population believed in black magic. Cindy didn't want us to be cursed.
One day we went swimming. Cindy brought along her boyfriend, but I don't remember his name. He seemed a little uncommunicative, but hey, I wasn't the one dating him so what did I care? He and I were in the water and Cindy was up on the beach. I was standing about 10' from shore in water up to my chest, when he pops up out of nowhere right next to me and very calmly says, "I think you better get out of the water." I looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language and was about to tell him what he could do with his thoughts when Cindy yells from the beach, "If he says get out, then get out now." So, I'm thinking to myself these two have both gone off the deep end, but rather than cause a problem (who me?), I just started heading for the beach. About halfway there I turned around to make sure Cindy's friend was getting out of the water too. I mean, after all, if I had to get out, everyone had to get out. Yes, he was heading toward shore also, and then I saw why. There was this nice shark dorsal fin sticking out of the water about two feet from where I had been standing just a minute or so before. Well, I sped up my retreat just a bit, but by the time we got up on the beach I was furious. I was fussing and fuming at whatsisname. I asked him why in the world he had not told me there was a shark instead of just calmly telling me to get out of the water. His reply was he didn't want me to get hysterical. Me? Hysterical? Oh, something like I was at the moment because he had treated me like a simpering idiot? Since I was now acting exactly like what he said he had hoped to avoid, I'm sure he believed he made the right choice in not being honest with me. However, I do not believe I would have panicked. I actually might have moved a little more readily if I had known there was a problem instead of just thinking he was a jerk. However, bloodshed was avoided, both in and out of the water.
The day before I was scheduled to fly back to Atlanta, hurricane watches were posted on Eleuthera. The skies grew dark and cloudy, the winds picked up and the water became very choppy. If the hurricane were to actually hit, the airport would close and there would be no way off the island. There was one public telephone on the entire island. Yes, you read that correctly -- one! But we made the trek to the telephone so I could call my employer in Atlanta to explain the possibility that my vacation might be extended due to circumstances beyond my control. No one in Atlanta knew anything about a hurricane. It was the mid-1970's. The Weather Channel (which incidentally comes to you from Atlanta) didn't come into existence until mid-1982. My boss thought I was handing him a line of hooey. That was the second time I ALMOST got stranded in paradise, but almost just doesn't count. As it turned out, the hurricane did not hit Eleuthera and I was able to fly back to the states on time. My world traveling errant suitcase arrived on the same plane I was about to board, so I just had them put it right back on the plane.
I loved everything about my first trip to the Bahamas and I swore I would return. I've never returned to Eleuthera, but I've been back to the Bahamas many times. Truly my definition of a blissful Utopia. I love the latitude and the attitude.
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