'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.
