Some people wonder what things familiar to them now will look like after
they have gone. Captain Hodge will not have to wait that long.
The American tourist, nostalgic for Cuba, was lured to once exotic hideways
all over the Caribbean, where this disrupted the local environment and
created human and ecological nightmares. Small pristine islands like St.
Martin which lack a hinterland capable of feeding a Cuban style beach
resort, were and are still being raped-for everyone's benefit except the
majority of the indigenous population who to a large extent have become a
nation of busboys and waiters. They are completely dependent upon the ups
and downs of world politics for lubrication of their economy. A good example
of the consequences of such dependence is Captain Hodge's guest house on the
beach in Philipsburg.
You don't have to go too far in Philips burg to find natives who will tell
you that a guilder was hard to come by in those days, but that the quality
of life was better than it is today.
Captain Hodge's guest house is symbolic of the resourcefulness of the past.
But it is also a picture of the present and perhaps a vision of the future.
The year was 1953, not a memorable one in the history of St. Maarten.
However, in the life of Captain Hodge it was a memorable year, as that was
the year he lost his job as captain of the "Blue Peter". The schooner was
government-owned and the captain, it was rumoured, had shown sympathy with
the opposition and thus had to be broken.
Despite being relieved of his job, the captain decided his home must be one
of the largest and best on Frontstreet. It was a point of great prestige
with him. After its completion, many agreed that it was indeed a lovely
home. The old wooden home of former years was left standing in the same yard
as a demonstration that despite humble origins one can indeed advance in the
world.
The Guest House thus started as the private home of Captain Hodge and his
wife Bertha Lawrence. Once a home becomes a guest house a whole array of
people become involved in the ups and downs of the old place. It becomes a
place of pleasant as well as sad memories for people from many different
parts of the world. People return to renew life, to revive old dreams, to
remember lost love affairs, while children are born, grow up and disappear
from the old place. In scattered parts of the world old acquaintances are
renewed, and "St. Maarten Day" parties are held from Westhampton Beach to
Timbuctoo with the sole purpose of remembering a piece of one's carefree
past at an old inn on St. Maarten.
As it grows older, a guest house resists change. Its repeat customers want
it to remain just as they remember it, and the building itself seems to long
for this unchanged way of life. The less it changes, the more old friends
will return to praise and to admire it growing old, with the longing for
peace and tranquility we all long for in old age.
But for Captain Hodge's Guest House this was not to be. Born in 1900,
Captain Hodge was already approaching sixty when he took in his first guest.
This happened to be an American visitor to the island in 1958 or thereabouts
who was told that all twenty hotel rooms on the island were filled with his
compatriots-as well as the hospital and the local jail. In passing the home
of the captain, he thought it looked big enough to include him for a few
nights. Not only was he able to convince the captain to take him in but also
to convince him to make a living out of taking in people. To this day
Captain Hodge remembers him as a friend and counts that day he met the
American among his more lucky ones. Around that same time he took in a few
regular boarders from Saba, some schoolboys whom he tolerated as one of the
necessary obstacles on the path to financial freedom and glory. He viewed
them as a safeguard against the ever-feared-for day when the tourist trade
would dry up-a fear which still exists among the ever increasing and larger
establishments of the hoteliers on St. Maarten.
