Before moving into Sam's life in America, there are two unanswered questions from Lynda that remain to be dealt with namely the beaches and the games we played as children. These two subjects are so intertwined, as you will see, that they need to be dealt with together. Other than very early childhood games of marbles and tops (spin tops) and later on, cricket, most other sports were played or replicated on the beach or on the water.

When young minds get together there is never a shortage of entertainment inventiveness and Cayman boys were no exception. In the evenings after school and all "after-school" chores were taken care of, we would head for the beach. The beach area from the cemetery West to Aunt Rosalyn's home (a distance of approximately 200 yards I would judge) was our playground. At first, we had to be home before dark then, later on, as we became more responsible, we could stay out until 9:00 PM (if we had our homework done). There were times when we got tired of playing games and looked for something mischievous but we never harmed anyone (but I would not say the same for cats and dogs) and we never stole or destroyed property, although there were times we moved things around a bit. As boys grew older they would gradually gravitate to a more advanced and mature group to find their entertainment until they began to take notice of girls who had begun to notice boys.

In the 19 years I lived in Cayman I witnessed two hurricanes. It is an awesome sight to stand away from the beach after the wind has abated to where you are able to stand against it and watch the waves come in to break over the beach and wash across the road. It was also great fun to walk up and down the beach after the storm to find all sorts of things brought up by the seas: fish, bottles, driftwood, pieces of ships that went down in the storm, no telling from how far away,masts and pieces of sails. Then there were mounds of gravel, and seashells of all colors, some cold-black and bright as rubies. Here and there the storm had made great gouges in the beach but in other places it had heaped the sand to await the first big Southwester to smooth the beach back to almost normal condition. With rare exception there is this Cayman Natural Law at work with the beaches that repairs what it previously damaged. While the beach itself has not changed very much in the 60-odd years I've been gone from the island, the topography of the sea-bed out from the beach certainly has; gone are the reefs and gone is the sand that lay deep between the reefs. Except close in to the beach there is now very little sand and the sea floor is covered mostly with rock (not coral rock). Because of the thinness of the sand cover, when the wind comes up and the water begins to stir, the water becomes milky with powdery sand, something I never saw when I lived there.

Surfing, canoeing, sailing, swimming,diving and fishing were all popular sports when I was growing up. Swimming, sailing and surfing were Saturday afternoon sports. Our father did not own a cat-boat or canoe but many of our friends had access to one. One thing I forgot to mention about the things Sam taught me was surfing. Just after he made me teach myself to swim, he took me out to the reef to learn to surf. He had given me a flat piece of wood about a foot wide and long enough that it would cover my chest and a few inches of my upper stomach. Holding on with one hand you paddled with the other while lying on the board flat on your stomach in the water. Sam had warned me about holding on tight, to keep my head and the front edge of the board up otherwise the wave would spin me head over heal, but he forgot to tell me about sea-eggs (urchins). We swam out along the side of the reef to where the waves were beginning to rise before breaking. We caught the first swell and swam with it to the top where Sam gave me a push and I was doing alright until the moment the wave flattened out and the drag of the undertow pulled me back into this huge wave that seemed to want to abuse me. I got out of that one , went back out, caught another and became an expert surfer until the wave played out close to the beach and I stood up - that's when I learned about sea-eggs. Don't ever try going to church on Sunday morning with about 5-10 urchin spines or tentacles in your foot and your shoes don't fit anyway. You will not find yourself in the mood for listening or much of anything else. The thing about urchin spines, you can never pick them out as they are closely jointed and break off at each joint but whatever is left in the foot will work itself out after a time. Young boys had a remedy for the pain from stepping on a sea-egg that seemed to work well ( no cure) but is far too delicate for me to describe here.

I also recall that Sam loved to race Jesse along the beach and when she had worked up a good sweat he would ride her into the water which she seemed to enjoy. Keep in mind that the beach then was nothing like it is now. Then there were no homes or businesses of any kind between the West Bay cemetery and the Georgetown cemetery, so seven-mile beach was really vacant and young boys had the full run of the beach for boat racing, running, swimming or fishing.

On the beach we also played many improvised games of baseball, rugby, and tag. The play was fashioned to fit the environment and had little resemblance to official games but for children it was great fun for we were always our own umpires and imposed our own penalties.

I am sure I have forgotten to include much of what we did but I think I've given enough to give you a general idea of how we entertained ourselves.

4/18/04
10:07PM
End of Installment Fourteen