Every year, the Canadian St. Vincent and the Grenadines Society puts on a picnic at none other than Brown's Bay, about 10 km west of Brockville that attracts thousands of people from literally, around the world, but mostly from Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. I was there two years ago but missed it last year. This time, although I didn't have much money to spare, I was able to just barely make it there. I had special reason to: family that I haven't seen in 20 years was coming to visit.
I reserved the car Friday. This is not an important weekend like Christmas, so I figured that getting a car would be simple. As it turns out, there were (as usual in my experience) no small cars available. I ended up getting this monstrosity called the Chrysler Pacifica. An SUV hybrid. I never thought I’d drive anything like this. It’s 20 feet long and seats ten. It gets a whopping 500 metres per litre. It has a CD player, a DVD player, seat warmers, back massagers, cock knockers, and a sauna. All of the economy price of very little per day.
Due to logistics, I could not take Rose and Petunia with me to Brockville, but I wanted them to experience this luxury car that I would never own, so I dropped them off at Rose's parents' place in Ste-Fleur-de-la-Bonne-Terre. This took a couple of hours out of my day, but I enjoyed driving them around in a fancy car for a while.
(At this point, I would like to interrupt this entry by telling you that I am writing this from an Internet Cafe in Montreal called Cafr Virus on boul. St-Laurent. There is a guy here openly surfing porn. Is that...okay? Normal? Seems awfully strange to me. I also just learned that my eyes are better than I thought they were considering the distance between us. I feel like going over there getting the web address off of him.)
You ever heard of the expression that when the cows lie down, there will be rain? On the way to Ste-Fleur, there were cows lying down. Now, I didn't need them to tell me that it was going to rain, but they were all lying down. Sure enough, about 15 minutes after I left, the rain came down so hard I nearly had to pull over for lack of visibility. Eventually the rain died down, and after two and a half hours, I made it to Brown's Bay.
Imagine the scene: a provincial park on the St. Lawrence River. Festivities. Families. Food, drink, swimming. 3000 black people just enjoying themselves with a few pale skinned people serving them. It was like that scene in Forrest Gump where Bubba's family gets rich and hires white help. Although I was given only the most vague of instructions as to how to find anyone, it didn't take long to spot my sister's bright white husband and their daughter. Almost everyone else was there, too. The usual suspects were my sister, her husband and three kids; my mother; my older older brother's sons. My father was nearby, and my brother was at the other end of the park with his family. Visiting from Toronto was my awesome first cousin Petunia (same name as Rose's daughter), her husband and two daughters. And of course there were the special guests of honour from St-Vincent and Barbados: My mother's sister, Esther, her daughter Marcia (pronounced MAHR-see-ah), her son Malcolm; my mother's niece Thomas (that's right, Thomas) and her 15-year-old granddaughter Deanna.
Put another way: there was my aunt, my first cousin, my first cousin once removed and my first cousin twice removed. Twice removed means two generations away from me. She's on the same level as granddaughter, but there's only 16 years difference between us.
I haven't seen any of these people in 20 years. The last time was July 1986, for my sister's wedding. Marcia came with our cousin Mary, and my mom's sister Alice. They didn't make it this time. I must admit, Marcia is looking pretty damn good for being about 44 years old. She has hardly changed. Her mom, Tantie Ruth (Tantie is "aunt" for us, that's just what we call them. Must be a holdover from when St-Vincent was a French colony), looks great as always. She must have been exceptional 40 years ago. My mom, too, when I think of pictures I saw when I was young.
Most notable is Malcolm. 20 years ago, Malcolm was an annoying 5-year-old brat that was always getting into my business and never left me alone. He would criticize constantly and simply be where he should not have been. Somehow, since I was the youngest other than him, he became my responsibility. I couldn't wait for him to leave. The most distinguishing features about him are his eyes. He had big, bright eyes that had a sharp almond shape. They were slightly upturned at the outside edges, and he had long eyebrows. I forgot that he was even coming, but when I saw those eyes, I knew who I was looking at. "You haven't changed all the much in 20 years, you know," I said. He replied, "I just got a little taller, and grew hair in certain places, that's all." We got along very well after that.
A note about my cousin Petunia and the rest of my family: She seems to be completely different from everyone else I have ever met in my family. The men are outgoing, but not necessarily warm. The women are socially more reserved. Both sexes aren't the most affectionate people you meet. Pentunia, on the other hand, is very outgoing, warm, affectionate and funny. She's the best of both worlds and more. I can't imagine her having a single enemy. And her daughter, Zerena is a sweetheart as long as you don't have to actually raise her. Very smart, incredibly articulate and terribly cute. Born four days before Rose's Petunia, actually.
I also got to meet my niece, Lisa, again. This is her two years ago. She dressed like a West Indian teenager from Toronto, even though she was 21. This is my father's granddaughter by another woman. She was shy and quiet then, but not anymore. She is now the mother of a crushingly adorable little girl of about 18 months. She is active in baseball, netball, church and even SVG politics.
At the other end of the park was my brother. He was with his dad, his wife and son, his dad's wife and son and their extended families. The only person that can out talk my brother is his dad, but miraculously, the old man was rather silent. When I say silent, I meant that you only needed to travel 20 feet not to hear him. This man is LOUD. He was injured at work about three months ago, and he also seems to be getting older. That is, he LOOKS older now. As he should; he's 39. But still. Things are starting to look different to me. The intergenerational resemblances are quite stark to me now. I'll speak more about that later.
The entire day was massive fun. I can't wait until next year. Hopefully Rose will be able to book off all other engagements this time to enjoy the day. I have much more to talk about this weekend; it'll be in another entry. Hopefully.
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