We move fron Ochie to Milford

From Ochie we moved up to Milford. It was to one of those ‘row’ houses, that is three rooms stuck to each other in a row. I can remember the exact location. It was about four houses up from the intersection of where the road to Shaw Park/Parry Town intersects with the road from Ocho Rios to Fern Gully. The house was just before where the Shaw Park/Parry Town road splits with the left going on to Parry Town and the right going up to Shaw Park.

The property was not particularly big or interesting. I remember a big bread fruit tree by the gate which I would climb whenever I had to miss school so that I could greet everybody on their way home from school. One of the drawbacks of the house was its close proximity to school. I now had to go home for lunch and gone were the more preferred lunch treats like snow cone, drops, fudge, bullah cake, totoe, gizada, etc. Compared to when we lived in Ochie I now had to save real hard to get some simple treats like icy mints or 'lick and fall back'. A snow cone was now almost out of reach.

Thinking back now though, the house itself was quite remarkable. It was what we would call today an apartment complex. But each 'apartment' was just one room! Ours was the middle. But that one room was sectioned off by curtains and temporary dividers that you felt like it was a whole house in itself. In the very back was the bed room area and even that was sectioned off into my parents area to the left with their big bed and on the right a small area for my cot. In the front on the right was the kitchen and dining area. There was a communal kitchen outside but I don’t think my mother was agreeable to that so my father had rigged up a kerosine stove so that she could cook sometimes inside. To the left of the kitchen area was the living or guest area which became the nursery with a crib when my sister was born. And I can remember Bill being with us sometimes so there was room for him too. All that in one room, and I never thought of it as cluttered, dirty or crowded.

The other ‘apartments’ were just like that. Mr. Brown lived in the first apartment and I don’t remember who lived in the last. He had two daughters, the oldest one’s name I can’t remember for she was older than I. The second one’s name I think was Thibs. She was more my age and we were great buddies. She taught me how to jump rope and double dutch and I taught her how to shoot 'glassy' marbles. Seems like we were almost inseparable for a very long time.

It was not that there were not other kids around. A little further up on the opposite side of the road was another row house/apartment with many kids but for some reason I was hardly ever allowed to go over there. Then further up on the road to Parry Town there was a bunch of kids but these too I do not remember much about them. The only other friend I can remember was Orville (‘ville) Harrison (wow! I have been trying for weeks to remember his name and now it just came to me, just like that, in a flash! I guess by writing it all out the synapses made the linkage). ‘ville was my kite man. With his knack for the construction and my meticulous attention to details I think we made some of the best kites in Ocho Rios.

Kite season for me was special. First you had to start saving deligently for this was an expensive undertaking, it required hard cash and delicate negotiations. When I think I had saved up enough I could then negotiate with ‘ville to build you the kite frame out of bamboo and twine. Depending on the kite size, the season and his costs you negotiated a price. Only when he was done and you had your taunt frame securely hanging from a nail above your bed then you could proceed to your next step, selecting and buying the colored paper. So you would measure carefully and from listening to all the talk from the other kids you would learn which store had the best colors and at what price. Armed with that information you would make your purchase, but with limited funds you wanted to make sue you bought just enough to do the job; with the least left over and more importantly you did not come up short. I think that was my forte. Having bought your colored parchment paper and cut it meticulously to the kite dimensions then it was time to mix the glue from starch and water, making sure it was thick enough to hold but not lumpy to weigh the kite down or unbalance it. Then you go to work at crafting your kite.

Flying kite in Jamaica was something special. None of the kids I knew had enough money to buy a kite. I don't think they even sold them in the stores then, at least not in the ones we frequented. You crafted it from scratch. Each child was expected to have some hand in the creation of his or her own kite. If you were like me and not good at construction you had better develop skills in design to make it look appealing, crafting to glue the many patches of paper together neatly, aerodynamics to tie the perfect knot to balance the kite for elevation, or just the simple skill of flying it to keep it out of trees and your competitors flight path. I think my skill was in the design and measurement. I could figure out how much paper to get with the least left over. That’s probably where my love for math came from.

Then once the kite was made you would wait for that perfect day and that perfect opportunity. My chance would come by making sure I get all my chores done on time and done well so that I could entice my parents to letting me go to Kellington for a day. Kellington was quite a long ways off but it was worth the trip, for it was like the kite flying capital of the area. There was no better way to spend a day than to have your kite out there on a windy afternoon among the other many kites of all sizes, colors and designs just watching them soar, ebb, dive, spiral down and at the last moment rise again; and you hanging onto that taunt line as you maneuver yours to stay afloat all day and out of harms way. But inevitably the end comes; somebody cuts your line and you can only watch helplessly as your kite drifts off into never-never-land, or a down draft comes up and forces your kite into one of those sickening death spirals that shreds your kite into the top of some unreachable tree. Then it’s back to square one.