Finding and Collecting Characters

This is an article that was published way back in 2005 at the Institute for Children's Literature Rx for Writers. There are many wonderful blogs out there doing a fine job of passing on information about writing. I've never felt I had much too offer. But (there's that but...) I did have a few articles published, so I thought I'd share them. Not all at once, of course, so breathe a sigh of relief. This is the first 

Finding and Collecting Characters

So, you have a perfect idea for a story. What next? You need a character or two or three. After all, characters are the story, they are the plot. Wouldn’t you know it would be all about them? Just like regular people, they can selfish and self-centered. They want attention and recognition. They want to be described. They want their story told.

But how do you “create” your perfect protagonist? If you have a hard time “imagining” a character into being, maybe you need some models. Maybe you need to start collecting characters, like stamps or Barbie dolls.

           

“Where,” you ask, “do I find them?”

            

They’re everywhere, like ants at a picnic, like leaves on a tree. Just look around you. They lurk within your home and family. They skulk about your neighborhood and community. They flounce across your TV screen. They stare at you from the pages of magazines.

            

Collecting characters is simple, easy and fun.

            

As you go about your daily routine, start looking at people. Notice what they’re doing, how they are dressed, what they’re talking about. Everyday, or once a week, try to find one person to really study, even if it’s only for a few minutes. Unless you have a good memory, when you get back into your car, whip out your trusty note-pad and scribble down your observations.

            

Maybe you saw a cashier who wasn’t smiling. Maybe she stuck out because she seemed down-right unfriendly. You might come away from the experience feeling angry yourself. But, as a writer, you have to become an observer. And observers have to be dispassionate.

            

All you need at this initial stage is a rough sketch. It might read something like this: “Big haired, over-rouged cashier. Mid to late 50’s. Black hair. Dark eyes. Frown lines between eyebrows, at corners of mouth. Clipped, abrupt speech. Seemed angry. Never smiled. “

            

When you have more time, you can put flesh on her skeleton. Hopefully your rough sketch will trigger memories of your experience with the cashier. Start asking yourself questions.

            

“Why was she so sour? Has she always been this way? And if so, what’s made her such a Scrooge? Did she get some bad news? Didn’t she get enough sleep, or was she just having a bad-hair day?” Give her a story, give her an excuse. Write it down. Describe her physical appearance in a more detailed way. What was she wearing? Did she have a wedding band? Maybe she is recently divorced. Were her nails manicured and painted? Give her a mannerism. Maybe she has the nervous habit of chewing on her lower lip.

            

If you can’t remember specific details, make them up! As a writer, that’s one of the fun things you get to do. In any case, give the old girl a least of page of your time. Lastly, give your character sketch a title or name. How about, “The Sour Cashier” or “Mabel’s Bad-Hair Day?”

            

            

Now, what do you do with the characters you’ve collected? If you’re anything like me, there are scraps of paper all over the place. An idea here, a thought over there, a description of a bug under the sofa….I’m not the most organized person in the world, but I do gather up my scraps of paper from time to time, go through them, and file them in their appropriate places.

            

One of these places is my “character file.” I’ve had one for over 30 years. I use a regular old three-ring binder. I have it broken down into a few basic categories, with dividers of course: men, women, girls, boys. You can break these down further if you need to: old men, extraterrestrials, teen girls, toddlers, you get the picture.

            

Once you’ve written up your character sketch, file it away in the appropriate category. As you can see, if you collected one person a day, at the end of a year you’d have 365 characters sketches! You can take one day off at leap year.

            

Okay, so you have a bunch of people down on paper. What next? Didn’t you have a perfect idea tickling your gray matter, but there were no characters to be found? Get out your file, it’s a giant mall. You can browse through it like a shopper. You can mix and match bits and pieces to develop a whole new persona, or, you can use that cashier just as you sketched her.

            

But wait! Maybe what you need is an idea. This is where the titles or names you’ve given your characters may be the match that lights the creative fire.

            

Over time you will no doubt have to thin out your rogues’ gallery, discarding people you’ve used up or ones that will never work for you. But what the heck, there are six billion more where they came from, each and every one as unique as a finger print.

            

Another way to collect characters is to look for pictures of interesting people and faces. You might even need a separate binder for them. I cut pictures from magazines and newspapers and paste them onto lined loose-leaf paper. The lines help me write straight when I work up a character sketch.

            

There is one other thing I keep in my character file. Names. Interesting names I read or hear about, or names I make up, all go together. Any kind of name can find its way onto the list; place names, magical names, foreign names, people names, animal names. I keep them all roughly alphabetized by first letter.

            

Now you can find the perfect name for your perfect character to act out your perfect story. Go forth and write.

Ethlyn Hall

Last Monday I wrote about Agnes Sewer who introduced my mother to Ethlyn Hall because she was concerned about Mom running wild and not having enough feminine influences. To correct the situation, Miss Agnes introduced Mom to Miss Ethlyn, who lived at Peter Bay, just over the hill from Trunk Bay. That introduction which happened when Mom was around twelve, lead to life-long friendship.

Ethlyn was born on St. John in 1916 while the Virgin Islands were still under Danish rule. At the age of 23 she went to New York where she learned haberdashery, met and married her husband and had three of four children. Eventually she and her family returned to St. John where she proved to be a successful business woman, running a guest house and serving as President of the Business and Professional Women of St. John. She was also active in the Historical Society and the Elaine Sprauve Library Association.

This is my mother and Ethlyn, taken in 1999. 

I call this picture The Age of Wisdom.

Ethlyn was the mother of my friend Victor Hall, who died last year and whom I wrote about here. 












Here comes the synchronistic part, the part that lets us know the Universe is involved. And I hope, dear gentle readers you won't think this morbid. Ethlyn Hall died while I was in the islands in May. She was just shy of 96 years old. She died the week before my sister Erva and I put our mother's ashes out to sea. The following week Erva and I had the pleasure of being able to attend Ethlyn's funeral.

It was really quite special because after the lovely service at the Lutheran Church in Cruz Bay, she was interred at Cinnamon Bay on National Park land at an old family plot. The tombs are above ground because the ground in mostly solid rock and nearly impossible to dig through. There are now, with Ethlyn, three generations of her family buried there. Her tomb is obviously the white one to the left. It is a shaded, cool, and peaceful place to be laid to rest. Those smooth-barked trees at the upper right are bay tree, from which the body splash, bay rum is made. The leaves of the trees litter the ground and as you walk, their delightful aroma fills the air. Erva and I laid small branches of bay leaves on her casket.

My cousin, Rafe Boulon, who is Chief of Resource for the St. John National Park, was a pall barer. He's in the middle on the right. You can see how shaded the area is.

And this is Rafe, carrying a wreathe.

Ethlyn was well loved and will be long remembered. And I'm glad I was there with Erva, to represent my mother, her childhood friend.

Miss Agnes

When my grandparents, Erva and Paul Boulon, began building a summer home at Trunk Bay on St. John in 1929-30 they required help.

This first building constructed at Trunk Bay, was on the beach. It's where the family lived while the main house was  being built just up the hill.

This picture shows the almost completed main house. The "roof" of the front building, with the two windows and door, had a roof added and it became the Upper Porch. I have no idea who the people are on the beach, a woman and a little girl. The woman could well be Agnes....

One of the people they hired was Agnes Sewer. It was probably Miss Agnes who taught Grammy about acquiring local food and cooking what was available. She became a member of the family, an invaluable person who not only helped Grammy take care of four rowdy children, but who also cooked delicious meals. For if there is one thing Miss Agnes knew how to do, it was cook.

My mother, having three younger brothers, was quite a tomboy. Miss Agnes was concerned about Mom running wild and felt there was need for some feminine influences.

As luck, or the Universe would have it, just over hill at Peter Bay was the perfect candidate. A year older than Mom, Ethlyn Hall had grace and intelligence. Miss Agnes made sure the two girls met and the friendship they form lasted a life time. I'll share a bit about Ethlyn next Monday.

By the time my sister Erva and I came along, Miss Agnes was an elderly lady living in a small house right on the road just outside Cruz Bay near The Pond. She had high check bones, as if there might have been a trace of Native American blood. She seemed ancient to me. More astonishing was that her mother, Miss Missy, lived across the street!

This picture, taken in 1999, is of my mother and Miss Agnes's younger brother , Roy Sewer.  You can see the same cheek bones in him.

Miss Agnes spent her days sitting in a chair in the doorway watching for people as they passed by. If she was there, you had to stop and pay your respects. Greetings and the latest news were exchanged, then, no matter how much you might insist it wasn't necessary, Miss Agnes would shuffle into her kitchen and return with a small brown paper bag containing something to eat. It might be a hard boiled egg, a johnny cake, some cheese and crackers, or a piece of coconut candy. It might be a sandwich. You never knew what you had until you opened the bag. With a hug and kiss, she sent you on your way.

If you were lucky, her mother Miss Missy would NOT be sitting on her porch because if she was you had to go see her too, which wasn't bad, except that she always insisted on "kissing you up," which wasn't bad except that she was quite toothless and her kisses were quite wet.

Some years back as Mom and I sat together reminiscing she said, "I miss Agnes as much as I miss my mother."

Well, if the Universe will have it, I'd like to think that Grammy, Mom, Ethlyn and Miss Agnes are all together in some fabulous kitchen cooking up a feast for the angels.

Thanksgiving 1969 - Part Two

So it's right around Thanksgiving, we've had a big rain and Ethel is planning a big party.

Now the road into Lillie Maho was narrow, steep, rocky and required four wheel drive/low transfer, even on a good day. After most any kind rain it turned into a slick, muddy track that was near impossible to traverse. But we had to get out. We had a business to run, not to mention the fact that my sister, Erva, had to get to her job. So first thing in the morning Mom and Erva went over the hill and cleared the road of the big rocks the hillside has thrown up, and the tree limbs that have blown down. They also filled in, with rocks, the deep ruts the rain had made. Inotherwords, they made the road passable.

At that time there were no telephones out our way. But we did have two-way radio. Telephone calls could be patched in and we could talk to people anywhere in the world. The only draw-back is that anyone who had a radio could hear your conversation.

Thus is was that while Mom was working in the office she overheard a radio phone call between Ethel and a dinner guest who was concerned about getting to her place. After all there'd been a big rain and some roads were washed out. Was the road into Maho passable?

To which Ethel replied, "Well, those people down there got out."

That infuriated Mom. Those people indeed! Like we were lepers or something. Like we were nobodies or were of some inferior class of people whose name was never to be mentioned, untouchables. She stewed and fumed over it all day. By the time Erva got home from work Mom was ready, she had a plan. The Original Rotten Kid was in full swing.

"Come on, kids!" she said. Me, Erva and her best friend Gene, piled into the jeep. Mom wrestled with the steering wheel and we skidded and skated our way over the hill until we got to the "main" road though it too was just another dirt track.

Then we turned around and headed back over the hill into Maho. While Mom drove, Erva, Gene and I followed behind unfilling the ruts, and putting back every bolder and tree limb that had been removed. Inotherwords, we made the road impassible. It was a wonderfully muddy job.

It meant that Ethel's guests would be met with barriers and would have to decide if they wanted to clear the road and get muddy, park their jeep and walk slip/sliding over the hill and get muddy, or turn around and go home.

If I recall, the next day there were noises on the squawk box (that's what we called the radio/telephone) about how difficult it had been to get to the party and Ethel was furious not understanding how it could have happened because she was sure "those people" had gotten out.

Oh we were terrible and still laugh about it to this day!

Grammy, (Erva Hartwell Boulon Thorp) February, 1963 at the gates to Ethel McCully's house which Ethel called, "Island Fancy."

Grammy was a bit Art Deco in her tastes. She wore large jewelry and liked bright clothes as can easily been seen here. I don't know of too many women who could wear a solid red jumpsuit (and shoes) and pull it off, but it goes so well with her beautiful silver hair.

Thanksgiving 1969 - Part One

Directly up the hill from our guest house at Lillie Maho, lived a woman named Ethel McCully. She was a legend in her own mind, someone who acted as if she had been on the island longer than any other white person. This of course was hardly true. She built her home in the early '50s whereas my grandparents had been on St. John since the 1920s.  None the less, Ethel made herself out to be quite the character, which wasn't difficult since she'd been an ambulance driver during World War I and was the author of three mystery novels. She was a tiny little old woman, rather wrinkly and wizened, who clung too long to trying to look young. The hibiscus she wore in her wig was an idea she stole from my grandmother. (Grammy's hair was all her own.) Her bright red lipstick tended to bleed around the edges of her lips and her heavily rouged cheeks made her look somewhat clownish. 

Photo by Peter Ernst


These eccentricities were not annoying, but her peacocks were. She had anywhere from six to twelve of the birds. Large males, with magnificent tails, strutted around accompanied by an entourage of peahens. She let them wander in and out of her house where they left presents on her tiled floors. But worse, they often flew down the hill and landed our roofs where they pooped and were a general nuisance.  And one must remember we collected rainwater off our roofs for drinking, cooking and bathing. Equally, if not more, annoying was the noise they made. Often times in movies that have a tropical setting, or ladies in long dresses are strolling through an English garden, one can hear a peacock yelling in the distant background. I suppose someone thinks it's romantic, shades of India and Rudyard Kipling don't you know. But let me tell you, when they live right next to you, their yelling is anything but romantic. It is a loud, ugly noise that sounds like a woman screaming, "HELP!" 


When asked if I can imitate an animal, I say yes, I can scream just like a peacock! (It's true.)


We had a touchy relationship with Ethel. She came down quite often to have cocktails at our open bar and would insinuate herself among our guests, playing the hostess, acting like the queen bee, and generally stomping all over our territory. She was a nosy busybody we put up with and didn't particularly like.


Every Thanksgiving Ethel held a big dinner party to which she invited all the local color. We, of course were never invited. But that didn't bother us because we had guests for whom we put on a big lovely spread.  


Then, in 1969 a few days before the Big Day,  it rained, and it rained, and it rained some more and we had a flood. 


Come back tomorrow for part two!

Mr. Davis and Tom

Behind Gus and Charlotte’s house was a small one room building, rather like a storage shed. It was probably no more than 10 X 15 feet. It had a door at one end and two windows on at least one wall. I never went inside because that’s where Mr. Wilber Davis lived.

Gus and Charlotte at their front door.

Mr. Davis had been an artist. He wound up living at Trunk Bay, caretaking the place when the Boulons were not in residence. Grammy took his art work to Puerto Rico and sold it for him in gift shops and art galleries. He was really quite good. He mostly did etchings on tiles. We still have a few of his pieces.

Mom said he was cantankerous even back in the 1930’s. By the time he was living in the shed he had become a reclusive hermit who snarled at people. What he did in that shed all day is anyone’s guess. He didn’t do art. Perhaps he read. Perhaps he sat in a chair and mumbled to himself about how badly life had treated him. Perhaps he slept.

Whatever he did or didn’t do, one thing is certain; for me at eight or nine years old, Mr. Davis was a scary and mysterious person.

Charlotte fed him every day. If I was visiting it was understood I was not to show my face. Even Gus kept to other parts of the house. I’m sure she fed him three times a day, but it’s the late-afternoon/evening meals I remember best.

Off the kitchen there was a long covered porch or veranda. It was about 6 or 7 feet wide and ran the length of the house. By the kitchen door was a small round table and a single chair. Charlotte would set the table and have a plate of food in place. Then, in her thin high voice, she’d call him.

“Yoo-hoo! Wilber!  Dinner!” She was the only one to call him by his first name.

A minute or so later Mr. Davis would appear out of the depths of his self-imposed exile. He was a large, imposing figure and always wore the same thing, no matter the time of year or the weather: dark trousers, dark long-sleeved shirt and often an ancient knee-length over-coat that was probably made of wool. Sometimes he wore a battered fedora. He’d walk the 30 or so feet to the back porch, eat, get up and return to his dark den.

Charlotte was the only one who spoke to him. Did he want more? Would he like a glass of water? A cup of coffee perhaps? He would reply with a simple gruff, yes or no.

When Charlotte called Mr. Davis for dinner, she also called a wild tomcat. She had several regular tame cats, but she fed the wild cat separately. She’d put out a dish of food in the same place every evening and in her high thin voice she’d call,

“Yoo-hoo! Tom. Yoo-hoo! Dinner, Tom!”

Out of the tangle of catch’n’keep and wild tamarind that grew behind the house would come slinking a great huge battle-scarred orange tomcat. Part of one ear was nearly chewed off. He fur was scraggly and lumpy with cuts and scabs and scars. He’d come slinking in, wary of anything different or any movement that was not part of his frame of reference.

He’d come slinking in, eat his bowl of food, then slink back into the bush.

Mr. Davis and Tom ate their meals together in hostile, untrusting silence.

Mr. Davis ate without looking around; as if angry he might see something he liked which would then necessitate an acknowledgement.

Tom crouched in tense expectation that he might have to bolt at any moment. After each gulp of food his head swiveled from side to side, taking in his surrounding, making sure nothing had changed.

They were the same kind of creature, Mr. Davis and Tom. Life had dealt them blows which had caused them to retreat into isolation. They were wild; Mr. Davis having chosen it and Tom because he had been born to it.

Yet between them they had Charlotte, whose’ sweet face, quiet voice and non-judgmental manner, brought the two together each evening.

Was it because the wounds they suffered and the scars they bore were momentarily soothed by her ministrations? The moments were not enough to civilize the misanthropic old man or tame the wild old tomcat, but they were enough to keep them coming back and to develop a routine.

Daily they came to the borderland of civilization, a neutral zone on the back porch. They could have come inside the house any time and been welcomed, but the porch was as close to the smell of humanity as either of them cared to get.

As a little girl I caught occasional glimpses of the old wild man and the old wild cat as they made their journeys to the edge of that reality in which they could not endure to live. Frightening as they were I dared to take peeks at them, hoping they would notice me and see me as harmless and thus allowing me to befriend them. I was equally terrified that if they did see me they would run away and never come back.

I walked a thin brittle line. Common sense, instinct or some part of my unconscious knew not to intrude and kept me from causing a break in the fragile connection Charlotte had with them.

In that time with Charlotte, perhaps a memory was made which lingered like a salve, easing some of the pain. Perhaps it was the lingering trace of that memory which kept them coming back. Her calm, quiet, unhurried, patient demeanor taught me that even the most damaged or wild of creatures can be coaxed out of the darkness and into the light, even if only for a moment.

C is for Character (and a Celebration Winner!)

CHARACTER comes to us from the Middle English caracter, from Middle French caractere, from Latin character meaning mark or distinctive quality, from the Greek charakter from charassein meaning to scratch or engrave.

So character is about something that is carved into one's being, kind of like those runes on beech wood that later turned into books.

I grew up amidst a crowd of characters: John Jodan the Russian opera singer. Old man Penn who when drunk danced with a beer bottle on his head. Trumps the crooked little humpback who swept Miss Meada's yard and the park. Miss Lucy the first female taxi driver. Charlotte, suffragette and first female poetry editor for the New York Times. Steve, a Southern Gentleman and the only person who always called me by my full name. Ethel McGully whose pet peacocks roamed her house at will. (They'd fly down to our place and poop on our roof. I can imitate a peacock quiet well by the way.) Leroy Smalls the local petty thief. Betty who wore big poofy wigs and long fake eyelashes. Duke Ellington the mystery writer. Miss Agnes who had to give you something to eat if you passed by her house, not to mention her ancient toothless mother Miss Missy who lived across the street. Lord help you if she was sitting on her porch and you passed by, she had to kiss you up. Mr. Powell with the shrivelled arm and hand that reminded me of a T-Rex's front legs. Mr. G the recluse who was hardly ever seen. Mr. David the artist with the mean temperament. Mr. Wadsworth who build a concrete statue of Jesus and called it Christ of the Caribbean. It could be seen from the ocean for many miles. My cousin called it the Ghost of Caribbean because it was white washed.

And I haven't even gotten to the characters in my family....

If we look closely at our own lives, the ones we think are mundane and ordinary, we will find characters. Use them in your writing. All you have to do is make a rubbing of the engraved essence of themselves that they have left behind.

AND THE WINNER OF MY 200 RANDOM FOLLOWERS CELEBRATION IS...

Here's my hubby, pulling the name from my Cat in the Hat hat...

DANYELLE LEAFTY!

Danyelle, if you would be so kind as to email your address to me I will send off the gifts ASAP!

Thanks to EVERYONE who participated!

Remembrances of Gifft Hill - Herber Thomas

We were the first white people to live up at Gifft Hill, a rather isolated place, three miles from Cruz Bay. The road to Gifft Hill was a mile long dirt track with deep ruts and places that were more like a rocky stream-bed than a road. We had to use four-wheel drive, low transfer the whole way.

Our nearest neighbors were the Thomases who lived about a quarter of a mile away.

Old Man Heber Thomas was a tall lanky man. He talked very fast and as if he had small pebbles in his mouth. It was often difficult to understand him. It may surprise many to learn that on an island only nine miles long and five miles wide we could tell where a person was from by the way he or she spoke. People from Coral Bay sounded different from those who were from Bethany or Cruz Bay or Gifft Hill.

Heber Thomas lived in a two room shack with his wife Victoria, and Erla a girl who lived with them and helped with chores. They had a glorious view of St. Thomas and Pillsbury Sound. Victoria was bed-ridden. I think it was due to arthritis. Sometimes she was placed in a chair in the doorway to catch the sun, but most of the time she was propped up in bed. Hers was the first "old lady" smell I remember smelling. There was something musky about it, something sour and something sharp. She must have been, in her youth, a pretty woman because I remember her as having traces of pretty still lingering in her round face, peeking out from behind the wrinkles of her smile, and hiding in the tight braids of her thick white hair.

The Thomases shack, like most every one's (for most of the population, including us, lived in tiny wooden homes. We called our shack The Castle) was spotlessly clean. And their clothes, though worn and well patched, were also clean and ironed with a "goose," an iron into which you put charcoal embers.

Old Man Herber ran goats on his property along with a few cows and chickens. He also had a mule. One time either his dogs or someone elses killed one of his pregnant nannies. For some reason I was there a short time after he'd started butchering the goat, which he'd strung up in a tree. I remember seeing the pair of nearly ready to be born kids, still in their watery sacs lying on the ground. It was a sad sight, and Herber Thomas was obviously (even to me at 8 or 9 years old) very upset.

Because we had a kerosene refrigerator we had ice, a luxury back then. Almost every day Erla would walk the quarter mile to our shack with a rum bottle full of cow's milk in exchange for a tray of ice cubes. Sometimes we exchanged ice for eggs.

The Thomases didn't have a cistern, like we did, for catching rain water. What they had were four or five 55 gallon drums covered with cheese cloth and/or lids to keep the mosquitoes from laying their eggs in the water. Another of Erla's jobs was to go down to the "Monte reservoir" or catchment once a week to bring back water if there hadn't been enough rain to keep their barrels full. It was only about 1/2 or 3/4 of a mile away, but the road was very steep and rocky. Going down was easy, but coming back up...it was tough. Once we got our donkey, Erasmus, Erva and I helped Erla with the water hauling. Herber's mule and Erasmus were loaded with dumb boxes each of which carried four, five gallon tins. The tins were lidless. To keep from losing water on the return trip we put branches of genip leaves on top of the water. The leaves acted like a shock absorber and kept the water from sloshing over the sides of the tins. If memory serves me right, we set out fairly early in the morning and got back by noon.

Water was a precious commodity. Conserving it was something everyone did, not because it was the cool thing to do, but because we had to. Rain was our only source. There were no wells or springs, and if it didn't rain for a while, if there was a drought, everyone suffered.

So, when Old Man Herber Thomas told my sister and me that before the catchment had been build there was a place, a ghut with pools, where people had gone year round to get water, we were incredulous. He said slaves had hidden out there when they went maroon and that there were trails to it off of the Gifft Hill road.

Erva and I wanted to know where those trails were, but Heber Thomas kept the secret to himself for sometime. Maybe he was testing us. Maybe he was making sure we were worthy of knowing the secret. But finally, after a certain amount of pestering, he showed us where the trail head was, hidden by spiky wild pineapples and barbed catch-n-keep. As soon as we knew where the trail began, Erva and I vowed that one day we would go exploring. The idea of a ghut with year-round pools of water was hard to believe.

Stay tuned for The Ghut.

Crime and Punishment

Times were quiet on St. John in '50s and early '60s. There was very little drama. People lived their lives, took care of their families, and enjoyed their friendships. We were a village where everyone knew everyone.

When something did happen it was a big deal. Years before we moved to St. John there had actually been a double murder. The murderer was released from jail not long after we arrived and as children, when we saw him pass, we would hide, afraid of being seen by him. Then there was the time a house burned down and the occupant was killed in the fire. And there was a man who killed himself. These were huge tragedies because all of us knew the people involved, knew their families. These kinds of things were personal and the incident would be talked about for months.

But mostly, St. John was a sleepy place where we kids were free to roam, our parents' only concern being that we might get hurt while scrambling over the rocks like goats or falling out of trees.

We had a collection of characters like Old Mr. Penn, who, no matter how drunk he got could dance with a beer bottle balanced on his head. Or the Russian tenor, John (Ivan) Jadan, or the mystery writer, Richard "Duke" Ellington, or Miss Agnes who had to give you something to eat if you passed by her house, or Trumps the humpback who swept the park.

Then there was Leroy Smalls. He was our resident thief.

Everyone knew Leroy was a thief. Mostly he stole fruit like mangoes, guavas or limes off of Neptune Richard's fruit trees. Then he would try to sell them. When he came around with, say, a bag of limes the question would be, "And where did you get these limes, Leroy?" To which he would adamantly reply he had gotten them off his own tree. But everyone knew he had no lime tree of his own. His thieving was harmless and for the most part tolerated.

But one time he stole a suitcase. Why he would steel a suitcase is beyond me. I doubt seriously he needed it to go somewhere. If he had ever been farther than St. Thomas or Tortola I'd be surprised. But none the less he stole a suitcase, was caught, put in jail, and had a trial.

At the end of the trial Leroy was given a sentence of a few more days in jail where he would be well taken care of and fed three meals a day. But Leroy had other plans. He got up, went to the front of the courtroom, picked up the suitcase (which had been used as evidence) and started to walk out with it.

Our fine and wonderful policeman, Captain Jurgen, said, "Leroy, where you tink you goin' wid dat suitcase?"

And Leroy said, "Well, tis mine. I teef it."

That was the extent of crime and punishment on St. John.

Miss Lucy

Lucy Smith-Prince, known to all as Miss Lucy or Mama, was, to the best of my knowledge, born on St. John while the islands were still under Danish rule and was perhaps a year or two old when they became an American possession in 1917. She knew a great deal about the history and loved telling stories of growing up on the island.

She was the first female taxi driver on St. John. I wouldn't be surprised if she started driving tourists and people around as soon as the first jeeps arrived after the first roads were bulldozed in, sometime in the early 1950's. Her jeep was the first to have a one-of-a-kind hood ornament; a pair of ram's horns which she stuffed with fresh hibiscus, oleander and/or bougainvillea each day. Every morning she and her jeep could be seen in Cruz Bay down at the dock waiting for the ferry to come it. Tourists who got her as their guide were for sure going to get a good tour and go home with many memorable stories.

When she laughed, her whole face and head took part in the action. Her eyes would crinkle up to into tiny slits which made you wonder how she could see. And she had this thing she did with her chin. It would sort of move towards her neck, and like her eyes, almost disappear.

Whenever my best friend and I were hiking between the beaches, if Miss Lucy happened to pass us on the road and she had room, she always stopped and gave us a lift. This always provided an opportunity to gossip and pass on news.

Miss Lucy was, like Miss Meada and Roy Sewer, a person my mother knew from her childhood, someone she loved and respected. That love and respect was passed on to me and my sister.

In her later years, she opened a restaurant at her home in Estate Friis, a rocky beach on the south side of St. John, past Coral Bay and on the way to Salt Pond. She was an excellent cook and her cuisine was local; fish and fungi, pigeon peas and rice, fried plantain and coconut tart. Below is a video I found taken by visitors to her Sunday Brunch. (You can hear live jazz being played in the back-ground.) It mostly shows the beautiful view from the beach. A view of Coral Bay, and the point of land called East End. When it pans to the right, the British island of Tortola can be seen in the background. But it also shows where people sit at tables outside, under a huge old seagrape tree.

Miss Lucy died at the age of 91 in 2007. One more piece of the past gone from us. I for one am glad/happy/honored beyond measure that I knew her personally.

As of February 2009, her restaurant was still open.

Nibbs

In my last ruminations about Dr. Van Mulsen (See, Going to the Dentist, below) I mentioned Nibbs, the bartender, at the Grand Hotel, (here there be pictures.) The Grand was built between 1839 and 1840 and is one of many historical attractions in downtown Charlotte Amalie.

Nibbs. I will try to give a clear picture of this wonderful man.

He was tall and dark skinned with a wonderful broad smile. I like to think his ancestry could be traced back to those taller African tribes, like the Zulus or Maasai, who, when merely standing, exude a kind of elegance that is not prideful, but part of their very genetic make-up. Straight back, square shoulders.

Nibbs was like that.

At the time I write about, the Grand Hotel was the gathering place for many locals, both black and white. On the balcony there was a huge round table which could seat at least 20, maybe 30 people. This was the table where the locals sat to discuss the latest news and gossip while they ate lunch, had cocktails, or dined in the evening.

I don’t think he had to, but Nibbs often took responsibility for the round table. He would not only take, but also serve the drink and food orders. Only if it was very busy, would the drinks and food bound for the round table be served by someone else.

He must have, but I don’t remember him ever writing an order down, yet when you went to pay your bill (and he was in charge of that too) there would be your tab, waiting for you.

For years Nibbs had a parakeet. It's cage sat on the counter were people paid their bills and the door was usually open so the bird could come and go as it pleased. Its wings were clipped so it couldn’t fly away. It was very tame and spent a good deal of time riding on Nibbs' shoulder. It was also allowed to wander around the round table. One had to be on the alert for small thefts of food or tiny sips from one’s drink. One day there was a tragedy. While delivering an order, Nibbs stepped on his beloved bird who happened to be walking around on the floor. Nibbs was heartbroken. It was many years before he finally gave in to gentle urgings and got another parakeet, which, in time, was treated much as the first one had been.

When Mom would leave Erva and me at the Grand while she went shopping she’d leave us with coloring books and books to read. In the huge ball room (with stars on the dark blue ceiling) there were several sitting areas with couches, chairs and tables. We would commandeer an area directly across from the bar so Nibbs, as he came and went from bar to balcony, could keep a watchful eye on us. I can’t tell you how many pictures Erva and I colored and gave to him. And I think for many years he kept them all together under the bar.

Once we moved to St. Thomas from St. John the Grand became a favored hang-out. Almost every day after school I went there to wait for my father to pick me up after he got off work. I’d often sit out on the balcony at a small table, farthest from all the others, a place that was out of the way and usually empty. If it was windy or rainy or cold I’d settle myself inside at the same seating area Erva and I had used when we were small. I’d usually get an iced tea, sometimes a Coke, and while I waited for Dad I’d do my homework or study for tests.

Most of the time I had enough money to buy myself something to drink. But sometimes, perhaps once every two months or so, I didn’t and I’d ask Nibbs to “put it on our tab.” It wasn’t until years later, long after I’d graduated from high school, that I learned we never had a tab at the Grand! Nibbs had given me those drinks on the house. I’m so glad I didn’t take advantage of the gift.

A year or so ago my sister ran into Nibbs, who was hale enough to be driving. She said he looked almost the same and that he remembered us.

Certainly I remember him; a gentleman, gracious and generous, with a ready smile and laugh, who was also a most excellent bartender.

I raise my glass: “Here’s to you Nibbs. This is a small token of my appreciation. Live long and prosper.”

Going to the Dentist

Once a year my mother took Erva and me to get our annual dental check-up.

In those days, between 1955 and 1962, going to see the dentist was an all day affair. When we lived up at Gifft Hill the three mile jeep ride to Cruz Bay to catch the ferry took a good half hour. The mile long road out of Gifft Hill (#104) which met up with Center Line (#10 see map) was a kind of rocky river bed which in places required low transfer and four wheel drive. So it was slow going as we picked our way over rock out-croppings and ruts near a foot deep.

The ferry ride from Cruz Bay to Red Hook took 30 to 45 minutes. At Red Hook, on St. Thomas, we either drove a car we had stored in a rickety garage or we got a taxi to take us into down town Charlotte Amalie, a journey of at least another 20 t0 30 minutes.

If we took the 8 o’clock ferry, we were usually in town by 10 AM. This meant we’d been up and getting ready to go since about 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning.

Our dentist, Dr. Van Mulsen, was Dutch and spoke with an accent. He had been, for many years a dentist in New York City who had served an upper crust clientele. In fact, some of his patients came down to the St. Thomas on a regular basis to have him work on their teeth, he was that good and they were that loyal to him.

He had come to St. Thomas to retire, but he just couldn’t keep his figures out of people’s mouths. It wasn’t important to him that a person’s teeth be perfectly straight and even, only that they were perfectly clean and healthy.

Dr. Van Mulsen wore his lovely graying reddish hair in a page boy. Picture the boy on labels of Dutch Boy Paint and you have a near replica of what his hair looked like.

His office was on Back Street in a building built by slaves for the Danes. The walls of these buildings are anywhere from a foot to a foot and a half thick. Usually my sister went first. Mom would sit in a chair near-by and I sat on the wide ledge of the open window. From my vantage point I could see what he was doing to Erva and watch her reactions. When Erva was done we switched places.

Dr. Van Mulsen hated and feared causing his patients any kind of pain or discomfort. And so he was the gentlest of dentists. He hummed tuneless tunes while he worked.

Any time the person in the chair got a squirt or two of Lavoris with which to rinse out her mouth, he’d whip around with his sprayer and say, “Open wide,” and give the person sitting on the window ledge a squirt too. I will always remember the sweet minty taste of his magic red liquid. It was the long awaited high-light of the visit.

At one check-up Erva turned out to have a small cavity. “Ah, a wee small holey,” he said. I got to watch the whole procedure. That filling he put in is still there.

By the time we were finished it was time for lunch. We always went to the Grand Hotel which was built between 1839 and 1840. After lunch Mom would leave us at the Grand (where we were “watched” by Nibbs, the bartender) to do some grocery shopping. By three we’d head back to Red Hook to catch the ferry back to St. John. By 5 PM or so, we were back home.

Like I said, it was an all day affair.

My First Lesson in Social Etiquette

I’m not saying I didn’t get taught things at home, I did. But this is the first lesson I can really remember. It happened when I was about six.

At that time, on St. John, there were less than a thousand people living on the island. Everybody knew most everybody. And everybody knew whose kids belonged to whom. We kids couldn’t get away with much. It was accepted that any adult had not only the right but the duty to reprimand, teach, or instruct an errant child.

It happened this way. We were up at the Julius E. Sprauve School. Something was happening as there were parents mingling and kids running around. I was one of those kids who was running around.

Roy Sewer was a teacher. He was a tall, handsome man and there was something about the way he carried himself that spoke of royalty. It wasn’t that he was prideful, but that he was confident.

It just so happened that my mother and Mr. Roy were talking together and I had the audacity to run between them. In an instant Mr. Roy grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. There, in front of my mother and anyone else who happened to be within ear-shot, he gave me a very stern lecture on proper social etiquette.

In essence these were his words. “Never pass between two people who are speaking to each other. Always go around them. If you can not go around them wait for a pause in the conversation, say ‘excuse me,’ and then slip between as quickly as possible.”

My mother stood there and never said a word. She was perfectly content to have Mr. Roy rebuke me. In a way, it was like having an uncle correct my behavior, for hadn’t my mother and he grown up together and been life-long friends?

To this day I am careful about going between two people when they are speaking to each other. If I can’t go around them I wait for a pause in the conversation, say “excuse me,” duck my head, and slip quickly between them.

Mr. Roy died in 2006. In 1999 my sister, mother and I took Mr. Roy to breakfast. I am glad to say I was able to tell him about the life lesson he taught me. Of course he didn’t remember it, but we had a good laugh.

Here’s a picture of Mom and Mr. Roy taken the day we had breakfast together. One can still see in the way he is sitting and in his shoulders the remnants of his regal carriage.

Charlotte...and Gus Too

Charlotte Dean Stark. She was my first best friend (after my sister that is.)

Charlotte was older than my grandmother by 5 or 6 years. She had been a Suffragette. She was a book reviewer for the New York Times. Between December 4th, 1932 and August 6th, 1944, Charlotte wrote a total of 192 columns.

She was married to Gus, a thin man who had no teeth. But that didn't stop him from eating whatever he wanted. He ate everything from popcorn to steak, gumming things to death. On New Years Eve he'd put in his teeth and look completely different. But he didn't like to wear them because they hurt.

I don't know how Gus and Charlotte first learned about St. John or when they first arrived. I do know they were already family friends when my mother was going to Pratt Institute between 1934-36 because Mom spent the holidays with them up in Connecticut.

They came to Trunk Bay on St. John early on, before 1934, before Grammy opened it as guest house. In fact, the only building left at Trunk Bay, the Lower House, was built by Charlotte and Gus between 1948-49.

Charlotte had short curly graying red-brown hair. In her youth it had been a deep auburn. Her eyes, if I remember rightly, were a watery blue-green. She wore long skirts and dresses, which she made, to cover her right knee which had been severely mangled when she was a girl.

The story she told is that while riding a bike the front wheel hit a trolley or train track. She was thrown, landing on her right knee. The knee cap was shattered and a large cut on the top of her thigh caused a piece of her stocking to go up inside her her leg. Doctors had to enlarge the cut and with a long pair of tweezers they pulled the piece of fabric out. Her knee remained gnarly and lumpy and it didn't bend very well.

Over the fireplace (the only one on St. John at the time) there was an oil painting of her that was done when she was about 18. She had been a pretty young woman; a small heart-shaped face was surrounded by an abundance of auburn hair. She was wearing a long yellow dress. She looked very much the Gibson Girl.

She still had the dress when I entered her life. She'd let me play dress-up in it. It was made of satin and had a drapery-like front, like a narrow shawl that acted as both yoke and straps. It had a small train. When I wore it I loved pretending I was in a grand ballroom strolling and dancing about. Made me feel very elegant.

Charlotte was slender and had long fingered hands that were bony. She filed her nails into small points. She played the piano and sang in a thin watery voice. My sister, Erva, Charlotte and I liked to sing Christmas carols all year long.

She liked to do acrostics. She also had a knitting project, making herself an outfit of fine off-white wool. But like Penelope, she never finished it.

She took a battery of pills, mostly vitamins. She had these little pill boxes, each one different. Every morning she'd sort out which pills went into which box; morning, noon, evening, bedtime. She hated taking pills. She'd chew up the ones she could, all together (YUK!) Then all the gel-cap types she'd pop in her mouth, take a big sip of water, throw her head back, shake and wiggle her head and stroke her throat to get the pills down.

She made her own yogurt.

If I was around when she made bread she always gave me a small lump to knead. Even if it fell on the floor she'd bake it in its own little pan and I would eat it. She taught me how to use their special pop-corn popper. It was a large electric machine. Just this much oil, this much corn. I got so good I became the official popper when ever I visited, which was often.

Charlotte wrote two books about St. John. I wish I had them.

She slept in the nude and walked from the bedroom to the bathroom butt naked. She was not the least bit modest about her aging, saggy body. She slept with dozens of very small pillows which she made special pillow cases for. She also wore a black satin mask over her eyes as she couldn't sleep when there was any kind of light. She made the masks too.

She wore Joy perfume. Gus kept her supplied with an extremely large bottle of it. One bottle would last a couple of years.

Charlotte introduced my sister, Erva and me, to the "Sea Sick Record," (as our cousin Frances called it.) It's real name is "The Pinafore" by Gilbert and Sullivan. We loved that album and would sing along with it. I particularly liked trying to imitate the contralto who sang the part of Buttercup.

"I'm called little Buttercup,

Poor little Buttercup,

Though I could never tell why...

...So buy off your Buttercup, buy." It must have been a hoot to hear an 8 or 10 year old singing that song.

Charlotte and I got along like two peas in a pod. I spent many week-ends with her.

Gus would take us down to Hawksnest in the afternoons around 3 p.m. to take a sea bath. He had an old tractor and he'd rigged up a seat on the back of it. I would sit in Charlotte's lap as we made our slow way down the steep rocky road to the beach. We always had stale bread on hand to feed the pompanos.

After the beach Charlotte and I took a shower together, something that by today's standards would be frowned upon and/or questioned. One time I asked her why one breast was smaller than the other. She told me she had had a tumor removed and lifted up her breast so I could see the thin white scar that went from one side to the other. Another time I asked her why she and Gus didn't have kids. She told me she had lost three. I can only assume, now as an adult, that she had had three miscarriages. I told her I was sorry. She told me it didn't bother her anymore, particularly since she had me to play with.

Sunday mornings were always fun. Charlotte and I would get all dressed up. I would wear one her long dresses, all pinned and gathered up to fit me. We'd dab on some Joy, then we'd climb onto the tractor and Gus would motor the three of us down to Caneel Bay to pick up the Sunday New York Times. We must have been quite a sight, an old owman and little girl walking through the lobby of the hotel as if we owned the placed; Charlotte looking elegant - she carried herself as one who had once been among the elite, which she had been - and me, trailing skirts that were too long acting like a princess.

Then there was Gus, who wore the same basic outfit every day, jeans and a white short-sleeved shirt, leading this odd female pair.

Every morning Charlotte took her flower basket and shears and went out into the yard to gather hibiscus blossoms. She had a multitude of different kinds. Inside the house Gus had mounted on the walls lovely pieces of drift wood into which he had drilled holes. Charlotte would take out yesterdays wilted blossoms and replace them with today's. And so, there were these wonderful splashes of color in the foyer and on the white walls of the living room. A praticularly beautiful piece of free-standing drift wood sat on the top of her white up-right piano.

Once Charlotte taped/attached all these differnt types of hibiscus to one of her large potted plants. She called her "Ho-ax Charlotta."

Sometimes we had screaming contests to see who could scream the loudest. She and my mother called me "one of God's screachers" because I could scream so loud.

She liked to eat pomegranates and had several trees in the yard, both the white and ruby red kind.

In the late 1960's after Gus's death, Charlotte moved back to the states. I was very sad about the move. I begged her to sell the house to my Mom and Dad, but it was not to be. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo took the roof and destroyed part of the house. What was left was eventually torn down...all of the beautiful stonework Gus had done, their large open porch overlooking Hawksnest. It's all gone now.

But I have some pictures. This one shows me on her lap. My sister stands tall in the back. Our friends, Melaine, Ed (left) and John (right) gluster around her like bees on a flower. I am, as I always was, barefoot.

I loved Charlotte dearly. She always answered my questions, even if it was to say, "I don't know." I have a pretty little three-shelved cherry wood piece that was hers. I also have her Harebell china. Between us, Erva and I have several pieces of her jewerly. I also have two of her painted fans and several books from her extensive library. I read the The Secret Garden at her house.

In 1968 I visited family in Connectcut for Christmas. I spent the night with Charlotte in New York City. She was living in a hotel-apartment. We had dinner together. The next morning, before light, she gave me instructions on how to get to Grand Central Station. We hugged and said good-bye.

It was the last time I saw her. Charlotte died in 1977.

I still miss her from time to time, which is why I'm writing about her today. It's one of those moments.