Friends vs. father time.

Fresh off a really hard time of a year ... I'd say one of the most stressful of my life so far ... I've had the distinct blessing of being able to take one of those vacations that's really one of my favourites: time for Jan and I alone, but time to reconnect with old friends, too. Pardon, then, the "me" orientation of this reflection, but it has helped to think along this lines in the process of learning to cope with it all.

Besides the Mediterranean cruise we'll be taking, we're seeing my old Madrid flatmate I haven't seen in 19 years, one of my very best friends ever in Barcelona (in Sant Cugat to be precise), a friend with Bahamian connections in Rome, another friends who runs the Logos bookstore in Calgary in the Cinque Terre, my "boss" from Quito and his wife in the UK and hopefully another friend from Bank of London and South America days. I'd have to classify virtually every one of them as "old friends". Relationships that go back years and years and years.

On the flight over from JFK to BCN I spent a lot of time reflecting on what makes these friendships different and durable vs. the folks that come and go and go and come and fill up lots of my time in the present (and by present I don't mean right now ... I mean at any given time).

I've come up with a couple ideas. Let's try them out ...

First and foremost, these are friends who have never asked of me to conform to their ideas. (My next post may address some of that). We can have knock-down, drag-out verbal battles with some of them and it just doesn't matter. No insult given, none taken. Some are liberal, some conservative. Some deeply spiritual, some not. Some from similar cultures, some from very very different backgrounds.

Then, virtually every one of them is in a stable marriage relationship, with their first wife! And except for one, we were friends before they got married. So the element of loyalty (to use one word for it) is a player in this equation.

These people don't require anything of me, and I have no expectations of them. In other words, it's not giving and receiving that cements the relationship.

Respect ... for my ideas and me for theirs. Not agreement, mind you. Just the simple understanding that to be friends we can't be carbon copies. Don't forget either that they come from all over ... Spain, Argentina, the UK. And that's only the ones we'll see on this trip. I have other similar friendships that have stood the test of time that, were we all living together, would still be current (I think).

I don't know what strange chemistry got any of these friendships going, but I do know that the fact I am loved and respected unconditionally by anybody at all touches me greatly.

Here's hoping I'm worthy of every one of them.

Jumping Back In ... The Bahamas Passport Office Saga.

I haven't posted for months. So sue me. I'm not the only pseudo-blogger out there who takes a break!

But there are a couple/three (as my grandma would have said) things I want to say something about, so here goes with one of them:

On December 18th 2008 I submitted my ratty, well worn, analog, nearly expired passport together with a renewal application to the passport office here for replacement with a shiny new, smaller e-passport.

First, it's a confusing experience if you've not been there before. At the time there was no indication of where to present what, no signs on the wall explaining anything, and not even the receptionist had a sign over the dark, mirrored glass hiding who (or what) might be behind it.

I arrived at around 1:30 PM and, since it was straight ahead, ended up doing what I was supposed to do, left my documents with the receptionist and received a number hand-written on a sticky post-it note. The call-up number display on the wall wasn't lit and apparently wasn't working.

Over to the banks of plastic chairs to wait to hear my number - something which was almost impossible since the sole person attending the one active window out of six on the long wall could hardly be heard when he called them out.

We Bahamians are such delightfully social animals that at least whatever number he called out was being repeated loudly by those closest to the window, so I settled in to a conversation with an ex-colleague who I hadn't seen in years and got to meet her fine young son.

Again - at this point there is nothing on the walls explaining the process. No flyer handed out with the post-it-note number. And little guidance from the people around you since most of them are in the same boat.

OK ... by 3:00 or so (reasonable, I guess, given that there was only person staffing the windows) I'm called, fingerprinted, photographed and handed the filing receipt, but with a pick-up date of Feb. 2, 2009.

Ouch ... that's 7 weeks in the future!

I tell the guy that I have to travel on Jan 23rd, and that I've had the tickets since mid November. "No problem," he says, "just bring in the ticket at least a week before you're to travel and you should be able to get a travel document".

It sounded straightforward ... so I paid my $50.00 to absolutely delightful (I really mean it) cashier, and left. And Christmas came and went. And the New Year came and went.

I happened to be in the Oakes Field area about 10 days before the trip, so I stopped in. Got told it was a heck of a lot more iffy than I had been led to believe. The first receptionist who dealt with me was very pleasant, told me to bring back the filing receipt and ticket. So I did, the next day. Someone else, not nearly as pleasant, tells me I need a formal letter of request as well. I go back to the bank, write the letter, head back out and realise I'd left the ticket back at the office! Another 1 hour round trip ... this time with ticket, letter and filing receipt.

I dropped it all off on the Thursday before the trip, and we assured it would be considered by the Head of the Passport Office and someone would call me. Four roundtrips - four hours of Wulf Road traffic - and still I'll live with crossed fingers until I have the new passport in my hands!

Next Tuesday no-one has called, so I head out to check. Receptionist checks and says come back after three o'clock on Thursday (remember I'm travelling Friday ...).

In the meantime I'm in panic ... checking whether I could cancel airline tickets and reservations at Disney, etc. But Thursday at three I'm there. All they'll say at the beginning is that they're "trying to get you straight Mr. Roberts". Scary!

For an hour or so no-one really tells me much of anything. Sweaty palms!!!

Around 4:50 Mr. Franklyn Dames, the guy in charge, comes out to say they had found my application misfiled and not to worry, they'd take care of me. So sorry.

Didn't stop me from worrying! There I sat for another 15 minutes or so still wondering if I'd be travelling the next day or not.

Then around 5:10 or so Mr. Dames comes out, sits down next to me, and assures me that I'd be going home with my new, blue, e-passport! We had an interesting conversation and I can't say enough about my appreciation for how this saga all ended up.

Bottom line, I guess, is that we hear so many horror stories - and this one isn't pretty all the way from start to finish - but it was indeed refreshing to be handled courteously by smiling civil servants even at the end of a long stressful day. Totally unexpected, but totally welcome. And I went home around 5:30 ready to fly on the 23rd.

And when I get one of those "round tuits" I'll tell a positive story about BahamasAir, too!

Paul Potts (& Maske) at Atlantis.

We had anticipated a fantastic concert on Friday night, and we weren't disappointed.

The opening act, Maske, was an electric string trio from Australia. Excellent musicians. Fun. Pretty.

The transition to Paul Potts was handled spectacularly with Maske accompanying Paul on "The Prayer".

On his own after that with, unfortunately, canned music he still startled with the depth of emotion that he brings to his singing. He virtually vibrates with it, and it comes across splendidly.

It's not that I don't like Bocelli, for example. Technically he may even be superior to Paul. But he's not as easy to "feel" as anyone knows who has ever seen Paul's "Britain's Got Talent" audition version of Nessun Dorma.

It was his encore on Friday night, and every bit as moving.

Too bad the audience wasn't larger. Maybe just over half the theatre was full. Maybe Atlantis set the price a bit steep.

In any event, this was an extremely rare splurge for us, but thank you Kerzner Iternational, it was everything we had hoped!

"Plus ça change" ... Some reminiscing about the days when "Snail" Mail wasn't.

In this case, the rest of the phrase ... "plus c'est la même chose" [the more it remains the same] doesn't apply.

"Disgusted with Third World Government Services" in today's Nassau Tribune writes that even his electric bill takes 20 days - 20 days! - between postmark and placement in his Post Office Box.

For those readers who are not familiar with the way things work here ... there is no home delivery of mail in the Bahamas. You either rent a box at the main post office or one of the satellites, or you get your mail via General Delivery. In either case you have to schedule mail pickup into your routine.

This is not necessarily a bad thing all around. My dad used to love his regular "hails" on his morning rounds downtown and as a boy I remember being with him as he and his friends exchanged updates about family, politics and even religion while clutching a handful of bills, letters and postcards.

It was a slower time, and "going to the post" was almost a social activity for some men. I guess the women visited at the grocery store - when men never ventured!

But I digress ... the point here is that there is no excuse for mail which is dropped off at the main post office - already franked - to take 20 days to make it from one part of the building (which ain't too big, folks) to the mailboxes.

I don't understand. The rest of the world has speeded up but what we now call "snail mail" has indeed slowed down.

35 years ago at college in Massachussets my Mom wrote a couple pages every Sunday afternoon . Dad mailed it on his Monday morning rounds before 7 a.m. and I got it on Thursday or Friday OF THE SAME WEEK!! I specifically remember being desperate for funds once, calling home on Saturday. Dad went to the Royal Bank of Canada Bay & Vic on Monday morning, bought the draft, mailed it and I got it on Friday.

Try that now.

When I was studying in Madrid letters from home took exactly a week. What was mailed here on Monday, reached there the next Monday. And I was living on the northwest outskirts of the city in the middle of the scrub.

[A funny aside ... my sister was also studying in Mass. at the time, so my mother wrote essentially the same letter to both of us using carbon paper ... added a personal note at the end, and mailed two separate letters. Kids today won't easily relate - as their mom's would likely type it into the PC and print out two crisp copies.]

The US isn't much better at this mail thing by the way. At work we get correspondence from mainland Europe or the UK within about a week. From Miami we're lucky to get it within 3. It just seems to hit the skids once it reaches MIA and "mañana" takes over!

So much for progress...

Predestination and Starbucks.

OK. So Nassau has about 200,000 plus residents.

The new NAD airport authority wants to host two specialty coffee shops at NIA. (Kudos by the way for what's been done out there so far).

Today's Request for Proposals ads reads like a prescription for Starbucks:

- Proponents must have at least two (2) current locations similar to the proposed operation, which they have operated within the last three (3) consecutive years
- At least two of the proponent's current locations have to have generated at least $500,000 in average gross sales in the last two years

I don't actually know if the Starbucks operation here (essentially a locally owned franchisee) can meet those standards or not. But no-one else can for sure.

Caffè Caribe at Logos Bookstore was doing specialty coffees long before Starbucks moved in - since 1996 actually - and we did it with our own experience, capital and sweat equity - a fully Bahamian operation in every way. But we'd not qualify under NAD's RFP. Not that we'd be interested, but still ...

Do these guys think they're still in Vancouver - area population about 2 million?

Why bother to RFP if you write the thing at all if you have a predestined winner?

This is NOT a realistic background proposal if you're looking for local participation - I see there's nowhere in the RFP where it says the experience must be either local or Bahamian.

So folks ... my prediction, FWIW: look for a "Toomanybucksforme" at NIA soon - one in the US Departure Section and one in the Domestic / International Terminal.

How NOT to get your way?

Two stories in today's local papers ... and a third that ties in nicely ... have me wondering if there are lots of folks in our society who are a bit like tone-deaf candidates at an "American Idol" audition. They just aren't reading the feedback they get from reality.

Tying all this together ...

In dealing with yesterday's stabbing of a student at a local school the police spokesman restated the need for us to provide training in alternative forms of conflict resolution. Anger management, if you will.

Yes and No ... what we do need is some basic instruction in "brought-upsy" to use a good Bahamian term! This stuff has to be learned at home ... that beating someone up doesn't get your way. That killing them certainly doesn't.

But then you have ... The adults who don't seem to know any better ...

A father is now in a very public fight for custody of his son [while never making clear why the mother is not deserving].

A family already well known for conflict in public has sued the local and international arms of UPS and everyone remotely connected therewith.

These folks don't seem to understand that the court of public opinion can be a very harsh judge indeed.

I just don't understand why, as a society, we seem to think that arguing with the public and suing the pants of anyone who walks will somehow get us what we want. Notice I said what we want. Not necessarily what we need. Not what's best for everyone involved. No. I want what I want and I want it now and someone else better fix it for me!

"Of all my mother's children ..." You know the rest.

I don't know, perhaps we are indeed unduly influenced by North American media, where it seems so much more important to people to argue in the court of public opinion than where it really matters. Natalie Holloway's mother proclaiming "Joran did it" doesn't make it so, though it seems somehow she thinks constant repetition might indeed change reality. I understand the pain involved, but still ...

Uh Uh. Repeating a statement ad nauseum doesn't increase its veracity. The principle of "innocent until proven guilty" is disposable as long as it is inconvenient? Or is it only true for me? People don't seem to see how illogical it is to insist that others cut us slack while we keep the leash as tight as possible.

Aaargh! This feels like a rant. I guess it is. I shouldn't do it.

But everyone else is ranting!

Perhaps what's important to most of us is just what "makes me feel better" ... and ranting or stabbing or suing may do just that. But only short term.

We have to keep reminding ourselves that there are long term implications to whatever we do today:

Kids will remember if we "dis" their mother in public.

People will avoid doing business with you if they come to know (as they will in this tiny country, folks) that you will try and remedy even human mistakes by harassing them to death publicly.

Solve a disagreement with physical violence and you can end up in Fox Hill.

Write weird observations in a blog and they can come back and bite!

Logical conclusions, all, but too easily forgotten in the "heat of the moment".

OK ... so none of this is new and I'm certainly not the one who invented it, but some things just need to be repeated until they do become reality. (See Aruba rant above)

CALM DOWN, FOLKS!!

p.s. By the way ... I'd love to be able to hyperlink to articles from The Tribune. No can do yet.

Accusations of Sensationalism don't equal Censorship!

So I find myself a bit at odds this morning with several things in the newspapers, a couple of them related in a rather strange way.

Paco Nuñez takes exception in the Tribune (and reproduced in the letters section of the Guardian) to the Prime Minister's observation that the local press seems sometimes a bit too preoccupied with crime and those are the headlines that seem most days to figure most prominently at the top of the front page.

I must be getting old or something ... I find myself pretty well in agreement with the PM - at least on the observation that the Press sometimes sensationalises.

And if the Press pretends it doesn't, it loses credibility all on its own.

Certainly a response which essentially cries "Censorship" is taking the "best defense is a good offense" truism a bit too far indeed.

As much as I would champion the role of the press and value its freedom I said a couple weeks ago that headlines are sometimes a bit out of hand.

Many many years ago a couple kids at a school pretty close to the the Tribune dropped a couple cherry bombs in the boys toilet and blew it to high heavens. As far as I can remember it didn't make it to the newspapers, as messy as it was!

I can see the headlines today ... "Messy explosion at private school places children's lives in danger!" In bold 48 point type.

Close to Censorship?

According to the first paragraph of a piece by Taneka Thompson in today's Tribune, Dame Joan Sawyer is supposed to have warned that "Those who publicly bad-mouth the judicial system 'impinge upon the respect' of the Court of Appeal or any court of justice and can be cited for contempt of court ..."

If that's what she said, and assuming that's what she really meant, one hopes the eminent justice is cognizant of the fact that those words can easily be interpreted as a threat to freedom of expression.