Jackie Mittoo was born Donat Roy Mittoo on March 3, 1948 in St. Ann. The songwriter, keyboardist and musical director was a founding member of ska band, The Skatalites. He died in December, 1990 at age 42.
Please take a listen to Oboe and Ghetto Organ.
Every Friday evening at 9:00 p.m. in the summer, there’s a 30 minute fireworks display at Coney Island. I just love standing on the beach and watching the fireworks rise above my head and then fade into the night sky. It never fails to bring a smile to my face.
As I looked for photos for yesterday’s Travel Photo Thursday feature, I found these photos of some of the signs at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.
Except for this sign, there were no rails at some points and we were able to go right up to the edge
and peek over.
A recent post from my blog buddy, Heather Munro, who blogs at Heatherblog made me think about the street signs I have in my photo collection.
Take a look:
This is my submission to this week’s Budget Travelers Sandbox Travel Photo Thursday series. Be sure to check out other photo and story entries on their website!
When a passenger is behaving badly on a bus or a plane, it can make for a very unpleasant and uncomfortable ride.
I was the second person to get on the bus. When the driver saw that I was struggling with my bag and suitcase, he took the bag and put it on floor of one of the front seats.
I was so tired, I practically collapsed into the seat. As I settled into the seat, I heard a voice say, I sit there, I sit there. I didn’t turn around. I sit here, she said again. When I looked around, I noticed a woman — I couldn’t tell her age — standing just behind the row I was sitting and pointing to the seat next to me, the seat where my bag was.
I sit there, she continued.
I looked at her, looked at the seat and looked back at her again thinking, find another seat. There were at least 30 empty, none was assigned. As exhausted as I was, there was no way I was getting up. I didn’t care that she was mentally challenged.
I sit here, she repeated, like a mantra.
An elderly woman who had followed her on to the bus pleaded with her to quiet down. You can sit here, she said, of the empty seat next to her.
No, I sit here. F U!
Calm down, Angie. I’m going to call Frank. Do you want me to call Frank?
But Angie wouldn’t be calm. Instead, she started hitting the back of the seat next to me. F U, A-hole!
I sit here.
What did she say? The driver asked, looking in my direction.
I shrugged.
She was quiet as the bus pulled out but it didn’t last.
I sit here, she resumed.
Just before we got to the first stop, she got up and stood in the aisle.
I’m going to hit you, she said to no one in particular. I watched her from the corner of my eye. If she hit me, I was going to hit her back and call the police.
As the bus pulled into the stop, she jumped off. A-hole, she said.
I’m sorry, her companion said as she passed me. I have no control over her sometimes.
I understand, I said.
The driver, too, apologized.
Luckily, this person did not become physically abusive. Last week, for no reason, a passenger shot two people on a New York city bus.
Have you ever witnessed a passenger acting badly on a plane or bus? How was the situation resolved? What would you do if the person sitting next to you was behaving badly?
While the weather here in New York is slightly un-Christmassy (rain’s in the forecast today) the decorations definitely are. Here are a few Christmas photos I pulled from the Internet.
Recently, I arrived at my destination minus my luggage tag. I know, in the scheme of things, losing a luggage tag shouldn’t be a big problem. But this tag was special. It was a promotional tag from Air Jamaica, which, as you might know, now flies under the Caribbean Airline umbrella. The tag had the Air Jamaica logo, a stylized image of the doctor bird, the island’s national bird, and was made of sturdy plastic.
Of the two I received initially — I don’t remember now how I got them — only one remained. Now, that one’s gone.
Could a baggage handler or someone else have appropriated my tag or did it break off during the flight? It’s hard to say. Whatever the case, I miss my luggage tag, precisely because I’ll probably never have another one like it.
But it got me thinking about the type of tag I’d like to replace it. Once I started thinking about that, I thought of other items that would make perfect Christmas gifts for people who love to travel.
Here’s the list I came up with.
Legendary master drummer Count Ossie is credited with infusing African drumming and chanting in
reggae music. In the early 1960s, he backed The Folkes Brothers on their ground breaking hit, Oh Carolina.
Born Oswald Williams in 1926 in St. Thomas, Count Ossie grew up in a Rasta community where he learned hand drumming and vocal chanting. In the 1950s, he formed the Count Ossie Group, which later developed into the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari (MRR) and included horn player, Cedric Brooks. Count Ossie led regular jam sessions in Kingston were musicians such as Tommy McCook, Lennie Hibbert, Larry McDonald, Rico Rodriguez, Nambo Robinson and Don Drummond played.
Count Ossie & the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari were a major influence in reggae music, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. They recorded two albums Grounation (1973), considered a masterpiece, and Tales of Mozambique (1975).
Count Ossie died on October 18, 1976. In 1983, the MRR released and Man from Higher Heights.
While the MRR tours extensively in Europe, their first performance in the U.S. was in July, 2000, at the Lincoln Center’s Caribbean Roots, Caribbean Routes program, where I was fortunate to see them. Here’s a review by the New York Times of their performance.
Also, listen here to two of Count Ossie & MRR’s So Long and Sam’s Intro.
According to some statistics, we spend about an hour a day waiting. We wait for traffic lights and in line at the grocery store, the movie, the airport and at the doctor’s office. We wait for birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Easter and other holidays. We wait for vacations and for our children to grow up. Some of us wait for retirement.
We spend so much time waiting, some of us have developed ways to manage our wait times. We read, talk on the phone, do crossword puzzles, take naps or eat.
In countries that are less bureaucratic, wait times can stretch for hours and force people to think of creative ways to avoid waiting or lessen the time they have to wait.
Recently, I went to the utility company to order new service. The number I took when I arrived was ’02’ but the number being served was in the 70s. An hour or more later when my number was called, I walked over to the representative I was directed to but someone else was there. He claimed to be #02 as well. I told the representative that I also had #02 and that I’d been there for more than an hour waiting patiently to be called.
Luckily for me, the fake #02 wasn’t too swift. When the representative asked, he replied that he’d been there earlier, gotten his number and left to run an errand.
We might not think about it but animals wait as well. Here, my neighbor’s dog waits patiently for her to come home.
It was the fare that convinced me. $274 round trip Montego Bay to New York. With fees, the total cost of $366 was just within my budget. I typed in my credit card information and a few minutes later, I had my confirmation via email. I was thrilled.
I arrived at the ticket counter with two suitcases – one half-full, the other empty — and put them on the scale. Even though I’m a light packer, I breathed a sigh of relief when the half-empty one came in under the weight limit.
Then the ticket agent said something about baggage fees. I heard $43 and started to look for the money when a friend who was with me asked if it was for both. No, she replied. The fee is $43 for the first bag, $50 for the second. Ninety-three Dollars total!
You could have knocked me down with a feather. I fumbled around in my wallet, trying to find US dollars that I had tucked away so I wouldn’t get them mixed up with my Jamaican money. Where had I put them?
Flustered, and angry at myself for not noticing the baggage fee when I purchased on Travelocity, I began grumbling. Why didn’t I see the %*&#! baggage fee? Was it in the fine print? Why didn’t I pay attention to the fine print?
One suitcase’s empty, I said plaintively, trying to appeal to her. She didn’t reply. I looked from her to the baggage handler who was waiting to put my luggage on the conveyor belt. He was expressionless.
After this flight, I said addressing her but loud enough for everyone else to hear, I’ll never fly Spirit Airlines again. They just suck you in with their cheap flights then they gouge you on everything else. Don’t say that, she said, but there was no sympathy in her voice as if she’d been reading from a script.
Finally, I found the money and gave it to her. When she handed me a receipt, I stared at the total, thinking how much less it would have hurt if I had just thrown the money away. I was still furious when I landed in New York six hours later.
I checked Travelocity and they do have a line in their General Policies that states, “Airline baggage fees may apply and may not be included in the price.” And according to their information, Spirit’s fee for the first bag is $23-33, $30-40 for the second on international flights. Why was my fee $10 higher?
A check of the airline’s website confirms that I paid $10 more for each bag than what’s listed. This from an airline that claims to “empower customers to save money on air travel by offering ultra low base fares with a range of optional services for a fee, allowing customers the freedom to choose only the extras they value.” Excuse me? When did luggage become an extra?
In Jamaica, we say “the cheapest always works out the dearest.” My total so far is $459 and I still have the return leg of my flight and another fee to pay. In the meantime, I’m going to see about getting back my $20.
For a list of what airlines charge and how much, check out airfarewatchdog’s list.
