Sue Blog #15 Places

I have so many feelings on the places I have been. The first one to come to mind was Trinidad West Indies. This was the place of my birth and where I spent the first six years of my life. This was the place I learned to read and write and before I left to come to America, I was learning my multiplacation tables. Also when I think about Trinidad, I think of unusual insects. I hated the lizards that came out at night on the ceiling of my bedroom. The house had three bedrooms; one for the girls no matter how old you were, the second was for the boys, and the third was for my grandparents. The bathroom was called the latrine and it was a good distance away from the main house so the smell was not noticed. I learned very early to go to the latrine before bed because if I had to go when everyone was asleep , no one would walk with me in the dark. The lartine was just a deep hole in the ground where "you-know-what" would go. It is funny what you remember. And during the rainy season, snakes came out in the corn field. My grandfather would make the girls pick the feathers off the chicken after he separated the chicken's neck from its body. After the separation the chicken's body would jerk as if the neck was still on. There was no turning away this was tonights dinner and everyone had to help in prepartation. The feelings of this place is warm, loving, safe, and belonging.


My second place that brings back a lot of emotion was when my sister and I came to America. The plane ride was scary and I hated saying goodbye to my grandmother, aunts and uncles. My grandmother handed us ( my sister and I) off to the stewardess and we went towards the plane with tears in our eyes. We sat up front with the stewardess and they gave us "wings" because we were good. During the plane ride we got soda, peanuts and I think lunch. The plane ride was scary and my ears clogged up a lot and the stewardess told me to swallow. The feeling of this place was sadness, scared,confussion, unhappy.


The third place was my new home in Brooklyn, New York ( in Bushwick 11207). Yes, I even remember my old zip code. This was my home until I finished high school. It was a very new experience. The bathroom was inside and the tv had more than 2 stations. In this house, since I was the oldest, I had my own room and my younger sisters had to share. We made new friends that made fun of the way we spoke. In Trinidad you learned the "King's English" in school. It was just more proper than my friends spoke in Bushwick. The steering wheel was on the left side and not on the right as in Trinidad. In school the kids did not wear uniforms and the nuns did not look at your finger nails ever day during line up as in Trinidad. All the differences seemed to benefit me, but I still missed my grandmother and her kissing me good night and good morning. The feeling of this place was mixed love and hate, adventure, and new friendships.


All grown up now, finished high school, my father relocated to Piscataway(New Jersey) my sisters and I had to move with him, start Katherine Gibbs and worked part time at ChildCraft. ChildCraft was a mail order company that took orders over the phone for Walt Disney customers. The company closed years later, but I remember it as the place I meet my now husband. This was the place I meet my first love, Leroy. I mean I had boyfriends but when I saw Leroy ( my husband) I knew he would be my boyfriend. He was and still is a manly man. Leroy loves all types of sports. He was and still is a tall, dark, cool drink of water that is all mine. Leroy's brother went to Rutgers in New Brunswick and Leroy went to Montclair State. Leroy took a semester off and stayed with his bother off campus in the New Brunswick area. Leroy had to work so his brother got him a job at ChildCraft. And that semester changed my whole life. This place gives me the feeling of happiness, love, courtship, friendship, destiny.


I could talk about the hospital that I had my children, the Piscataway Mayor's office that I got married in, the first apartment my husband, children moved into, the house we know live in, the trip to Canada, Youngstown (Ohio), California, North/ South Carolina, Delaware, Maryland, Brooklyn College, Middlesex County College, Kean Univeristy and all the other places we have been or I have been. But I'm not because it would be to long.