Looking back at my thirties
Tomorrow morning will be exactly ten years since I woke up and said: "O.K., I'm thirty. What do I do now?" I am just as amazed now as I was then that I have not yet been shot or otherwise murdered by my fellow Jamaicans.
Where did my thirties go? What happened? I shall take a look back.
When I turned thirty, I had owned and operated my first motorcycle for about a year, but I had yet to buy my first car. Oddly enough, I had a licence to operate commercial vehicles up to eight thousand pounds gross weight (this has since been changed to vehicles of up to four thousand kilograms gross weight), but I operated my motorcycle on a provisional (learner's) licence because I did not yet have a full motorcycle licence. Since then, I have ridden around Jamaica, I have sold my motorcycle, I have bought a car, I have driven around Jamaica in twenty hours, including three hours of work on a customer's site, I have watched, horrified, as an idiot backed into my car at speed, I have bought a scooter, I have bought a van, and I have felt my scooter collapse under me after hitting a pothole.
When I turned thirty, I had been to five countries in my life, having been born into Jamaica, going to Trinidad to study, visiting friends in Barbados, and passing through the United States to get to a work experience programme in Mexico. During my thirties, I racked up passport stamps for Peru and Colombia as well. International travel since I turned thirty has been forked up complicated somewhat by the 9/11 attacks. Despite my longing to see Goodwood, Brooklands, Beaulieu, and Le Mans, I have no wish to board an international flight ever again.
In my thirties, I went from being the young kid on a motorcycle forum and a guitar forum to being the old man on a "Code Lyoko" fan forum. I am not on any fora now. I have lost contact with everyone from the motorcycle forum and the guitar forum and almost everyone from the "Code Lyoko" fan forum. So it goes.
One of the people at the Code Lyoko fan forum was an inspiration to me. She is a great writer and a very good artist. I followed her to FanFiction.net, where neither of us contributes any more, and to deviantART, where we are both still members. We don't speak to, or otherwise associate with, each other any more. So it goes.
In local news, if this old man's memory serves him well, somewhere between forty-five and sixty-five Jamaican dollars would buy a U.S. dollar when I turned thirty. The Jamaican dollar eventually reached a low of about ninety-five to one US before regaining ground to about eighty-five to one US. Murders per annum in Jamaica rose during my thirties to the point where the grisly record year of 1980 became commonplace. There are now about 1200 murders every year in this land of about three million people, as opposed to about 400 annual traffic deaths.
The People's National Party, being the arrogant bunch of idiots and crooks who ruined Jamaica throughout all of my twenties and most of my thirties, were finally turned out of power during my thirties. They were replaced by the Jamaica Labour Party, which, unfortunately, turned out to be another arrogant bunch of idiots and crooks with no ideas as to how to halt our slide. They are certainly not what they were under Seaga in the '80s.
Internationally... there was 9/11. Then there was the aftermath of 9/11; the heightened security, the heightened paranoia, the Afghanistan war, which was legitimate, the Iraq war, which was not... I am a lower-middle level public-sector employee in Jamaica, with access only to the same news the American public gets. Why is it that I was able to see that all that talk about Saddam's Al Qaeda connections and weapons of mass destruction was a Big Lie and the American public wasn't? Maybe because I consider it important to know who my enemies are and the American public doesn't. For the record: The Ba'ath Party is a secular, Socialist movement and is incompatible with the fanatical Islamic fundamentalism as represented by Al Qaeda and the Taliban. (Hmm... Al Qaeda and the Taliban sounds like a good name for a doo-wop group...)
In automotive news: When I was thirty, Plymouth had already been wrapped up and Oldsmobile was being phased out, but the Pontiac Trans Am was still in production, in its fourth (and final) generation. Camaros and Firebirds of the day looked better and went faster than contemporary Mustangs, yet the Mustang survived and the F-car didn't. I don't get that. The Bentley division of Volkswagen was making the last real Rolls-Royces before packing up the grille, the flying lady, the badge, and the name, and shipping them to BMW's factory at Goodwood while keeping the original Rolls-Royce heritage going under the Bentley name and badge. During my thirties, the Ford Thunderbird came back in its original two-seat personal luxury convertible version, and sank without a trace within two years. Mercury actually did with the Cougar what Ford had threatened to do with the Mustang back in the Eighties: they put the name on a front-drive sports coupe. That didn't go well either. The Cadillac XLR came and went, just like the Allante did in the Eighties.
There's more to say, but I'm tired. Tomorrow I will be an old man of forty.
So here's to the end of my thirties. Ten years have got behind me again.
Where did my thirties go? What happened? I shall take a look back.
When I turned thirty, I had owned and operated my first motorcycle for about a year, but I had yet to buy my first car. Oddly enough, I had a licence to operate commercial vehicles up to eight thousand pounds gross weight (this has since been changed to vehicles of up to four thousand kilograms gross weight), but I operated my motorcycle on a provisional (learner's) licence because I did not yet have a full motorcycle licence. Since then, I have ridden around Jamaica, I have sold my motorcycle, I have bought a car, I have driven around Jamaica in twenty hours, including three hours of work on a customer's site, I have watched, horrified, as an idiot backed into my car at speed, I have bought a scooter, I have bought a van, and I have felt my scooter collapse under me after hitting a pothole.
When I turned thirty, I had been to five countries in my life, having been born into Jamaica, going to Trinidad to study, visiting friends in Barbados, and passing through the United States to get to a work experience programme in Mexico. During my thirties, I racked up passport stamps for Peru and Colombia as well. International travel since I turned thirty has been forked up complicated somewhat by the 9/11 attacks. Despite my longing to see Goodwood, Brooklands, Beaulieu, and Le Mans, I have no wish to board an international flight ever again.
In my thirties, I went from being the young kid on a motorcycle forum and a guitar forum to being the old man on a "Code Lyoko" fan forum. I am not on any fora now. I have lost contact with everyone from the motorcycle forum and the guitar forum and almost everyone from the "Code Lyoko" fan forum. So it goes.
One of the people at the Code Lyoko fan forum was an inspiration to me. She is a great writer and a very good artist. I followed her to FanFiction.net, where neither of us contributes any more, and to deviantART, where we are both still members. We don't speak to, or otherwise associate with, each other any more. So it goes.
In local news, if this old man's memory serves him well, somewhere between forty-five and sixty-five Jamaican dollars would buy a U.S. dollar when I turned thirty. The Jamaican dollar eventually reached a low of about ninety-five to one US before regaining ground to about eighty-five to one US. Murders per annum in Jamaica rose during my thirties to the point where the grisly record year of 1980 became commonplace. There are now about 1200 murders every year in this land of about three million people, as opposed to about 400 annual traffic deaths.
The People's National Party, being the arrogant bunch of idiots and crooks who ruined Jamaica throughout all of my twenties and most of my thirties, were finally turned out of power during my thirties. They were replaced by the Jamaica Labour Party, which, unfortunately, turned out to be another arrogant bunch of idiots and crooks with no ideas as to how to halt our slide. They are certainly not what they were under Seaga in the '80s.
Internationally... there was 9/11. Then there was the aftermath of 9/11; the heightened security, the heightened paranoia, the Afghanistan war, which was legitimate, the Iraq war, which was not... I am a lower-middle level public-sector employee in Jamaica, with access only to the same news the American public gets. Why is it that I was able to see that all that talk about Saddam's Al Qaeda connections and weapons of mass destruction was a Big Lie and the American public wasn't? Maybe because I consider it important to know who my enemies are and the American public doesn't. For the record: The Ba'ath Party is a secular, Socialist movement and is incompatible with the fanatical Islamic fundamentalism as represented by Al Qaeda and the Taliban. (Hmm... Al Qaeda and the Taliban sounds like a good name for a doo-wop group...)
In automotive news: When I was thirty, Plymouth had already been wrapped up and Oldsmobile was being phased out, but the Pontiac Trans Am was still in production, in its fourth (and final) generation. Camaros and Firebirds of the day looked better and went faster than contemporary Mustangs, yet the Mustang survived and the F-car didn't. I don't get that. The Bentley division of Volkswagen was making the last real Rolls-Royces before packing up the grille, the flying lady, the badge, and the name, and shipping them to BMW's factory at Goodwood while keeping the original Rolls-Royce heritage going under the Bentley name and badge. During my thirties, the Ford Thunderbird came back in its original two-seat personal luxury convertible version, and sank without a trace within two years. Mercury actually did with the Cougar what Ford had threatened to do with the Mustang back in the Eighties: they put the name on a front-drive sports coupe. That didn't go well either. The Cadillac XLR came and went, just like the Allante did in the Eighties.
There's more to say, but I'm tired. Tomorrow I will be an old man of forty.
So here's to the end of my thirties. Ten years have got behind me again.