LIVE AND let live works for me. I too was once young. And foolish. And inconsiderate. But there is a limit. Don’t push a patient man past his limit . . . . M1: I dig monkeys. Bajan monkeys were brought here from Senegal and Gambia. They don’t bellyache about it. With needs very similar to ours, they live comfortably with no government assistance. No low-income housing. We could learn a lot from them. Check their views on mankind and evolution: Three monkeys sat in a coconut tree, discussing things that are said to be. Said one to the others: “Now listen you two, there’s a certain rumour that can’t be true: that man descended from our noble race, the very idea is a disgrace!
“No monkey ever deserted his wife, starved her babies, and ruined her life. And you’ve never known a mother monk, to leave her babies with others to bunk. Or pass them on from one to the other, till they scarcely know who is their mother. “And another thing, you’ll never see, a monk build a fence round a coconut tree; and let the coconuts go to waste, forbidding all other monks to taste. Why, if I put a fence around a tree, starvation would force you to steal from me. “Here’s another thing a monk won’t do: go out at night and get in a stew. Or use a gun, a club or a knife, to take some other dumb monkey’s life. Yes, man descended, the ornery cuss; but, brother, he didn’t descend from us!”
My monkey neighbours and I have peacefully co-existed for 33 years. They raid my guavas, pawpaws, apples, so what? But a big boar monkey is carrying insolence too far. Swaggers around. Hit me with the ultimate monkey insult: a load of mess in the back of my pickup. And he’s making suggestive gestures to my wife. Way overboard, my brother! A time for “monkeycide”? M2: Raffie saw them first. Giant caterpillars on the frangpani tree, beautiful green and black stripes, orange head. My wife picked off a half bucketful. Entomologist Ian Gibbs identified them as the larval stage of the frangipani moth. “The moth is kinda pretty.” So we left some. And remarkably they can reach a length of six inches!
“Oh, goody,” said the wife, “that’s a good two inches longer than anything we get to see around here!” Nice. But now they’re killing my frangipani tree. A time for ‘mothicide’? M3: My brother George had a Velocette motorcycle. The British National Motorcycle Museum has on display a Velocette roadster which is apparently the only 500cc cycle ever to average over 100mph for 24 hours. “No Japanese bike has ever repeated the feat.” But get this: to reduce noise, Velocette engines were rubber-mounted; the frame lined with soundproofing felt. The water-cooled engines were silenced and riders reported that often the only way they could only tell the engine was running “was by checking the ignition!”
In other words, bikes can be fast and quiet. Freud will tell you that cyclists make their bikes noisy to compensate for their small penises. The louder, the smaller. No wonder brother George didn’t need no loud bike! Dirt bikes roar up and down by me, especially on Sundays. Like, really, deafeningly loud. Soil Conservation bulldozes the cartroads level. Bikers (SUVs too) come in droves whenever it rains. Dig the roads into ruts, making them impassable for other vehicles. Ruts collect water, breed mosquitoes. The bikes are a nightmare for horse-riding ventures in the area. Two visitors were seriously concussed when bikes spooked their mounts. Bikers can be stopped. Apart from the noise aspect, the cart roads they ride on are private property. And the Soil Conservation Act gives almost unlimited powers in this area.But, hey, if our trails keep bikers off the roads, it’s okay by us. Ride on! Within limits.
My daughter was out walking next to our land recently with three dogs, three little children, electric fence at their back, nowhere to escape. Biker roared past at warp speed, not missing them by much. Dogs and children terrified. And, lest he might have failed to scare them completely to death, he turned at the end of the track and roared past again. A time for . . . ? l Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.
