So we are into the final weekend, the colourful climax of Crop Over 2014 filled with oceans of sexy, gyrating bodies that make old men lust for a taste of honey from cones in which they are no longer able to scoop with their bent spoons, unless temporarily and viagraously straightened.
Sorry, but I don’t know what the experience is for older women as they watch those young male bodies, sculpted from long hours of vigorous pumping of iron and other exercises that make their rippling naked and semi-naked muscles, including biceps, triceps and even Mac Fingall’s unicep, iron-hard.
Somebody in the distant past came up with an assumption that has since become a change-of-life marker for all of nature’s creatures that stand upright, communicate verbally, invent, design, fly spacecraft, drive vehicles, operate computers, transplant hearts and learn to do a million and one other major and minor things that no other creature is capable of.
Unfortunately, while he or she was able to mark when post-birth life begins, he or she refused to put a similar marker on when pre-death life ends. So that at 40, and again I can only speak for men, on a Kadooment weekend like this, men can still party at Beach House on Thursday from 4 until 11 p.m., then head from St Joseph to St Philip and continue partying to Machel Montano and the others at Bushy Park until 5:30 a.m.
But it doesn’t end there for then is when the partying now start for many enjoying life after 40 because the lure of Brewster’s Road Bucket fete at Kensington Oval is too strong to be ignored or, for the less party-hardened, one of the various breakfast parties at sea or on land. Eventually, by midday they head for their rides walking like Johnny in order to reach home, put in a few hours sleep and then it’s off to more partying around the clock until the bell rings on Spring Garden on Monday night for the final official round.
By age 50, most men begin to realise that although life began at 40 it does not continue as it was then. So they pick and choose which parties they will attend, and for how long they will attend. For many, Kadooment is jumping up on a sidewalk along the route to watch the bands pass and dribble with lust.
By age 60 and 70, except for an exceptional and blessed few, it’s all over. For those few still partying, raising yuh hands in the air and waving is directed only to those persons serving behind the bars and shared with good friends with names like Walker, Gay and Absolut.
But somebody also said you are as young as you feel and Bajan men suggest that it’s not only the how you feel but also the what you feel and, without doubt, many having a variety of feelings, including bad feels, as this weekend works up and down to the end.
Unfortunately, NCF played the wrong stroke to a Met Office leg break that went the other way and postponed the finals only to end up with a Friday night with all the stars shining brightly in the night sky and with hardly a drop of rain.
Hopefully, last night’s event was not out being caught by an off break that went the other way.
• Al Gilkes heads a public relations firm.
