BIZZY MENTIONED in a recent interview how he hit on a hot profit-making system while working at the Biscuit Factory. The general manager wasn’t impressed. “We’re into making biscuits”, he was told, “not profits”. Words to that effect.
That general manager was probably my brother Ted, and that would be typical Hoad. We care little about riches. None of us on our farm gets a salary or knows if we made any money. Indeed, a productivity survey last week caused me for the first time in about ten years to look at our income and expenditure statements. If I can afford a ham cutter from that shop at Turner’s Hall top junction, what else matters?
The Hoad coat-of-arms features a contented guy sailing his skiff while a hot dame holds his tiller-stick. Perfect bliss.
If the Emancipation emphasis continues to be only on Bussa and slavery, I still contend we’re missing the bus. Today’s slave owners are far more cunning and have a weapon far more effective than whips or chains: addiction.
Addiction to the foreign man’s lifestyle, for he has got us believing that “development” means living like him. Addiction to his gadgets. We spend our last cent playing catch-up but never will, for he keeps moving the goalposts. New phones, tablets, cars, junk. Addiction to his handouts so that Obama and the EU bullies can pressure us to change our laws to suit their warped moral values.
Too few of us are kicking back against this foreign onslaught; too few even willing to tell our new Trini massas to shove their dictatorial ways. Shake the shackles of today’s slavery, that’s half the emancipation battle. The other half is innovation.
Many draw comparisons with the Jews but they have used their history to weld their people into an “all ah we” togetherness. What have we done with ours? Now they are world leaders in innovation in many spheres.
We were boss innovators: sugar production, the chattel house. That same brother Ted developed the famous Shirley biscuit. Many years earlier he taught us to reuse latex devices: wash, dry, powder, roll. Some rolled on a bat handle; Tony and George on a peck stick.
Over the weekend I’ve been innovating schemes like crazy. Here are just a few:
MorgHill Waist to Energy Plant: Set up here at Morgan Lewis, this will have none of the negatives of our competitor Cahill. Watching our women wine on Kadooment Day (and, Lord have mercy, they look good!), I noted the perfect rotary wuk-up motion. All I need now is for Bizzy to come with a suitable hook-up to portable generators. We can run Barbados off bare waist energy.
Manga gasification: a vendor has been plying me with sweet mangoes, watermelons and chili plums. The gasification has been phartlific. Me and ten more could fuel Light and Power.
Lie-on hunting: most are outraged over the shooting of Cecil the lion. Others say we eat cocks and pork so what’s the difference? Let them argue. Instead I’m intrigued that hunters pay US$50 000 to shoot a lion. I want in on that.
Prospective big game hunter: “Are you sure these are genuine lions?”
Me: “Bwana, these here reputedly . . . lie on . . . any occasion!”
Big game hunter: “Sign me up.”
Actually, we’ll be using politicians. They seem to evoke much less sympathy than lions or cocks. Cecil was lured away by dragging a dead animal. We’ll lure politicians with signs like “Votes for sale” or “We have big money; let’s get in bed together”.
Politicians would swarm past the “No trespassing” sign on to my property. Of course our hunters would use arrows with rubber suction tips.
Bargasso: many good ideas on sargassum but none have the scope to handle the sheer volume. I say we build a barrier out to sea (like we did for the harbour). Pump out the water and fill with sargassum. Eventually it’ll mix with African dust and become land. Bargasso Isle!
The Froon: you go to a party, sweet food. Then they give you a stupid plastic knife and fork. At home I eats with a spoon. And I’ve sharpened one side to serve as knife, fork or spoon. I call it the “Froon”. Getting a patent. Gonna make them by the thousand.
Several more initiatives but I’m out of space. Hail the Ram!
Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.Email porkhoad@gmail.com.