My friend's grandson keeps asking her to come down south to visit with them on a week-end. Her reply is "why do you want to send me to my death, I'm not coming on those roads where they are killing people everyday." Like so many others, she is overly concerned with the carnage on our roads and like most of us she knows that even if you are an alert, careful, non-drinking driver, the other driver is not necessarily that way inclined and so will not make allowances for a wet and slippery road, reflexes which may be hampered by the two or three drinks he/she has imbibed, or a judgment impaired by age. We had this conversation shortly after Willie Thompson and Patricia Mc Lean were killed in a traffic accident last Tuesday on their way to sympathise with a friend whose wife had recently passed away. A wet road, a panel van skidding and jumping the median ended their lives. Patricia and her husband, Pat, had celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary on Sunday at church. The Thompsons were looking forward to celebrating their golden anniversary next year.
Although I should have been looking at the life of some very interesting person to share with you, decided to deal with some of the burning issues which have abounded in the last fortnight.
First, nearly every savannah bench is nowadays inhabited by a sleeping vagrant in the early morning. These folk have now become so posh that they lie on either pieces of foam or bedsheets, snuggly covered by flowered spreads. The savannah air is now heavily perfumed by the smell of urine with which these people are saturated, and whatever else they do under the nearest tree. And we are told they cannot be moved off the streets as their human rights will be violated. Therefore, my suggestion is that they be moved to one of the islands in the Gulf with benches, flowered sheets and garbage bins packed with scraps so that they can dig and scatter to their hearts content, to maintain their rights, while leaving us the right to enjoy our downtown streets and open spaces.
Walkers must also being knocked over by those who ride wily nily on the paved walkway around the savannah without a care for pedestrians. And may we ask those who must walk their dogs to please put a muzzle on these animals, some of which are huge. And now for the lead issue, the football. Last Saturday, I purposely went through the streets where normally for a game of that nature, there would have been a sea of red jerseys wending their way to the venue. I saw one red jersey, and many small boys who would normally have been at the football going about their own business, one with football in hand.
Now sense alone will tell you that very few mothers of three sons could afford to dish out $450.00 for the uncovered stands, much less $900.00 for the covered section. Those who could easily afford these exorbitant entrance prices are not coming unless it is like the November 1989 Strike Squad qualifying final against the United States, when it was the done thing to be at the stadium for the big game. and they would have sold their souls to be there. The simple, middle income people who had followed the Strike Squad from the preliminary games with their coolers, music and card games in an uncrowded uncovered section barely got into the stadium for the final, having been ousted by politicians, chief executive officers, diplomats and the red-shirted Johnnie-Come-Latelies striding up and down to purchase drinks and be seen.
Be assured Mr Warner, those who can afford your $300.00 times a family of six, are not interested in being there for these losing games. So maybe good sense and marketing skills will be brought to bear on the remaining games to be played here and ticket prices will be dropped to $50.00, which will not only bring a stadium filled with red-clad bodies to support a down-spirited team, but will certainly make more money than 3,000 paying spectators did at current prices.
For the first time, the majority of citizens on radio/television phone-in calls were in support of the TTTF's decision to discipline Messrs Yorke and Rougier by removing from the team for the Honduras game. Some of us felt that Messrs Latapy and Hislop should also have been removed. Only to be let down by Mr Warner's rushing back to tell us how humbled and honoured he had felt as the mediator in the matter reinstating the errant duo.
Did Mr Warner see what happened in Foxboro Stadium on Wednesday against the United States. I cannot speak for the local match against Honduras because here again Mr Warner dictated that once the game is being played here no television viewing for us, yet last Saturday's game Jamaica vs the United States in Jamaica was televised. Anyways, because these four prima donnas did not get themselves to Panama for game practice, no Trinidadian player was sure where the other was located on the field when a ball needed to be passed off, either in a hurry or with all the time in the world, whereas the Americans never passed a loose ball, there was always a player waiting for it. That is what practice games are for, to get a game plan going.
No player is bigger than the sport and therefore the time to stop kow- towing to these cricket and football prima donnas is now. They are not doing the country a favour to represent us. It has always been the other way around, one feels honoured to be selected on a national team.
And to all those who wrote or called-in saying how hard these foreign players work and how committed they are to the country, travelling back and forth between their overseas jobs to play for the National Team, that is their job, that is what they are paid to do, and like any other employee, whether the garbage collector or Prime Minister, you have to be committed to that which you do, otherwise you leave the wuk.