Painting the Caribbean and the world Red, Maroon and Blue!

Feb 17, 2013 Sports

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Colin E. H. Croft

This last week was big for hot, flashy colours, rainbow combinations all, for it was Carnival 2013. Associating well with this vast array of colours of merriment were especially the red, maroon and blue!
West Indies cricket teams, both men’s and women’s, showed that “Old Maroon” still has punches, despite recent debacles. “Fantastic Friday” actually came on Carnival Tuesday for things West Indian!
It is no coincidence that the new West Indies players’ warm-up uniforms are almost fully Caribbean Sea blue. “Super Blue”, returning-from-out-of-the-blue for 2013 Road March Monarch, would be so ecstatic!
I have great pride and respect for the rehabilitation and grand return of Mr. Austin Lyons – “Super Blue”. As Morgan Freeman succinctly suggested in ‘Shawshank Redemption’, rehabilitation is a hell of thing!
I met “Blue Boy” when playing for West Indies, in the first Test ever in Antigua & Barbuda, 1981. I did not attend the concert he invited me to on eve-of-Test night, but fully enjoyed “Ethel” from the hotel!
Two years ago, as part of the early morning programs – “Mixed Nuts” – for one of the radios stations associated with T&T Guardian – Vibe Caribbean Tempo 105 (Vibe CT-105) – I had heard that “Blue” was in a dire dilemma, bad shape, supposedly being overtaken by substance abuse, even scavenging streets!
That same day, I went to look for the man, who, first as “Blue Boy”, gave us road marches “Soca Baptist” (1980), “Ethel” (1981), “Rebecca” (1983), my favorite “Get something and wave” (1991), “Jab-Jab”, 1992, “Bacchanal Time” (1993), “Signal to Lara” (1995), and “Pump Up” (2000)! What a set of triumphs!
I did not judge the man at all, like so many of his false friends did, after finding him in the St. James area.
We all have our own burdens to carry, some doing so better than others. I simply could not let a fallen hero, a maestro of calypso, one of our best bards ever, to be so diminished and destroyed that way!
I have always liked Shadow and Sparrow, but “Super Blue” blew them away with ‘jumpability’, music that went straight to your head. I simply had to do whatever I could do, right then, to help a friend!
What I did need no embellishment, but rest assured that, at least, for that entire day, “Super” was properly fed, cleaned up and looked after, and taken away from his immediate surroundings. The best part of that entire encounter was, he actually knew who it was, saying, croakily, “Thank you!”
I also know that many people, like “Big” George Gonzalez – VCT-105 fame – played a much bigger hand than me to help Super Blue on his way back. No-one, though, could have counted more than his family. Faye-Anne and Bungie must take high praise for that great fight, to bring the “Old Man” back to real excellence, that super-ness, of 2013!
Even world “Super Boy” Machel, another calypso friend, who also likes aviation, was made to look like a boy by “Blue”! Super’s sensational comeback has been really unprecedented!
Anyway, St. Valentine’s Day, that day that is supposed to signify real full love, celebrated with anything red, as many chocolates as can be eaten, with as false a scenario as can be imagined was also this week!
I could never understand the need to specially set aside a day to celebrate Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. These always suggest that “real, full, unadulterated love is always in the air”. Really?
If you are truly in love, with someone, even with yourself, SVD should be every day. But most people are not in love. They simply pretend, based on their specific situations, to suit their own basic agendas!
Mother’s Day is worse. Old Sylvia used to say; “Since I am sure that I am your mother, every day is ‘Mother’s Day’. I have to put food on the table so that you and your brother and sister could eat!”
What can be more practical than that? Mother’s Day is every day, even if you do not, now, have your mother anymore!
Some of the West Indies men’s team players who beat Australia on Carnival Tuesday are fathers. They could not think of prodigy, though, when winning that sole T-20. As world defending T-20 champions, West Indies had to deliver, to upkeep that reputation, and to keep the maroon flying high and proud.
While Kieron Pollard has made his name in mostly T-20’s, he will be coming for the first time, unlike Super Blue’s comeback, when he is soon selected to play for West Indies against Zimbabwe in Tests.
On pure merit, Pollard deserves to play Tests. He cannot do worse than some who have preceded him. Right now, like carnival in T&T, he is hot. Give him that chance to bend, to Tests, while the steam rises!
But it was West Indies Women who outdid themselves. Whatever happens later today, against already vanquished Australia, our West Indies “Queens” are in another maroon world; a World Cup Final!
Having already beaten Australia to get there, doing it again, today, like Super Blue, is possible! Enjoy!

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