How do you keep the music playing?

Dec 31, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Depending on your perspective on life, the end of the current year and the beginning of a new one probably will bring contrasting emotions, feelings and thoughts. As I observed in my Christmas column, what can you write differently about special days in the calendar from the others over a stretch of thirty years? I mean, I have done more than two dozen columns on Old Year’s Day, what is so different in 2017?
What do I reflect on as today passes into history never to reappear? For a start, I can think that it marks another year of marital union for me. Next February will be 39 years since I wed Janet Kissoon. I have chalked up another year with the Kaieteur News and the Kaieteur News itself has accomplished another year. When I think about my long stay at Kaieteur News, I think of class and colour and its consequences.
Had there been elite, light-complexioned ownership of Kaieteur News, I would not have been writing an Old Year’s column today, I would not have achieved nearly three decades as a newspaper columnist. I started out with the Stabroek News and I learnt a lot about class and colour and their consequences when I rode that road. I have no hard feelings about anyone there. Time heals wounds.
What about my country? There will be separate columns on the contents of 2017, but in my personal life, I cannot say that exciting things happened in Guyana that impacted on my personal existence. No! Far from it! This is not to take away from the positives that came onto the landscape.
They say competition benefits the consumers, so I welcomed two new large supermarkets – the extended Mattai and Foodmax in Giftland Mall. As an expert in supermarket prices, I think they do not live up my expectation. I am no business consultant, but in a price-conscious society, your prices have to be more inviting than your competitors’.
So what am I doing tonight? What I have done the past thirty-eight years – spend it with my family, including my two wonderful pets. My wife makes cook-up every Old Year’s Night without exception.
Today’s cook up is my choice, because yesterday was my birthday and my wife asked me to choose. I selected fresh green peas that you get from the Bourda market pasture where it is picked right there and then.
Actually that variety is my favourite type of cook-up peas. My mom made it often because at that time it was a cheaper legume than split peas and black eye peas. You are not going to believe how much a packet costs.
It is way, way above split peas, black eye peas, dried pigeon peas and red peas. A pack of fresh green peas is $800. I guess the reason is because it is fresh and not dried.
If you are married, especially a long time now or you are planning to get married and tonight you will be painting the town, I suggest you dance to the incredibly romantic ballad below, “How do you keep the music playing?” It is taken from the movie, “Best Friends” and sung by two brilliant R&B singers, Patti Austin and James Ingram.
[Verse:]
How do you keep the music playing
How do you make it last
How do you keep the song from fading too fast
How do you lose yourself to someone
And never lose your way
How do you not run out of new things to say
[Verse 2:]
And since we’re always changing
How can it be the same
And tell me how, year after year
You’re sure your heart will fall apart
Each time you hear her name
[Chorus:]
I know the way I feel for you, it’s now or never
The more I love, the more that I’m afraid
That in your eyes I may not see forever, forever…
[Verse 3:]
If we can be the best of lover
Yet be the best of friends
If we can try with every day to make it better as it grows
With any luck, then I suppose, the music never ends
[Chorus:]
I know the way I feel for you, it’s now or never
The more I love, the more that I’m afraid
That in your eyes I may not see forever, forever
(Verse 3/Repeat)
If we can be the best of lovers
Yet be the best of friends
If we can try with every day to make it better as it grows
With any luck, then I suppose the music never ends

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