Punctuality is a big thing with me. From a boy, as the Jamaicans say, I’ve been that way mainly, I believe, from the example of my mother who was always on time or early for everything. Catching the train from Vreed-en-Hoop to Parika, the Martins family of five would be in the stelling even before the train taking us would arrive. Most folks taking a taxi down the coast would come out of the house as the driver blew his horn; my mother would have us waiting at the roadside when he pulled up. So naturally, in the Tradewinds years, in a reflection on some of the foibles found in Caribbean culture, when I wrote a song called ‘It’s Traditional,’ Caribbean problems with time was one of the deficiencies I mentioned. On that subject my comedic complaint was: “We buy the most expensive watch to know how late we’re coming late.” People repeat that line to me up to this day, usually with a laugh of course, while acknowledging that it’s true. In fact, one gentleman in Barbados actually sang the words to me in a restaurant one day and ended up raising his arm with a huge Rolex on it and admitting, “I am one of those people you know.”
Caribbean people indeed are known to have tardiness in our genes.
