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opinion
Thursday, December 16, 2021 • Page 4A
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I was raised by my grand
mother in rural Jamaica, and
these are some of my recollec
tions of my last Christmas day
before I migrated to the United
States in 1959.
As soon as we said goodbye
to November, Christmas breeze
started blowing in Woodlands
District. I was 14 years old and
my brother Earl was 13. Our
mother had migrated to the
United States 10 years prior, so
we our Granny took care of us.
Throughout the month of
December, everyone got into the
Christmas spirit with broad
smiles on our faces. We would
start greeting each other with
“Happy Christmas” and the pre
dictable response was: “When it
comes.” Please note that
throughout the British com-
B. Waine
Kong, Ph.D., JD
Waine’s World:
Christmas Day
Celebrations
in Jamaica
monwealth countries, the greet
ing is “Happy Christmas.”
It’s a time of cleaning up the
yard so my brother and I would
set out to cut the grass with our
machetes. Unfortunately, with
one swing of the cutlass, it took
a glancing blow off a stone and
cut my foot. I am bleeding pro
fusely but Granny just washed
the blood off, ground up some
chick-weed grass, tied it down
with a piece of cloth, and in less
than 10 days, it was all healed
again but leaving a scar that I
still have. Even before it healed,
we got back to whitewashing the
stones from the road to out front
steps.
The raisins and dried fruits
that had been soaking in oven
proof rum for several months
would now be stirred into the
batter and baked in a delicious
fruit cake. Since we didn’t have
an oven, Granny would put the
batter in our Dutch pot and pile
red hot coals on top, and under
the pot and we took turns blow
ing the coals to keep the fire
going. When the cake came out,
Granny would holler: “Hell a
top, hell a bottom, and halle
luiah in the middle.” She also
prepared roast beef and ham
along with the red Christmas
drink we call sorrel, with plenty
of ginger and white rum.
When the long-awaited day
arrived, at the crack of dawn, we
would be awakened by fire
crackers. Like African drums,
they would explode in one part
of the village and an answer was
required from another house,
and back and forth it would go
for about an hour. The church
choir would assemble and walk
together singing Christmas
carols and inviting everyone
they encountered to join in the
sing along. By the time they
reached our house, Granny
would already be cracking a
dozen eggs for egg punch.
She deliberately separated
the red and the white and being
careful to extract the germinal
disk. I would be in charge of stir
ring the sugar and the yolks and
Earl was in charge of whipping
the egg whites. Granny would
then pour hot milk in the rubbed
yolks then add a bottle of stout
and finally mix in the fluffy egg
whites and serve us our Christ
mas breakfast that inevitably
left us pulling back our cheeks
and saying ahhh in unison. We
felt very satisfied and laughed
sporting white mustaches.
Both of us gave Granny a
flask of brandy and she got us
clothes. I gave Earl marbles in a
sock and he gave me something
I did not recognize. So, I said it
looks like a pig bladder. He said
it was, but it was also a balloon.
He showed me how he tied one
end of the bladder and put a
straw in the other end and blew
it up. So, I had many hours of
fun blowing up a pig’s bladder,
letting out the air, and blowing
it up again. Later, we would cut
it up, fry it with garlic and
onions, and eat it with hard
dough bread - great Christmas
present!
Granny would give us our
Christmas money and we would
then dress up in our new clothes
for the community picnic.
Our favorite event was the
donkey races. Earl was con
vinced that he could win the
race with a donkey he called
“Hellfire.” As soon as he jumped
on, the donkey kicked up his
rear legs and threw Earl to the
ground. He wasn’t breathing.
Was he dead? No, but he got the
wind knocked out of him. Two
men carried him to the shed and
placed him in a makeshift bed.
Two ladies fanned him. After
about an hour, he emerged from
the shed to the applause of ev
eryone present.
He came back just in time for
the maypole dance. So, he took
a ribbon and in and out he went
around the maypole with 20
other people, young and old.
And when it was all tied up, they
unwound it again.
After a full day of dancing,
talking, and laughing, eating
jerk pork, roast beef, curry goat,
escovitched fish, Christmas
cakes, grape nut ice-cream, and
drinking sorrel and cane juice,
everyone agreed that this was
the best Christmas ever. Too bad
it only comes once a year.
There will be a time in the fu
ture when an astronaut or alien
will be floating around in space,
working on something, when a
potato goes whizzing past their
head. The potato will have been
in orbit for decades, passing
every planet in the solar system,
making it to the far edges of the
Milky Way, approaching the
speed of light in some parts of its
journey, before turning and
heading back towards Earth.
How do I know this? I was
there when it launched.
In the early ’90s, there was a
craze that swept many rural com
munities. The potato gun became
synonymous with backwoods Fri
day evening fun. I wish I knew
how the idea for this contraption
The Tater
Tosser 3000
came up. I like to think that a
bunch of plumbers were hanging
out in their workshop with a
bunch of old PVC pipes and an
angel appeared to them.
It said, “Plumbers, listen to
me. Go forth to the grocery store
and buy a bag of potatoes and a
few cans of hairspray. When you
have done this, ram a potato
down one of these old PVC pipes
and fill the other end with hair-
spray, and light it up with your
cigarette. Then you shall see the
power and glory of Heaven.”
I would like to think divine in
tervention came up with a lot of
things, but more than likely it was
a bunch of drunk guys with some
rotten produce and too much
time on their hands. I don’t even
know if there is an actual plan for
a potato gun, it’s really just loose
guidelines. You need a pipe, a gas
propellant, a potato, and an ig
niter. Put those all together, and
you have something that can
launch a spud half a football field
or more.
Then my dad came into the
picture. He couldn’t just con
struct anything normal. It had to
be over the top. If he was going to
make a gun, he was going to
make sure it did what a gun is
supposed to do: maim or kill.
This is how the Tater Tosser
3000 was born.
This lethal device was about
five and a half feet long. There
was a three-foot pipe on the front
that connected to a wider two-
foot-long combustion chamber in
the back. On the sides were two
tubes. One was an electric igniter
ripped out of a gas grill. The other
had a pressure gauge on it and
was to be connected to a propane
tank.
Yes, that is correct. A propane
tank.
I was there for the maiden
launch of the first potato. We nes
tled it in some cinder blocks and
extended the igniter cord a good
hundred feet in case it were to ex
plode. The target was a playhouse
in the backyard, a sturdy little
building constructed with pres
sure-treated lumber. When that
thing went off it rattled windows
half of a mile away. The potato
shot out so quickly that we never
even saw it, but we sure did hear
it.
A few minutes later, when we
were sure there was no gas leak,
we went to inspect the damage.
All that was left were split two-
by-fours covered in mashed pota
toes. The power was incredible
and it was only a matter of hours
before every single potato in my
hometown was purchased and
riding in my dad’s big red utility
van to be stored in our pantry,
a.k.a. the armory.
The next couple of months we
experimented every evening to
see what would be the best com
bination of potato species and
propane pressure. The goal was
to launch to the railroad tracks
about three acres away from the
house. Dad would launch and us
kids would go running to mark
where the potato would land and
warn pedestrians of incoming
mortars.
Then one day it happened.
We picked the fattest, roundest
potato we could. Dad cranked up
the pressure, and, “Whoom!” the
potato went straight up and never
came back down. That is how I
know that sometime in the early
’90s a perfectly round Yukon
Gold left this earthly plane and
began its journey to deep space.
I don’t know whatever hap
pened to the Tater Tosser 3000
and custom accessories, includ
ing a ramrod and silencer. I do
know that my father loved that
thing so much the idea was
floated to shoot his ashes out of it
after he died. And as much as I
like awkward situations, I’m
really glad that didn’t happen.
I do hope, though, that I am
still around when the news report
comes in that an astronaut got hit
by a Yukon Gold from deep
space.