Red, white and blue

I’m not sure whether my earliest junkanoo memories are of watching junkanoo or actually rushing. I know I can remember my grandmother walking my Nico and I down to Bay St even before they changed the route to go on Bay and Shirley and squeezing us through the crowd so that the three of us would be right against the police barriers. At the time, it didn’t strike me as unusual that we were always able to get a space right up front, no matter how crowded it was. Somehow, Grammy Winnie would get us through. Looking back, it is even more remarkable when you think that she was a small woman really, not imposing in size at all. Sometimes, Uncle Aubrey would come with us also, but then that was just one more for Grammy to look after.

Anyway, I can remember snippets of occasions, now all rolled into one generalised memory, no doubt coloured by photos of junkanoo I’ve seen since then, of watching junkanoo as a very young child. But I don’t remember many specifics.

I can remember the first times I actually rushed, though. In fact I remember the year before that, when my parents thought I was too young to rush. I was three weeks shy of my sixth birthday. I was dying to rush – Adrian, my cousin, had rushed that year with his father, Uncle Johnny. Mark, Adrian’s brother, and I were still too young, though. You have to remember that junkanoo was different back then, it was rougher – or so our parents told us. I don’t think junkanoo participation was accepted among the middle classes they way it is now – none of my friends at school did it, and my other Grandmother, Grammy Lilly definitely didn’t approve. Then again, she was Brethren, so that doesn’t really say much.

Anyway, that year Mark and I were still too young. Mummy and Auntie Sonja (Mark and Adrian’s Mum) made it up to us by making us costumes as well, so that the three of us could parade around in a mini junkanoo on Christmas.

I remember that costume so well – just shirt and pants mind you, but still, my first junkanoo costume. Red, white and blue. Uncle Johnny rushed with the Westerners, one of the last traditional, old time groups to survive (in the old days, groups would form out of neighbourhoods – the Westerners came from the Virginia St area, by St Mary’s Church).

Red, white and blue. In those days, old time junkanoo groups would come would come out with everybody wearing a pasted shirt pants and hat with horizontal stripes of the same colours. The decorative costumes were carried by individuals for the most part in those days. I guess that Valley Boys brought in the New Junkanoo era when their entire group came to Bay dressed as Scottish Highlanders.

Anyway, I digress. The westerners were a commited old time junkanoo group. And they were nationalistic. Every year they came out with red, white and blue, (remember in those pre-independence days the flag was still the Union Jack). That was the uniform – when you saw the red, white and blue, you knew it was the Westerners. Of course when we got independence, we did switch to aqua and gold, but there was a strong loyalist element in the group, I suppose, because we alternated years: one year aqua and gold, one year red, white and blue. It was funny really because for a stretch there, Mark, Adrian and I got out of sync with the rest of the group – when they would have red, white and blue, we would have aqua and gold and vice versa.

So anyway that first costume was before independence so it was red, white and blue thick fringe pasted end to end. But I loved it! I would have slept in it if I had the chance. We had so much fun on our mini rush on Boxing Day that somehow we convinced our parents to do it again on New Year’s – or so the story goes in my mind. I don’t know how those costumes could have held up for that Christmas week, but I know that that costume was still around come New Year’s. That year was my first experience of a New Year’s Eve party. Three of my cousins have birthdays very close to New Year’s Eve, so their family hosted a joint birthday and New Year’s Eve Party.

The party was great! Something I ate or drank(!) must not have agreed with me though (that’s another story!). When we got home and I went to bed, I insisted on putting on my junkanoo costume so when I woke up the next morning I would be ready for our New Year’s mini rush. Anyway, all I remember is waking up feeling really, really sick. Panic stations sick. It’s going to blow any second sick. And it did. Puke all over the front of my junkanoo costume!

I guess that’s why I remember it so well – a disaster like that usually leaves a lasting impression. But to this day, I still remember that great feeling of pride of wearing the red, white and blue for the first time.