I can't recall

Lance Neita, Contributor

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS are created as religious landmarks or by state edict. Our Christian background has given us Christmas, Ash Wednesday, and Good Friday, three powerful and significant observations of epochal moments in the history of Christianity.

From the secular world we have been given Boxing, New Year's, Easter Monday, Labour, Emancipation, Independence, and National Heroes days.

The worldly holidays have managed to creep upon and desecrate the religious holidays with a kind of wanton behavour unbecoming the initial reasons for setting aside the holy day. This conduct has also become typical of Sundays, a day when less than two generations ago all shops were closed, people spoke in whispers, and you stayed at home for fear of instant corporal punishment.

Early generations will recall that commercial activity started after church with a little window opened in the Chiney shop, ostensibly for air, but nevertheless able to lend a helping hand if you needed ingredients for Sunday dinner, sweets on the way home from Sunday School (just where did that collection penny go), and a drink or two for the thirsty choir members.

During Lent, we are asked to give up something. Some give up drinking and other vices, but come back with renewed vigour at the end of Lent. Others I know 'ketch dem lent' during Lent, plundering the vices left hanging around by their friends who have taken leave from their so-called bad habits.

Give thanks

Easter Sunday still holds its own and the churches are always packed as Jamaicans, albeit competing for the best Easter hat and most outlandish fashion, give thanks and pay reverence to Resurrection day.

Easter is also kite-flying season, although time and progress has taken its toll on the calibre of kites. At one time making your own kites was half the fun of flying. Today you can buy mass-produced kites of any size and shape, thereby robbing children of the joy and accomplishment of cutting and framing the bamboo, pasting the paper, attaching the 'singer' , concealing a razor on the fighter kite, and tying the tail.

On one occasion after the usual warning from my mother not to use her good cloth, my brothers and myself found what we thought was abandoned material at the bottom of a barrel. We manufactured a tail that ruled the skies until she came back home to see bits and pieces of her best dress floating and cavorting in the air. It didn't help that some of the neighbours were enjoying the spectacle of my mother's impromptu fashion show in the heavens. It was entertainment galore, not to speak of the added attraction for my friends of a good licking that evening that could be heard around the four corners of the village.

Then come Emancipation and Independence, homecoming time for Jamaicans overseas, but confusion in some years when the days are mixed up with each other or fall in the middle of the week.

Half-term fun

We enjoy another break later in the year, come Heroes Day, but here again the message has been lost. The holiday, introduced in 1968, makes valiant attempts to remember the heroes, but that has been blown away as students hurry to get through their recitations before heading out for half-term fun.

Well, of such should holidays be. Good fun, family reunions, and relaxation. But we have to do better with our understanding and appreciation of the real meaning and significance of these holidays.

I have my own private and delightful holiday periods in February and March when three celebrations occur - my wedding anniversary, followed by Valentine's Day, and my wife's birthday. I am approaching the age where I tend to mix up these days at my peril. When challenged to remember, I can fall back on the words bequeathed to the nation by Senator Nelson, "I can't recall." Come to think of it, the good senator must now be the patron saint of errant husbands.

"Where you stop last night why you come home so late?"

"I can't recall" is the stoic reply with a disarming smile. So something good at least has come out of the Manatt enquiry. The trouble being that, what exactly it is, I can't recall.

Lance Neita is a public relations and communications consultant. Comments to columns@gleaner.jm or lanceneita@hotmail.com