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Feb 08, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
My wedding anniversary and the rebirth of flares coincide. On this day, thirty-six years ago, I got married in elephant bells at the central post office. I wore black pin-stripe flare trousers. There was no wedding, but a very small family reception held at my mother-in-law’s house in Wortmanville.
At the reception, I wore green corduroy flares. Again, the style was elephant bottoms. In those days none of my trousers were straights. I always wore flares, commonly known around the world as bell bottoms. When the flares were immoderately large, they were called elephant bells.
Flares are back. I wonder if they will endure. In some of the top fashion houses around the world, since the new year began, flares are on the catwalk. It would be emotionally satisfying to see flares light up the world again. It will remind people of my age of the great seventies.
The great seventies was the age of West Indian cricket hegemony, Bob Marley, Eddie Grant, Burt Bacharach, Walter Rodney, the soaring melody of Hotel California by the Eagles (what a phenomenal song) and my life at the University of Guyana where ‘Pumpkin’ provided late night entertainment
You can criticize Forbes Burnham how much you like (and this columnist will never stop berating Forbes Burnham), you can demonize Forbes Burnham how much you like (it would be wrong to keep doing so), you can spend the rest of your life wishing Guyana didn’t have Forbes Burnham, but in the age of bell bottoms and Clive Lloyd and Michael Holding and Rastafari in Jamaica, Forbes Burnham gave Guyana the University of Guyana
It was a top class university that provided a top class education competitive anywhere in the world. The scholarship in every department was breath-taking – Mary Noel Menezes and Winston Mc Gowan in history; Clive Thomas and Maurice Odle in economics; Harold Lutchman and Perry Mars in comparative politics; Rudy James in law. Over in the sciences, UG had a full quota of top brains
In the sciences there was this eccentric Hungarian professor, George Lederer (deceased) who farted all the time. He would walk on the corridors and be farting and everyone would hear him doing so. Also eccentric was the late-night bus driver. I never knew his name, but we called him ‘Pumpkin.’ At UG, the university-run cafeteria closed at 11p.m. That was the last call for hot soups. The last state-run bus left the campus at 11.30p.m.
Some say Pumpkin was crazy, but he was just a grumpy old man. We teased Pumpkin every night and as they say in common parlance, ‘like an old car, he took cranking.’ Pumpkin kept a piece of wood by his seat and would threaten students with it once he felt they were taking their “eyes pass him.” A few times he stopped the bus on Sheriff Street and called out to those he thought he could do physical battle with, but we just ignored him.
One of the funniest moments I have of my bell bottoms life and of the seventies occurred at UG. The Social Science students held an interior retreat and Ronnie White was caught with a female student. Ronnie White currently lives abroad in New York. I normally inquire about him from my UG contemporaries who are still in Guyana; they tell me he does visit Guyana. I do like Ronnie, and I think he knows that.
I was from the Arts Faculty and broadcast to the entire campus what Ronnie did. Ronnie saw me in the library and from the way he was coming towards me I knew he wanted to beat me up. He chased me all over the library on every level, but couldn’t catch me. My flares made running easier. I guess Ronnie couldn’t manoeuvre properly in his straight-legged denim but scrawny me, was much faster
The era of flares is associated with the sixties and seventies. I think those two decades were some of the greatest moments in the history of human civilization. The seventies was about respect for each other, respect for elders, love for each other, the yearning for freedom and liberation, the quest to save the world, the desire to remove racial inequality, the lust to be as free as the wind.
I’m glad I was a product of the seventies. I’m glad I listened to Bob Marley, Eddie Grant, Burt Bacharach and John Lennon. I’m glad I read the icons of the seventies – Jean Paul Sartre, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Rodney. I’m glad I wore flowers in my hair and elephant bells. Most of all, I am glad the seventies gave me Janet Kissoon. I’m still married to her.
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