the romance of the South Seas
SEVERAL years canada goose parka uk ago, my wife and I pottered down to Trader Jacks on the seashore in Avarua on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands to get some calamari and a canada goose outlet germany coffee for lunch.Trader Jacks is one of those places where the cook canada goose outlet kokemuksia is likely to sit down with you to canada goose outlet montreal eat if business is slow and then forget to charge you when you leave.Our mode of transport was one of those ubiquitous scooters that hold sway on the roads of the Pacific islands. No helmets, a leisurely speed, never over 40 kph, and usually ridden abreast to enable conversation.On this occasion, sated by the best calamari we’d ever tasted and chuckling over the cook’s anecdotes canada goose outlet legit we were trying to canada goose outlet figure out how to spring the seat on the scooter to get to the stuff we’d put in the compartment below.While we were puzzling over the devilish Asian mechanism an elderly canada goose outlet store uk and barefooted gentleman stopped to help and solve our quandary. The trick was to push down on the seat while simultaneously pressing on the catch.We got to talking and canada goose outlet los angeles he invited us back to his house canada goose outlet las vegas after the afternoon siesta for a drink. I was doing some work at the local museum and he professed an interest in island culture.His house was a ramshackle affair of bush and permanent materials sitting just up from the beach on canada goose outlet store calgary the eastern lagoon. There canada goose outlet jackets were kids and dogs and pigs wandering around outside and the airy inside was canada goose https://www.winterdownparkas.com vest outlet furnished canada goose jacket uk with an eclectic mix of old canada goose outlet florida furniture upon which sat vast piles of books.He offered us each a glass of black rum watered down with tank water.We went back to yarn with him several times before we left the island. He was a Frenchman who had washed ashore decades before and never left.He was a modern day canada goose outlet new york beachcomber, part of the disenchanted flotsam that still occasionally lands on the island beaches and takes root in the fecund soils. He was also one of the happiest souls I’d ever met.Arthur Williams reminded me of him when he responded to my recent story about going back to the haunts of one’s youth… but there was no reality, no allurement in the sound. His books sit on a shelf in my study along with the works of others like him, including Frederick O’Brien, Louis Becke, Robert Gibbings, George Farwell, Lewis Lett, Judith Tudor, Arthur Grimble and Beatrice Grimshaw.Hall (1887 1951) was an American who had served during World War I in the British Army as canada goose outlet location a machine gunner and in the French Foreign Legion as a pilot.After the war he joined Charles Nordhoff, with whom he had served in the Lafayette Flying Corps, and sailed for Tahiti. Both men were reacting to what they saw as the mundane and boring materialistic western world. They were part of Hemingway’s famous ‘lost generation’.They only intended to stay in the islands for a year but ended up living there for the rest of their lives. They both married local girls and collaborated on eleven books. They both also wrote independently.My favourite Hall’s book is his non fiction autobiographical My Island Home, published a year after his death in 1952. In it he captures island life in all its exquisite beauty.As my wife and I discovered, there are still people like Hall tucked away in the backwaters of the South Pacific, including Papua New Guinea. In the latter case you can mostly find them in the New Guinea Islands or on the north coast in places like Wewak and Madang.A canada goose outlet store toronto few of them are not that old but most of them seem to be kinds of latter day hippies without the collective imperative.In most cases they have been absorbed into the scenery. Their total lack of canada goose uk ambition fits in well. A few have problems with booze and some of them are bitter individuals but most are happy souls and they contribute in many ways to their adopted societies.Above all else, I think, they remind us of what is of real value in life.Long may they prosper.You may, for instance, hate canada goose outlet locations in toronto the whole concept of materialism and the aspirational emphasis on wealth but what can you do when survival depends upon operating within that system.My experience with beachcombers, as opposed canada goose outlet online uk to urban hippies and tree changers, is that they manage to live independent lives outside the mainstream without relying on it for survival.Our French friend on Rarotonga, for instance, received no goose outlet canada assistance from anyone. He grew his own vegetables and caught his own fish. The small amount of money he got for his rum came from selling a few vegies at the market. He didn have electricity and all the gadgets that depend upon it.Along the way he entertained the locals with his books and encouraging a reading culture among canada goose outlet 80 off the kids. For this he was allowed to live on his patch rent free.
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