Shopping on St. Croix

Going food shopping in my house is referred to as going over the hill. i can't do a major shop unless i drive at least 15 minutes to the first large grocery store but i can do baby shopping all along the way and that is what this piece is about today because i was noticing there are a heck of a lot of people out trying to make a buck on the side of the road. i don't know if the numbers have increased with the economic downturn but it sure seemed like newbies were out hustling.

Commerce on the island of St. Croix is a constant pressure for those folks that make their living selling goods on the thoroughfares. They have to compete with the large bulk stores that get everything shipped in and although their things are usually fresher on the road the selection is small and spread out over miles of roadside.

Wednesdays or Thursdays are usually good days to go out and bulk shop. The container ships have arrived from Florida or Puerto Rico laden with fresh food that the small mom and pops and the big grocery stores will use the new inventory to restock the shelves for another week. Produce is relatively fresh and most things are available at the commercial establishments, but the best stuff is found along the road if you have the patience to make a lot of stops.

i pretty much have to get completely over the hill before i start to see the roadside stands. The first one to greet me this morning on my journey was a Rasta(not guy in pic) with jelly nuts piled high in the back of his pick up truck. Having just finished eating breakfast and not needing a drink i watched him stand at the back of the truck with two or three people waiting patiently for him to hack off the top. His face was beaming so i guess business was good.
Just down the road from the jelly nut man was a largish woman with a home made wooden table. Off to the side were big red coolers and a sign up saying fish. She didn't have any customers but her table looked wet so i was betting that she had probably just finished up with someone. She usually has local pot fish which is as fresh as you can get. After her i came up to the post office where the lady that sells the bananas had them all laid out on the concrete wall that surrounds the parking lot there. She was sitting in the shade talking to a man not doing much business but patiently plying her goods. i just got those sweet little bacubas yesterday from my neighbor so wasn't in the market for bananas.

Over by the fisherman's market (which is no longer functioning) there were more stands set up just off the road. One of them had what looked like a dolphin slit down the middle, and an old man and the sea type standing behind the fish with a machete. A man was standing in front of the table looking like he was waiting for the fisherman to whack him off a nice slab from that fish. i had quite the time watching them, wondering how he had caught that fish while i waited for the light to change. Shades of Hemingway.

Heading towards Sunny Isle down Queen Mary Highway some of the stands were empty and some full. Two ladies were sitting behind a table that had guava liquors, jams and cucumbers. They had a beautiful umbrella up and were chatting away as the cars streamed past. I always need cucumbers and hadn't seen any so far. No one was stopped there but they didn't seem to mind. i was going to stop but put it off until on the way back. Across the street a lady had her table spread with some squash, okra, bananas and small red local peppers.

Rounding the corner the Rasta artist was busy working on what looked to be a charcoal drawing of a family. He was holding a picture in one hand and drawing with the other, oblivious to the traffic streaming past. All around him tee shirts were fluttering in the wind beside his Jah rules flags. Business was bad there, no cars stopped and i wondered how having people stop to buy things might impact his drawing.

At Sunny Isle there was another pickup truck loaded down with jelly nuts. Two guys were at the back of that truck doing a booming business whacking away and handing out the refreshing drinks. More ladies had a table set up with jams and an assortment of baked goods, they looked to almost be sold out. People were milling around and i couldn't figure out if they were buying something or waiting for a Taxi Van. Sometimes my people watching skills have to be retired in order to focus on driving. i have been known to be honked at for not moving along fast enough when mesmerized by human activity. i am definitely a people watcher.

Heading out from the intersection the action going east was non-existent except for one woman with a table filled up with nothing but avocados, our tree is pumping them out now so didn't need them. But on the other side of the road a couple of guys had a cage set up and big land crabs were crawling up its sides, that was a treat but business was slow there too.

At Cost U Less the parking lot was full and long lines of people were backed up at the check out stands. The produce section was weak and i left thinking i should have gone shopping tomorrow as they were out of a lot of things. Sometimes you have to make lots of stops to get all the things you need and even then you may end up at home still needing to fill a third of your list on the next trip out.

Shopping here trains us to improvise, it educates us in the ways of denial and gives us lessons in using products that are produced locally rather than shipped in. People all along the roads are trying to make a living selling us their goods, they need us to patronize them just as regularly as we patronize the big stores.
Patience is a real virtue on St. Croix and i think it trains us to realize that we really can't have everything we want which is a good thing.

See Ya Next Week

Occupy Wall Street

Over on Red State Erick Erickson has a picture of himself holding a piece of paper saying “I have 3 jobs, I have a house I can’t sell, My family insurance costs are outrageous, I’m paying massive student loans, But I don’t blame Wall Street, Suck it up you whiners, I am the 53% subsidizing you so you can hang out on Wall Street and complain. Get a job hippies.”

Occupy Wall Street has finally caught the media’s attention and that of right wing blogs that have been hammering on the “jobless hippies” that are showing up to lend their support. The issue is complicated at best.

As they are wont to do conservatives have lumped those protesting into the “dirty hippie” category to demean them and turn conservative followers away from considering what has really galvanized them to come out and protest. The fact that the protestors are a mixed bag of people from all income levels, races, working and not working…rich and poor seems to escape them.

Concealing the fact that it is a mixed bag of people is paramount. Those controlling the purse strings and the media do not want you to ever consider that these are normal people who are fed up with the status quo.

What is lost in the above screed of Erick’s is that the protest concerns the out of proportion influence corporate money has in government. It’s about the slow decimation of the middle class and Erick is a prime example.  He has put up a picture of himself, in his tee shirt, with his screed to prove his ideology is working when it isn’t. He’s working 3 jobs and is still not comfortable. Why isn’t he comfortable? Why isn’t he able to make a decent living on one job? He can’t blame anyone because it would trash his world view.

In April of this year McDonalds held a job fair. They wanted to hire 50,000 people but ended up hiring 62,000. Sounds great right, all these people got jobs even if it was part time, but the sad part is that ONE MILLION applied. Percentage wise it would be easier to get into Yale than to get a job at McDonalds. The admit rate at Yale is over 7% this percentage is 6.2%.

Maybe if Erick the poster boy gave up two of his jobs other people would have some work. But then he'd really be in a fix, not able to pay his mortgage or student loans. How many are out there working two, three maybe even four jobs and still aren’t “comfortable?” Where is the American Dream if even one of its staunchest supporters hasn’t found it?

The issues are complex and not simple. Why aren’t companies CEO’s that didn’t fund pensions in jail? Why are banks that were bailed out by all of us still awarding huge bonuses? Why hasn’t anyone been prosecuted for bundling sub prime mortgage securities and selling them on the open market? But those are just my questions not necessarily the picketers. There is a lot of discontent on both sides. The Tea Partiers are upset with government control and the Occupy Wall Streeters have had it with profit over people.

In my mind there is only one solution and that is to sever the connection between Wall Street and Washington. Outlaw corporate campaign donations and corporate funding of political parties.

Somewhere in the middle we should be able to find some common ground that we as a whole nation can consent to. Trickle down doesn’t work, it’s been trickle up for three decades and the middle class is feeling the heat, Erick Erickson is a prime example…go look at his picture, he is totally stressed. These people occupying Wall Street are tired of shoving our problems under the carpet; they want to have a national discussion about where we are going. The time is now and this will spread as more and more middle class wake up. 

See ya next week