The Forty Thieves

Living vicariously, that's where it's at! Well, it give me ideas to try out one day.

I got an earful about what Bermuda is about and being a professional beach bum. All it takes is a plane ticket, a few months and a couple of grand. We're going to live cheaply, because beach bums won't afford Pompano Beach Club.

Your Room from Pompano, If you can afford it.

After teaching Navy brats in Happy Valley, Labrador on Goose Bay, my buddy decides to kill the summer in Bermuda. A year of living in the miserably cold Canadian climate, it was time for a change. He took $3,000 and hopped in a C-130 (military people get free flights!) cargo hold and touched down at Wade International in Bermuda.

“I had a duffle bag, a miltary ID and a pocket full of cash. I scored a part time teaching job at a high school once some in the gov't found out what I did for a living. Plus getting high all the time and drunk was in the cards. I let my Navy haircut grow to my shoulders and adopted sloth living with a vengeance.”

He bought a Vespa as Bermuda is just 20 miles long, a tent and headed off to St Georges Island to a place called Coots Pond.

“I set up a tent, lived in mostly shorts and tee shirts. I washed up in the sea water. I basically squatted right there on the beach, just down from that old Revolutionary Fort.” Apparently the cops in Bermuda then just didn't care. Island living is a bit different.

Talcum Powder Beach, Emerald waters. Not a bad camping site.

“There's an unwritten policy called Bermuda Time...don't expect to get anything done 'on time.'” The saying in Bermuda then was 'It'll be done...when it's done.' They aren't kidding, they don't move fast for anything! The speed limit on ALL Bermuda roads is 30mph. The main reason is that the roads are all made of crushed coral which gets slicker than ice when wet. Plus, why speed? There's no reason to be in a damn hurry for anything here.”

He tells me this is how his job interview went. “They didn't bother really to ask about my qualifications. I had tons of those being a Commander, teaching across Canada, the US and Heidelberg; what they were most happy about, was the fact that I traveled the world.”

The school's principal told him this: “Would you believe, there are kids here in Hamlinton (the capital) that in their entire 14-18 years of life, have never seen, 20 miles away, St Georges? These kids live on an asteroid and what you bring, what we need, is someone who can tell them about the world.”

B goes on to tell me: “Here's how a class in Medieval Europe went. At 8AM, when my class started, no one was there. By ten minutes past, the kids would trickle in, a few at time, by 8:30 they were all there. There was no point bitching about attendance or being on time, the entire island has this attitude. An hour later, if ran late, no one cared either.”

“There was a dress code that wasn't adhered to as well. Some kids were dressed like British Eton school students, all trim and proper, others were barefoot and in teeshirts. That's the how it goes.”

He tells me he eventually got that laid back island attitude in a couple of weeks. By the end of two months, he had turned into a Bermudian hippy.

“Either you adopt or it'll drive you crazy.” hey says. “You're entire outlook slows down. All that matters is what's going on on the island, as the rest of the world no longer matters. The island becomes the Planet Earth and anything that happens elsewhere, does not exist. We had TV, radio and such, and news came on from primarily the BBC channels, but it was like getting data from the Voyager space probe, out beyond Neptune.”

Being a Commander in the Navy, he had complete access to LF Wade airport, which doubles as a US Air Force base. He tells me he'd go to the officer's club there and carouse with the senior officers, the base XO being an old WW2 bomber pilot who managed to score this duty for years and years.

“One time, I was walking on the base, with my hair in a pony tail, shorts and ripped tee shirt. I had on John Lennon granny glasses and I was just slumming around when this junior officer, a first lieutenant, stops me. He says he wants me arrested and starts calling for the MP's. I then whip out my military ID and remind him that I'm a Commander, which equals your branch's Lieutenant Colonel and that I outranked him by a mile. No use, the guy arrests me.”

“I”m taken to my buddy's office, the XO, former WW2 bomber, and he starts laughing his ass off over my situation. He explains to the First Lieutenant who I am and that I have every right to walk the base and my clearance has 'special attributes.'”

“That's the thing with island living, you have to adopt it, even on military bases. You can't be so uptight as to cause problems because all the civilian contractors and eventually the military men, are infected with a, “Oh...Who give's a fuck?” attitude. My buddy tells me this particular officer was adjusting to Bermuda Time and attitude dreadfully.

I ask him how did he manage to live, on such little money.

He tells me that he made it on $20 a day abouts. He lived on the beach, gasoline for his Vespa was cheap and he refilled it every two weeks. As for food, he told me that it's cheaper than hell if you eat the local grub. Grouper fish stew with biscuits. That's the poor man's fare and it's delicious. Also there was inexpensive shrimp in abundance to the point you got sick of it. But don't order a steak, that'll cost you dearly as they had to ship beef in from the States. Anything by boat was ridiculously high.

“You don't drink imported beer or anything, you drink the local ginger beer and Bermuda Black Rum, which they make there and never export. It's great, black as tar and probably nearly as thick. Once the bars and people begin to trust you, they'll let you in on a secret, there's another liquor they keep under the bar and you have to ask for it like this: “I need a pick-me-up.”

“What's that?” I ask.

“It's a local cassis liquor, made from berries and infused with cocaine. One shot of that and in 90 seconds, you're ready to paint your house. No joke.”

He goes on to tell me about the 40 Thieves. The 40 Thieves were 40 rich families that pretty much owned all the best property in Bermuda, passed it down from generation to generation. They lived on the smaller islands north of Hamlinton and they soaked up most of the tourist dollars there. Though, so much money came through Bermuda, from tourist dollars and the fact Bermuda was an offshore banking jurisdiction (read that as, tax evasion banks) that everyone pretty much enjoyed a high standard of living.

I ask why didn't he stay? Why come home if you're living a tropical ex-patriot life?

“Riding home on my Vespa, I wiped out just before Coots Pond, I was drunker than a monkey. You think road rash is bad? Try road rash on a road made from crushed coral. It takes double the time to heal as some of that coral is fire coral. You have a reaction to it for weeks and weeks. I figured that if I'm crashing my bike due to being drunk, I've gone too far. Time to head back. And I wanted to finish my PhD at Vanderbilt.”

“I don't regret it at all...it was a great time. But becoming an alcoholic wasn't my chosen career path. A few weeks later I land at Logan, down 20lbs with a great tan. The island mentality manged to last another three months in me. Back here in the States, I was regarded as lazy for a while.”