At 100 years old, Olive Comas, of Lowmans Hill, is as sharp as a tack and equally funny.
She remembers the days when Kingstown Bay had large flowering trees.
On Tuesday, Jan. 22, her official birthday, she was visited by Member of Parliament for West Kingstown, Daniel Cummings.
He inquired about her home garden, telling her that he sees it is “always growing with chive and –”
But before he could finish the thought, the spritely woman said:
“Yeah, but listen to me I hear they going to tek out licence for marijuana. And if I live, I will send and get my licence.”
Asked if she wanted to plant marijuana also, Comas said, “Eh!? Right round the yard,” sending her kin and her visitors into raucous laughter.
“Me nah wah no mo’ cabbage; me nah want no mo’ chive. Me and Michelle, she said, referring to her granddaughter and caretaker, Michelle Williams.
“Me just wah geh the licence. Her husband go gi mi some seed,” she said, adding, “What me want with cabbage and chive and peas.”
She said she does not know who will sell the marijuana for her, but maintained that she just wants to get her
“Me just a wait pon Mr Gonsalves. Me nah know what he ah do.”
Comas was speaking at her home on Tuesday, her official birthday.
She, however, maintained that her birthday is Jan. 19.
“Well, ah born on the 19th ah January. That’s what my mother tell me,” she said, adding, “So I holding to that.
“But I don’t know anything about this other thing you talking about,” she said, referring to her official birthday, as displayed on her birth certificate.
Comas said that the previous night, as she was lying on her bed, she said to herself, “Well, me old…
“I lay down last night and I say, but what is this? Me old fuh true because all them people me wuk with a Lovers’ Lane gone. All them dem people me work with in the road gone, but, … thank God for having me so long.”
A function was held on Jan. 20 to celebrate the woman’s centennial birthday.
“Happy birthday for three, four days, my dear. You deserve every moment of it,” Cummings told the centenarian.
She said she is blind in the left eye and her right eye is “getting a little darkish now.”
“But thank God, spare me life fuh ha’ ah big fat lady. Look she a squeeze me,” said Comas, referring to her caretaker, her granddaughter.
Growing up, Comas remembers that as she was growing up, whole of Kingstown Bay was in bush.
“They had some big tree there used to buss flowers. You nah know nothing ‘bout that,” she said, adding that one Mr. Cropper at the Town Board cut the trees down.
“Well the weather come in and mash up the bay. Well, after the weather cease, this different thing start to build. Now, you go a bay side, yuh cyah even geh some bay sand – town,” she said.
“So I lay down last night. Ah say, ‘But, after all, me old. Wha’ me ah do ya till now?’ My grandfather dead when me 92; me mother dead when she been 70 — either 71 or – and I geh 10 children,” she woman said.
She added that six predeceased her and four are alive. Out of the four, she said only two of them “ah face’n me.
“But that shouldn’t be. But thank God for them and thank God for who ah squeeze me,” she said referring to her granddaughter and Cummings.
She described Cummings as the son to whom she did not give birth, adding that was also the case with John Horne, former Member of Parliament for West Kingstown.
Comas paid tribute to her granddaughter, saying, “But she nah nice yuh know, and me nah nice”.
The centenarian said she likes to eat dumpling, breadfruit, banana and fish and Irish potato.
She said she likes chicken wing, but not the other parts.
Cummings said: “it really is a special honour and privilege to know this lady and for somebody who is 100 years old, her mind is so clear. And clearly, her lifestyle is an example for people to emulate. Her thoughts are clear, her recollections are good and her habits are healthy. She always speaks her mind.”
And as if to prove it, Comas added: “If anybody come down here an molest me, ah does cuss them. Ah does cuss dem. Me don know me old. Me going ah me grave just now. So dem go come down here pick me chive or pick me peas and me nah say nothing?”
Sadly for some, old age neither brings wisdom nor changes their propensity to behave or conduct themselves in ways that are commendable in polite society. This encouragement by Ralph Gonsalves to cultivate marijuana in place of chive or cabbages, is an utter travesty!
Did you know, that smoking the marijuana weed just ONCE, could change a teenager’s brain: Scientists have discovered that even small amounts of cannabis are enough to thicken tissue in the young person’s brain.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6590927/Smoking-weed-just-change-teenagers-brain.html
Indeed, “just one or two joints is enough to change the structure of a teenager’s brain, scientist have warned. Researchers from the University of Vermont scanned the brains of teenagers from England, Ireland, France and Germany to study marijuana’s effects.
They found differences in the volume of grey matter in the amygdala and the hippocampus.
These sections are involved with emotions, fear, memory development and spatial skills – changes to them suggests smoking cannabis could affect these faculties”.
Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Peter Tosh, Tupac Shakur, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles to name a few, all smoked marijuana and they were geniuses. Rum and cigarettes do more damage but nobody complaining. Scientists want to terraform Mars but why don’t they terraform the desserts here on Earth first?
https://youtu.be/CJlqsdezhhk
Stop. Fear mongering. Cannabis is safe as per the Indian hemp drug commissions conducted by the UK in 1894.
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/effects.htm
A study modelling trends in the incidence of psychoses in Australia did not find clear evidence of any increase in incidence following steep increases in cannabis use during the 1980s 24. A more recent modelling study in the UK 25 suggested that it may be too early to detect any effect of cannabis use on the incidence of psychoses, because rates of cannabis use only increased during the 1990s in that country. A recent British 26) and a Swiss study 27 reported suggestive evidence of an increased incidence of psychoses among males in recent birth cohorts with the highest rates of cannabis use in adolescence. This work needs to be replicated in future research.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424288/
Cited and referenced as well.
This is a pleasant and heart-warming story. I wish Miss Olive all the best.
Seriously great grandmother ! A word of prayer.
What a loser! The only thing you took from this story about this amazing woman is that she wants to grow weed??!! Unbelievable! And to show your true ignorance you used the Daily Mail, who has weekly hit pieces on marijuana in support of the pharmaceutical industry, to back up your nonsense.
Obviously you don’t realize that Big Pharma does not want marijuana legalized as it will compromise their profit margins. But I’m sure you’re one of those who have no problem in popping man made drugs while frowning on naturally harvested marijuana. People like you are the bottom of the barrel, always looking for something negative instead of embracing positivity.
My advice? Get a life and hope that you can be blessed enough to live as long as this beautiful centennial. Loser.
Quality dear soul, quality! Please do glory in quality first over and above just mere quantity of life! What is it that is so amazing in this longevity my dear soul as is seen here, what? Why glory in just sheer quantity of life while living under a tyrannical dictatorship, growing and smoking dope? No doubt the growing of tomatoes, yams and cabbages would serve better.
I here observe that the poverty of the SVG circumstances for both, have tethered all fast to much poverty in opinions.
Please do tell dear? What is so wonderful my dear soul, why living in utter poverty of material comfort with slavery of thought for such longevity in SVG is good? What is there to glory in over and above living a much shorter life, both in quality and copious opulence, as is to be observed elsewhere and outside of SVG?
The bankruptcy of your opinion my dear soul, shines through here, our unlearned imbecile, when you write “that the Big Pharma does not want marijuana legalised”! Go now for once and research as to why marijuana is called dope.
The lady is smart she probably knows that a few ounces of CBD oil cost more than a hundred dollars. LOL.