USVI-On-Line

Last week I went to a estate sale and my wife found a Jan.1968 National Geographic.So what's the big deal?It had a article about the Virgin Islands/50 years under the flag.It cost me about $1 and boy was it a deal!Great pics and a nice article by Carleton Mitchell.He interviewed Grandma McCully,and Laurance Rockefeller.Cool!Do any of you know anything about William Callahan who lived on Peter Peak? He had a home there and raised Poinsettias!There was a pic of that as well.I liked the pic of the Cruz Bay dock with the BEACH in the background.I didn't see wharfside village anywhere!Just a few buildings-wow have things changed!Parafins

I LOVE finding old books and stories about STJ. There are a ton of great books out there. I especially love reading about the people of the island.

On the way back home from our last trip in December I was in the AA lounge in Miami and I ran into this beautiful older woman, who had a bit of a granola vibe, in the bathroom. I was trying to make myself presentable and we started to chat. She asked me where I was coming from and I told her STJ.

Her eyes lit up and she said she hadn't been there since the 60's. She said they'd catch a flight from NYC and go thru somwehere (I want to say PR or Miami) and they called it the chicken flight since people would be on the plane with all kinds of farm animals.

She said they stayed in tents and drank lots of Gin (used it as bug repellant as well as for recreational drinking).

I told her that while she may not recognize it now she should go back. I told her that the hippie vibe was still there if you look for it and that it's one of my fave places on earth. She said that even after all these years she can still remember how beautiful STJ was and that it always stays with her.

After that and a hug to me --a complete stranger (but fellow STJ lover) -- she left the bathroom and was gone.

Good karma. I could only think that that would be me in 40 years....