Mark Twain Quote

And, LindaJ, hopefully some of us realize the importance and value of information posted by all the Resident contributors. I for one do indeed thank you all. Because of you and other like you, you can sign me

"Eyes Wide Open"

When I see the arrogance of myopic small minded little people who think that they know everything about a particular place and that they are special for being there and that no place else on the planet is remotely like where they currently are, I am reminded on another Samuel Clemens quote:

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

I got news for you honey, you're not that smart and you're not that special. I have been around and seen things in my life. The USVI has NOTHING that I have not seen nor experienced before, both good and ill, including petty little little people like you. Americans in Japan were just the same talking out their rear to the new people moving in as though they alone were masters of the island and no one could get by without their knowledge and guidance. You're a dime a dozen lady and the world will continue to get on fine without you......

The world doesn't have to "get on fine without me". i intend to be right here for a long time.

I do think that civilized discourse can be conducted without cursing or the use of personal invective. I don't do it to others and I don't like it when it's done to me.

I don't know you and you certainly don't know me. I've never been to Japan and would never dream of questioning your knowledge of that country. You've never answered the question - have you visited the USVI? If not, please do the rest of us who live here the courtesy of not questioning our knowledge of the islands.

John Tee a year ago quoted Herman Wouk (a former STT resident) who wrote "Don't Stop the Carnival"

"The West Indian is not exactly hostile to change, but he is not much inclined to believe in it. This comes from a piece of wisdom that his climate of eternal summer teaches him. It is that, under all the parade of human effort and noise, today is like yesterday, and tomorrow will be like today; that existence is a wheel of recurring patterns from which no one escapes; that all anybody does in this life is live for a while and then die for good, without finding out much; and that therefore the idea is to take things easy and enjoy the passing time under the sun. The white people charging hopefully around the islands these days in the noon glare, making deals, bulldozing airstrips, hammering up hotels, laying out new marinas, opening new banks, night clubs and gift shops, are to him merely a passing plague. They have come before and gone before."

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The VI will survive us all.

"The VI will survive us all."

But will it survive the hurricanes?

It has before.

Do kids go to school during hurricanes? Just curious as I've had to work during hurricanes until they reached a Category 3 or until the tour buses stopped running. If the USVI does that, then I'll be very surprised that someone in AMeircan actually knows how to build properly. Floridians certainly don't.

Nope, they don't. At a certain stage WAPA turns off the electricity to protect the grid. It stays off until the storm is passed.

Trade,

This quote is PERFECT!! It exactly mirrors my own experiences here on STX. Thank you for finding it.

Good or bad? I don't know. I do know people who come here, stay for 15 minutes (like me) and leave are not going to change the VI. The islands will just wait us out. If you can enjoy life here give the "rules", fine. If not, it's time for you to move on. It is what it is.