Golden Nugget - Three Shirts

When my grandfather was a young man in New York he worked two jobs. One job was from 7am to 4pm and he would ride the train and get to the next job for 6pm and work until 2am. In the process he found that he required some dress shirts for one of these jobs and went to a shop in Harlem owned by an old Jewish couple. They sold the shirts at the price of 75¢ each. Grandpa decided to get 3. During the course of the sale they asked Grandpa if he was Jamaican. He thought this was an odd question and asked them why they wanted to know. They said because they had just returned from a 2 week vacation in Jamaica and heard his “Jamaica folk accent” and recognized it as such. As they spoke to him about their trip, they talked of all the places they had been to visit: Milk River Bath, YS Falls, Black River, Strawberry Hills, Runaway Bay and more. Through the course of their conversation with Grandpa he realized that in 2 weeks these two people had seen more of his country than he had. So he made a vow to himself to do the same.
He felt that a car would help him to achieve this goal so he saved his money and bought a new car for $600; a Chevrolet. Now in those days there was no import duty to ship things to Jamaica so it was easy to get the car there. However, whenever he was ready to leave the island, he would have to take the car with him. Such was the law at the time. In any event, he drove all over the island and learned about all those places that the old Jewish couple had known about and more. Some time passed, several months probably, and he was approached by Gussy DeLeon, an insurance salesman, who wanted to buy his car at a value greater than what he paid for it originally. Grandpa told Gussy that he would like to sell him the car but by law he couldn’t because he must take the car with him when he next leaves the island. So DeLeon says there must be something we can work out because he really wanted that car. So he took Grandpa and they went to Jamaica House where they met with Bustamante. They explained the situation to Busta and he says to Gussy, “ There is nothing I can do the law is the law so he can not sell you the car.” But DeLeon was persistent and kept pressing and finally Busta relented saying, “Okay I will allow Minto to sell you this car on one condition. The money that he makes from the sale must go into a blocked account at the bank. And the only way he can access the money is if he is going to invest it in Jamaica.” Grandpa agreed to the stipulation and sold his car. A few months later he used that money and bought a piece of land from a realtor and shortly after went back up to the States. While in the States he received a contract from the realtor with a letter explaining that if he signed the contract the realtor would pay him four times what he sold it to Grandpa for originally. Grandpa thought there was something strange about that deal so he didn’t sign or send back the contract. He was planning to return to Jamaica at any rate and figured he would check it out for himself. So when he went back to Jamaica he found out that a bauxite company was going around buying up land and the piece he had was extremely rich in the mineral. The realtor would have bought it back from Grandpa at four times the rate he paid for it but would have turned around and sold it to the bauxite company at fifteen times that. Instead Grandpa leased the land to the bauxite company and made an even greater profit in the long haul. And all because he needed three shirts.

Finding a beginning at the end

When my Grandma Pitter passed away in 1997, I remember seeing people I hadn’t met before at her funeral but at the time I thought nothing of it. Then in 2002 Jaime and I suffered a double loss. First my Uncle Christie passed away in August and then his Grandpa Julio passed away in September. It was those two funerals that truly galvanized my interest in our family history. After Uncle Christie's funeral we gathered at Uncle Tony and Aunt Marie's house to celebrate his life and reminisce. It was here that I met cousins I had never even heard of before. I proceeded to get as many names, addresses and family tree chart information as I could. And the same thing happened at the funeral home just before the commencement of Grandpa Julio's funeral services. I did not know him well but I was fascinated by the people in the extended family I had married into.