Hartley Neita, Contributor

During the last three years, rarely a month passes without being invited to a luncheon, dinner or house party to celebrate a 40th or 50th wedding anniversary, or a 60th to 80th birthday anniversary of a friend.

Most of these birthday celebrations are for women. It seems as if we men do not wear our years lightly and many of us have stepped from the stage of life.

These celebrations allow us to travel the journey of past times. They bring to our present, memories of happier times.

At these gatherings no one remembers the sad moments, only the glory times. For example, the talk has not been about the current West Indies cricket team at these recent events.

Instead the reminisces in these rooms or lawns on which these celebrations take place are about the memories of Headley, Worrell, Weekes, Sobers, Gibbs, Rae, McMorris, Richards, Holding, Walsh, Ambrose and Dujon. Some so recent that they seem like yesterday.

This past week, there was a tea party for a friend of 75, Pauline Mason. I have known her and her family for more than half my life. We were even neighbours some years ago. During the 60s, she worked at the Ministry of Finance, while I straddled that ministry and the Ministry of Finance. So, we met in the canteen almost daily.

We now telephone each other often. If we are going abroad, and she does so regularly, we make sure the other knows so that if our telephones ring without an answer, we do not search the Passed On pages in this newspaper.

Dining in canteen

What made Pauline's 75th so interesting, however, was the memory of seeing my co-guests 40 years after we lunched at the finance canteen.

A memory was of Finance Minister Donald Sangster arriving at the canteen very often and sitting at any table - sometimes with the messengers, another time with the secretaries and another with his senior officials.

The question is, do ministers now eat at their ministry's canteens with their staff at any time, or in private dining rooms attached to their offices.

Canteens in the Government offices were then a novelty. Up to the 1950s, workers ate at their desks. They brought their lunch from home or walked to the nearest 'Chiney' shop to buy a patty, raisin bun and cheese, and a bottle of cream soda. Once per month a group went to a Chinese restaurant on one of the lanes in downtown Kingston, for a treat of suey mein.

I cannot name all the over 100 guests. Some I was glad to see after these many years were Daphne Wilson, and Shirley Tavares and Masie O'Reggio, two former deputy financial secretaries looking younger than they did when they had to worry about balancing the budget every year.

There was Winnie Taylor, former superintendent of insurance, Eric Bailey, former assistant accountant- general and his beautiful better half, Audrey Tomlin, Norma Wynter, Dita Pinnock and Janet Henry. From Pauline's church, there were Vilma McDonald, who is just about to shed her Cricket World Cup chores; the Whiteman sisters who at Westwood were the brightest students in Jamaica in my school years, as were the Robinson brothers at Calabar who made mathematics as easy as spelling 'cat' or 'mat'. Other guests included her church sisters and brothers, such as Lauris Goldson, and friends Bobby and Daphne Muirhead, Dr. Keith and Venice McKenzie, and former parish council secretary, Joyce Bolton. Naturally, her daughters, Jennifer and Gillian were head cooks and bottle washers!

Nice to meet friends

Of course, there were three ministers of religion present - Rev. Byron Chambers who was Pauline's birthdate celebrant, Rev. Hyacinth Boothe and Rev. Catherine Gail. Another birthdate celebrant was Norma Wynter who was celebrating her 94th.

Dominique Wynter presented a Louise Bennett poem that had the audience laughing all-the-way; and Michelle Edwards sang You Are My Hero, accompanied by Karen Armstrong.

I hope to be around for many more such get-togethers. It is always nice to meet with friends of long ago.