Sir Clifford Goes to Paris

I am happy to report that my new book, "Sir Clifford goes to Paris" is at the printers and will be arriving in Anguilla next season. It is a fanciful story about a gecko that lives on the island of Anguilla in an artist studio. He takes care of the bug problems for the artist but one day she sell his favorite painting and his home. He decides to hitch a ride with the couple as they make their way to Paris. The story tells of his adventures in the city of light. The book was written and illustrated by me at my studio in Island Harbour, Anguilla. The illustrations were created in Affinity Designer.

Dreams of London

A short short story about an Anguilla dog and his dream of living in London.

By Jo-Anne Mason

Gomez and the rest of his family were born under a big flat rock on the Caribbean

island of Anguilla. 

We were surrounded by bush and short trees and when it rained which was not often,

their home would

get full of water. Mother could never actually get under the rock, so they all had

to come out when she would arrive home after a day of looking for her lunch.

Everyone was so excited to see her, jumping and playing and having their dinner.

It was all good until they noticed it was getting harder and harder to actually

fit under the rock. Mother came less and less. It became apparent that they

would have to go looking for her and abandon their rock home. 

Gomez

One day there was a strange noise

in the bush, we were scared and

startled and all of us barked

in our own puppy way. A funny

bark came in reply.

It was soft and sounded a lot like

mother used to. The human

(as we discovered later) was nice

and came bearing gifts. Snacks

for everyone. 

So suddenly we all had a new friend. 

She picked everyone up and took 

us to another place with a 

big soft bed and no rocks. 

“I am sure you will all be happy here 

while I go fix you some dinner,” she 

called and left us to take a nap. 

Dinner was great and so were all the other meals. We could run around a big area and 

play fight all day long. Our new mother would sit with us looking at a big book with all 

sorts of photos. Don’t ask me how I knew that, reader must suspend disbelief. Anyway, 

she was looking at a book full of pages and photos of a place called London. It was 

beautiful with tall buildings, lots of restaurants and big parks full of trees and grass 

and other dogs. They were all prancing around on leashes with their noses to the sky 

and seemed quite happy to be there. She left the book and day after day I would look 

and dream about living in London. 

One day a very strange family came to visit us. There were two big people like mother 

and two smaller size, like us. A big discussion started, mostly about us and size and 

many things I did not understand. 

“Gomez!” mother called, come here and meet the family. Not afraid of a challenge, 

I bound over in a gentlemanly fashion to see what this was all about. 

“Gomez, how would you like to live in London?” mother asked. I looked up, looked 

at the people and jumped for joy! My dream come true, I was going to London. I think 

they knew I was happy and the smaller ones danced around and the older ones gave 

me a quick cuddle just to show me that they liked me. 

And so it began, the journey of a lifetime. Getting there was the hardest part. I had to 

go in a box which I did not like at all but they all tried to comfort me and explain it 

was only for a little while. They were right, the box was just big enough for me to 

lay down and so I did and soon fell asleep. I was startled when the bright light hit 

my face and lots of activity and people and other boxes moved around the room. 

What a life. 

It was delightful, lots of shops and restaurants with great smells. Across the

street was a big park with grass and trees and yes, even other dogs. I am too

polite to bark so I just waited to see what would happen. We went into the

park and there was a place where all the dogs met to play.

They let me loose from my leash and I bound off for a meet and greet.

Everyone was friendly and we all started to jomp and run, chasing balls and

sticks. I met several dogs who said they come to the park often and always

had a great time. 

Finally it was time to go back to the apartment. High in the sky, I could see

down to the street and across to the park. The sun was setting on my first

lovely day in London. I had a nice dinner and settled in for a good sleep

on my new soft bed. 

And so it went. Daily trips to the park and walks up and down the interesting

streets with all the great sights and smells. During the day while the

family was out doing what people do, I find a comfortable spot on one of the

big couches or sit in my favorite spot gazing out the window to watch the

comings and goings of the people and dogs of London.

My dream of London came true!

Gomez is a real dog that we really found with his 

litter mates under a rock near Best Buy. He is a 

wonderful dog and a natural athlete. Although 

we could never part with him I will tell you 

that when I told him he was going to be famous 

and go to London, he went insane, jumping and 

prancing around the room. I was amazed. 

Anyway, I do these little stories and graphics 

to practice and experiment on how I want things 

to look in the real book. 

Enjoy!

I feel sorry for Greta Thunberg

When I was a child I lived on Long Island in New York. Our house was located on the only road down to the water that ended with a small boat yard. It was kind of a peninsula. My father had an outboard motor boat that we would use for family outings and fishing. Next to our house was I guess what you would call marshland. It was huge and beautiful. The cattails would grow so high you could not see to the water. I remember one day standing there looking out on the marsh and a sad feeling came over me that has never left in my entire life. It all started before I was 10 years old looking at that marsh. My parents had just told me that the marsh would be bulldozed, the waterline would be bulk-headed and houses would be built. My childhood friends and I had built an underground fort, It was just a hole in the ground that we threw a piece of plywood over and called it a fort. On the day the bulldozers arrived I remember watching as the machine hit the fort and fell in. It was not very deep but it fell in and I was happy that I had impeded their progress. It didn’t matter, they carried, on the homes were built and it was the reason we eventually packed up and moved to a farm in Maryland.

In the seventies I wanted a car. It was difficult because everyone at that time wanted a big car, a gas guzzler and at that time there was a gas shortage. I did not want one. I wanted a small car that used less gas. I found one. It was old and ratty and made in Germany and a serviceman had brought it back when his tour was over. In Europe they seemed to already know about economy and maybe they were aware of environmental issues, I don’t know, all I knew then was I used less gas which meant I was putting less stuff into the air. I was part of the environmental group in high school. It was the only club I joined in all my high school years. We had a bottle drive. We collected a lot of bottles and took them to a bottle place in Baltimore. Once. That was the end of that.
Then the gas came back, people forgot about all that, plastic became the order of the day, the population grew and I watched.

Not everyone can be an activist.

Not everyone has the time or energy to go out and fight for something even if you believe in it. From what I see and have always seen is that it is a very painful process. People hate you, ignore you, make fun of you and often react in the opposite direction. I think we call them haters? So you say why, a logical thing that will help people, why would people hate it? Who knows, do we have time to go to each one and ask them the reason they hate. So you look to the people that don’t hate. The ones that say this is a good thing, we should do something. They all have good intentions. But then they go home, go to the grocery store, buy food wrapped in plastic and don’t say to the store owner stop wrapping in plastic. They eat more meat instead of less meat. They buy take out food or delivered food and throw every bit of it in the trash when they are full. Everyone that can afford a car has a car. Or two. Everyone buys a bigger house as soon as they can afford it. And everyone buys the latest computer, phone, chargers, headsets, TV sets, batteries, water in plastic bottles and when they are done they throw them in the trash.

Clothing, endless amounts that fall apart quickly or are no longer fashionable and are discarded. Toys, Christmas decorations, Halloween decorations, New Years, you name it there are decorations and after it is over they get thrown out and new things are purchased next year, every year. My family used to save ours, in a big box in the attic. Some were very old.

We do the best we can. We live in the Caribbean so we don’t need heat. We could use air conditioning but we don’t but most people I know now do. It is very hot and getting hotter every year. We buy energy efficient cars from Japan. We combine shopping trips to save gas. We installed off grid solar on our house so we don’t take from the diesel powered energy plant. I work hard to buy and discard as little as possible. We live where every single item of food that is thrown out will be eaten by something. I feed our dogs the table scraps first. I try to buy local as often as I can. I have reduced our meat intake. When we could finally afford it we bought a boat. A sailboat. It has an engine but we don’t use it often. It has a wind turbine and solar panels to make energy. Very efficient. Get where you want to go no emissions. Wonderful.

But it doesn’t matter. Me and all my efforts are not even a drop in the bucket. Not even a molecule of a drop in the bucket. Because now my neighbours are entering the material greedy time of their lives. They buy everything they can afford, don’t use it and eventually throw it out so they have room for the next latest thing. Workmen and passersby throw their plastic water and soda bottles into the bush. We are just recovering from a drought. The bush had all gone grey and lost all its leaves so you could see to the ground that is covered in trash that will never go away. At least when the bottles were glass eventually they would break and go back into the ground but the plastic never will. When I look at it I think, why in the world would someone throw their plastic bottle into the bush? You can not ask these people, they would basically tell you to fuck off. The trash bins are piled high with the household discard every week. Every Week. The stores keep bringing in more and more and wrapping all the food in plastic even stuff that never needed plastic before and we keep buying it and throwing it away. And the worst part is that all those efforts to clean up the roadsides and throw your trash in the dumpster is wasted effort. Yes the roadside looks nice but it all ends up in the land fill which is full. Whats next. Well I can tell you because I have seen it. We visited an island recently hit by a bad hurricane. They were throwing all the broken houses, cars and general trash into the sea. Nice. Recycle, yeah right.

Recently Anguilla banned plastic grocery bags, now you have to bring your own. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Finally our garbage problem is solved. Of course all the restaurants are still piling food into Styrofoam containers with plastic forks and people are still buying them everyday. I laugh out load when I hear people talk about plastic straws. Our landfill which was non-existent when I arrived almost 30 years ago is piled high. Not as high as Sint Maarten but we are getting there.

I watch as this young passionate girl cries to the public. She is convincing. Everyone says how great she is, how strong, what a wonderful person we should all listen and follow her lead and then we see a popup on the phone that some celebrity has just got another face job and we are so glad that this young person is taking care of all our problems so we can go back to regular life.

I have had this sadness all of my life. Every time I throw a Styrofoam container (that the broccoli came in for some reason) into the trash I feel a real pain inside. Every single time.

So I feel sorry for Greta. She has the pain, it is real. She decided to throw herself under the bus for planet earth. The media and governments were happy to allow her to gain celebrity, it takes the heat off of them and she is entertaining and she created more news, giant protests that last a day, I am impressed. And just as quickly when people stop clicking on the links because they are tired of hearing a young person whine about the environment, we fixed that right or she fixed it or she is famous now, good for her, she has her own TV show, so can we go back to being oblivious please.

You know when I will be impressed. When the world stops relying on diesel for heat and fuel, gasoline too. When people stop driving cars that run on fossil fuels. Electric cars really work, they are not perfect but it’s a start. Stop burning forests so more wasted food can be bought and sold. Stop raping the oceans, too late most of them are already empty. Oh except for plastic so how about figure out ways to use plastic so it becomes valuable and not a landfill item. But I just don’t see it happening. People are always evolving. When some of us start to realize that doing all this stuff is really bad, others are saying I am too tired to cook, let’s get takeout, I finally have enough money for a new phone, laptop, TV, car or just about anything. I don’t feel like having this bottle in my car so I will throw it out on the road, someone will pick it up.
And you can absolutely NOT change their minds because in their minds they are entitled to these things, they earned it.

And that is why I feel sorry for Greta Thunberg. As we say in Anguilla, All the best to you.