FROM under the scrapheap of failed economists crawls Carl Greenidge, the erstwhile PNC economic spin doctor; he who spun a lot of rotten rope, pretending to be a silkworm who spun beautiful silk with which to clothe the nation. “Facts and Figures” have been weaved furiously in a schizophrenic web of confusion to trap us into deluding ourselves that we were so, so, so much better off then than we are now. Well, we ungrateful masses who remember and broke free of those “wonderful” days have our real, flesh and blood, facts and figures to lay before the public who can now, unlike those days, freely read, discuss, expound and publish their own views (even ones like Greenidge’s) freely and without fear.
Interestingly, the best way to compare then and now is by the use of the same feature that makes up a web – the Line.
Line 1: The food and/or basic supplies Line: Every now and then during Greenidge’s wonder years, it would be rumoured or announced that some scarce item (one not already banned, that is) would, by the grace of the powers that be (Greenidge and his colleagues), be appearing in the shops.  We rush down to the outlet, mostly government controlled (Control the food supply, Control the People, one Machiavellian fellow once said) and gratefully waited in the long line for our bountiful windfall of one pound of sugar, or salt or cake of soap, sometimes sweet soap, sometimes salt, and the precious pint of liquid gold, the proverbial cooking oil, so craved by the ever happy line-uppers of the day. Sometimes, if we got a little boisterous or restless, we would, lucky us, have those beautiful horse guards come down to keep us in line.
Today, poor downtrodden sods that we are under this administration, we are forced into making the painful decision at which, of the numerous outlets existing, we will shop, then after filling our baskets with our choice of the myriad items available, to stand in the lines of the checkout counter and await the scrutiny of the well nourished, smiling checkout girl. God help us!
Line 2: The Water Line: In those days there were many different types of water lines. There was the family line to the bathroom in your own house, everyone trying to catch that window of opportunity, that hour or so in the day, when the water trickled through the taps, praying all the time that the dreaded blackout wouldn’t come to put a premature end to the well’s infrequent and meagre output.  The line of buckets outside the bathroom door testified to the fact that water rarely climbed upstairs except by bucket. There was the line of course to fill those buckets at the yard standpipe and the long wait as the buckets slowly filled.  Standpipe was actually a misnomer, as most were stoop pipes, having to be as low as possible to the ground to get a goodish flow.  Contamination was inevitable.  Sometimes as days passed without adequate supply through the yard pipes, desperate citizens broke the mains, usually where they crossed trenches, and then, hanging precariously over the trench, one hand holding on for dear life and the other outstretched with bucket trying to catch the erratically spraying water, you gathered that small amount of precious stuff that they say “is Life”.
Everywhere, but especially along the main roads, like ants in procession, backward and forward, from dawn to dusk, or whenever water started flowing at the well’s outlets, enterprising youngsters pulled carts with the family’s buckets to and from the waiting line.  Invariably, water-fetching time cut sharply into school-going time. Because of that and other imposing reasons, the educationally-lost generation was created in those days.
I haven’t seen an intentionally broken pipe lately, have you? Have any of you seen many, or any, school-aged youngsters pulling water carts lately?
Line3: The Gas Line: Despite the fact that they were far fewer cars in those days, the lines at the gas stations were much longer and the wait was even longer. (I use the singular station because often only one station at a time would occasionally acquire gas to sell.  The lines of course came from every direction). Nearly all the cars in the jurisdiction would turn up at the same time. One turned up at the gas station on rumour of gas and waited.  Unlike today when the same car, if well used, may turn up at the gas station two days hence, the car of those days could sometimes still be in the same line two days hence.  In order to get other work done, spouses or friends shared the waiting time.  With gas in the tank running low and no guarantee that one would make it to the pump before gas ran out, one invariably had to turn the engine off and as the line moved, push the car to the next waiting.  Corkballs, of course, were prevalent in those days and we all know what that means!
Today, we alleged destitute, marginalized and discriminated against people, in our relative good, albeit second-hand, vehicles, have to roll in , tank up and roll out as quickly as we can or else the Greenidge’s boogey man may get us. What a gas!
And there were endless other lines, all inspired by the same decadent misrule.
Of course, we must not forget what was possibly the most lucrative line of all – having the proverbial lines.  If you had ‘lines’ you may have been able to jump the line and get some of the little of what was available at the end of the lines.  If you were a plucky operator you could have lines that gave you access to the black market, which thrived.  If you weren’t and were desperate, the last resort line was getting a ‘Party Card’, especially if you were in the “looking for a job Line”.
Incidentally, the other day, I saw the great man in a line in one of the commercial banks.  It was a line made up fully of that wonderful mix of humans that make up awe Guyanese. There weren’t any Africans, Indians, Portuguese, Chinese or otherwise, although if you didn’t know better or was malicious you would have divided them as such. But no, I am sure that I only saw Guyanese prosperously going about their business together, happily, unhampered. In a line that they were sure would have a successful end.  Mr. Greenidge, as free as the rest of us, joined the line with a smile on his Guyanese face.