Plenty of bark, no bite

So they have these people on the island that assume prominent positions known as "barker."

It's quite an interesting endevour. You basically sit there and yell at unassuming tourists as they march by in some sort of daze. You can actually feel them try to stay pristine during their clueless saunter, but they are obvious marks walking the plank through downtown Charlotte Amalie.

My friend Blake is one of the best barkers in town and while I stood next to him today, I had trouble trying to hold down my lunch while be harassed and berated random white people and tried his best to get them to walk into this restaurant to have lunch. Pure word-of-mouth action in full effect here.

I stumbled away and drank beers with the Wolverine, who was tending bar about 50 feet away. I couldn't take it anymore. But I eventually came back to watch some more. It was like a car accident drive by, you had to give a gander. You know, the whole process of it.

Making, or trying to make, people do shit they may not have planned for is kind of hilarious. To watch people in those intermediate decision-making moments -- they are always brief -- is kind of hilarious.

My bud, Blake, was out there all day. I'm talking 9 to 5. It was almost too much to stomach.

Blake: "Bro, I make mad money doing this shit."

Me: "Really? I'm befuddled by all of this."

B: "Do you just say, 'befuddled'?"

M: "I did. Indeed, I did."

He later told me that he gets a dollar a head -- barked at or not barked at -- for the lunch shift. It's an air-conditioned place on the water front...OK, I get it. You'll snag a few here and there.

But wow, dude. You really wake up for the day, shower up and report for work everyday to do this shit?

I'm getting nauseated just thinking about it.

When I was younger, my brother and I sold weak-ass fireworks around July 4 in one of those tacky tents on the side of the road. In Virginia, nothing that actually shot in the air was legal so this was a junior-varsity fireworks stand.

But still, I was almost forced to sell, yell, and even bark at passerby's in the Walmart parking lot that we took homage in. It was horrible.

Do they even sell fireworks on St. Thomas? OK. I now have a new game plan...who's ready to listen to a new business venture?

Feel(ing) good story

Among a huge heap of scattered papers, empty energy drink bottles and a random baseball on my desk, I came across a letter from one of our valued V.I. Daily News readers.

Usually, people just leave crazy, F-bomb-riddled voice mail messages on my office phone to let me know I'm doing such a wonderful job covering sports in the territory.

Well, this reader ignored the phone book and typed out a lovely letter for me. It was in response to an article I wrote about a high school football player who found success amid early struggles.

The people who call the shots at the paper liked it so much, they put it on the front page and it was one of those true journalistic moments when sports transcends into news.

Or they just had nothing else to go with that day.

Please don't laugh too hard at our website design and check out the story at this LINK.

The only reason I found the buried letter is because the lady who wrote it just dropped in to discuss the article further with me. She did not know him personally, but if you read the article, I think everyone on island knew of his antics.

We talked for a while and she pleaded that I write more stories like it because there are plenty of young people that are trying to turn their lives around.

"And if you keep writing about them, the kids will read about it and try to do the same with their lives," she said, while holding my hand and trying to hold back tears.

"Wait, let me get this straight, high school kids are actually reading the newspaper?" I asked to break the tension. I think she wanted a hug.

Apparently, they do. Which is why this newspaper somehow still turns a profit. And that's probably why we haven't updated our website layout since 1990. Hmm, interesting.

Running into appreciative readers is always a breath of fresh air.

Like I said before, it does not happen often. When it does, it's pretty awesome. Especially when it comes in the form of a random grandmother with soft hands and kind words.

Running on empty

This is a photo I took of Theresa Hodge, who is the high school track and field commissioner on St. Thomas. Moments before, she delicately poured baking flour on the track to mark the finish line for an island meet held Thursday at Charlotte Amalie High School.

When I asked her if that was indeed baking flour, she sort of gave me a sly look and snickered.

"Yup, it's come to this," she said.

Just two days earlier, she held an elementary school track meet on a grass field and it took her two days to mark the lanes in different colors with spray paint.

"It's kind of hard to have a track meet when you don't have a track to run on," she said. "Some people wouldn't even consider this a track. What do you think?"

The track at CAHS -- the only one that exists on St. Thomas -- has been decaying for years. They can't even use Lane 1 because of all the divots. I wrote a story in the Daily News about it in August but the athletic director, who went off on the government during our interview, almost got fired.

Quote from the story:

"We are America's paradise and we don't look like it. We don't look like it at all. The facilities around here make us look like third world."

He had a very good point but to save his job, he scheduled a press telephone conference the day after the story was published and he apologized for his remarks.

And so it goes. The track still looks like shit and athletes still hold back because they don't want to get hurt.