... looking for old Presentation College alums

Devotees of the site probably know about the ongoing brief history of g valentino which has been an attempt to sum up my life, or parts of it at least. If you've been playing along at home, you'll know that it's best listed as

Minto born, Barbados raised, Halifax educated, Toronto employed, Moscow paid

For most of my life those circles did not intersect: when I went to Halifax, no one from Minto came etc. They really only converged, in a most interesting way, when I got on Facebook. For the first time ever, people who knew me in Minto were talking to people who worked with me in Toronto, who were also getting good stories about University me from people in Halifax.

Notice anything missing?

One part that seems to have fallen into the ol' memory hole is Barbados. It seems that no matter how hard I look through Google, or Facebook, or twitter I just can't seem to find the people who I went to school with in Barbados.

Well, here I go. I'm going to do that thing that hundreds of failed book pitches begin with: A guy puts out a random call on the Internet to find some old friends.

Yes, I'm going to write a post and mention the name of my old school, Presentation College in Barbados, many times over. I'm hoping that saying something about Presentation College in Barbados, which was in Verdun, not too far from Four Cross Roads, might mean that someone like me just doing a silly little search on the web will find this.

My three years in Barbados at Presentation College weren't the best of my life, I'll admit. It was that awkward age, and I was the outsider and was probably actively trying not to fit in. I was moody, short tempered, and way too sensitive for my liking. I think the condition is called "adolescence" but I'm not Dr Leo Spaceman.

But those three school years (when I went to Presentation College), 1995-1998 probably did as much to make me into the person that I am today. It was the first time I had lived outside of New Brunswick, let alone Canada. I got a different perspective on life just at the time when you're normally starting to think you know everything. I studied a lot of things that have stuck with me, and a few very weird things that I still love to drag out (like the fact that the flag of Switzerland is a perfect square, solving simultaneous linear equations using matrices, or how to prove the Sine Law in trig, which is a lovely little proof that I still doodle sometimes when I need to concentrate on something. See, it starts with constructing an equilateral triangle ABC and dropping a perpendicular from A to bisect BC at a point D....I'll stop now.)

I also picked up some weird compulsions there, like a craving for flying fish that cannot be satiated. Or the fact that a nice warm smell of roti can make me hungry like *snap* that. I still maintain that Upper 10 is a premium beverage, and that there's nothing finer than a Pineapple Juice-y, or a Grape Fruitee. Sometimes when I get very agitated I fall into a White Bajan accent, or suck my teeth like so *suqueeeeee*. I also picked up an odd habit of calling everyone "Sir", which amuses my boss to no end.

But for all these effects that living in Barbados had in my life, it's like it just stopped existing after I left. Sure I've seen a few of the gang when I went back to visit, but it's been close to 20 years since I last set foot on the island. I went back to Presentation College at that time. It's not a school anymore. It stopped being one about 2 years after I left. The last time I was there it was being used as a community centre to help people who were down on their luck get back up and running again. It was in better shape than it ever was when I was a student there. As cheesy as this sounds, I was glad.

The odd part about these people falling through the cracks is that like your hero here, a lot of us have weird names that should just make Google pop, but haven't. I'm going to list a few of them here, mostly to see if anyone anywhere knows of them and can direct them to this page.

• Brendan Briggs was the first person who really befriended me when I moved there. He was from Yorkshire. He and all his siblings has been born in Yorkshire because his father was a cricket nut, and the only way you could play for the Yorkshire side was to be born there (and be male). Brendan was the only boy out of the 5 of them and had little to no interest in cricket. I used to try to teach him how to play golf, which his father resented because it was going to ruin his cricket swing. Brendan moved back to the UK after the first year I was there. We wrote for about a year, and I promised to come and see him but my father put the kibosh on that. Haven't heard from him since. He had a sister named Imogen.
• Edward McTurk was Guyanese and pure mid 80s. He was the one who introduced me to military fiction and military sci-fi. Of all the people I met, he probably most defied description, but was also one of the funniest and smartest people I've ever known.
• Joel Schmidt was another Canadian. His father worked for one of the banks, I do believe. He and I were in constant competition for top ranks in our classes, which he won more often than not (In my more petty moments I attribute that to his ability to draw a straight line in art class, while my art for lack of a better word could be described as "Exhibit A in a mental competency hearing'")
• Gomesh Thani was actually the first person I met when I went to Presentation, on orientation day. We always had an interesting relationship, but he could tell a story like no-one's business. A lot of the the rhythms I use when I tell a story are based on an hilarious monologue he'd tell about his father arguing with a gardener.
• Gregory Watkins was one of g-d's most unfortunate creatures. He lived in Barbados, in the middle of a sugar cane field, and had an allergy to sugar cane pollen. He was also a great and graceful footballer. A familiar sight most of the year was Greg, running down the pitch, his arms slightly out and to the side, with a stream of tissue coming out of one hand. We called him "Kleenex". One of the most natural artists I've ever know.
• Jason Markle, who I have seen in living memory, was the first Canadian I met there. He also introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons, and actually had an awesome selection of music and computer games. I guess he was the root of my nerdiness.
  
• Padmore John. Most of us went by our last names there. Not Padmore. This was mostly because when you have an awesome name like "Padmore", you wear that like a badge. Also, "John" was too close to a first name. He was another funny gent and storyteller.

I'm sure there are other members of the core group that I'm forgetting, but this is as good an introduction that I'm likely to give before I get into a whole bunch of weird and half remembered stories.

So I toss this out to the world. There's contact info on the page if you are any of these people. Just drop a line, and lemme know that I didn't dream the whole thing. As always I can be reached at gvalentino at gmail dot com.

So...how YOU doin'?