My name is Shane Thomas and I am a clerk in a TV repair shop. I’m from Cocorite. But, all my vacation I mostly spend by my uncle in ‘Grande and Gasparillo. I’m as much a country as a town boy. Cocorite boy days, we’d pass through the track and come out by Fort George. They have tracks all over the hills and some boys still roam, but most of them go down on the basketball court. Cocorite do have its bad apples but most of the fellas in Cocorite are actually pleasant. I grew up and go to school with most of them and most of them is not bad. It have real mango trees in Cocorite.
In World Cup, I support Trinidad and Tobago as far as they could go. After that, I don’t care if they loss, if they come third, Germany is my team. From my parents, is seven of us. I’m my mother’s last child and my father’s second-to-last son. But the extended family is large. A lot of cousins, but the majority of them live in the country. Only about two live in Cocorite. I have no kids now, but I want. I’s pick up my six-year-old nephew, Anton Douglas, from school for my sister everyday. He come like a son to me, because I’s have him in the shop until his father come for him. My moms passed away last year. We were really close. But she had Alzheimer’s at the ending so she actually started to forget us.
If I had worked harder in school, I might have been in a different position in life. But, I wouldn’t say I’d go back and change it. Because, all the experiences I had over the years, and all the friends I’ve made since I left school to now, I appreciate what I have more because of the connections I made throughout those times. I appreciate all kinds of music. But I more listen to alternative. Linkin Park, Evanescence. Not so many new bands. I play J’ouvert with my friends. If one of us pay band fee, if is four piece of costume, five of us play. Each one of us have one piece of costume, and the fella who pay have the wristband, so they can’t tell he nothing! I drink, but on occasions. If I liming with my friends. Mostly we will drink wine at home. When we go out, we will drink beers. I read more mangas than books. In books, it have one, I forget the name of it, it was a good story, about how magic was removed from the Earth. I never finished it. But it was enjoyable, until my nieces and them lose my marker on the page. So I had was to start over. And I wasn’t doing that.
I’ve been working in the same repair shop for nearly seven years. It wasn’t my first job, but it’s definitely my longest job. I meet a lot of people in my shop I wouldn’t meet otherwise. That, and helping people, is the best part of the job. The bad part is, some people is be impatient with their items. They drop it right before we close on the weekend and calling early Monday morning to see if it ready. (TV reporter) Joel Villafana brought his television in to repair and I wrote in his name and everything, and then watched him in his face and asked, “Who are you again?” He watched me and then he watched one of the television behind me, with TV 6 going on. Then I told him I was just joking. An ageable gentleman once told me that, in life, everything you do is always meant for a reason. Talking to ageable people teaches you a lot about life and how to move. My moms used to tell me, “You going by your cousins this hour of the morning? You go get shoot!” I tell her, the times you and I grow up is different. I grow up only seeing crime so, if I scared to go out, I might never go anywhere! A Trini is somebody who looking to party at a funeral. Don’t care how high we crime is, Trinidad & Tobago is paradise.
Read a longer version of this feature at www.BCRaw.com