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The
Essence of Hedo July
7 - 17, 2000
(Click
on links for pictures. All pictures used with written consent.)
It’s
been a few weeks since I’ve returned from my 4th trip “home”.
This time it truly did feel like home to me.
I can’t say that was more than just a phrase before this past trip.
I will try to not fill this with details of the specific events that
happened during the WWW 2000 Summer trip, others will do that, but more of the
highlights of my 10 days.
Someone said that getting there and getting home are the only two clear things you remember...the rest is just a blur of day to day fun, that is so true for this trip. I was sitting at the Phoenix airport, waiting for my first direct flight and Air Jamaica’s 7th direct flight from Phoenix to Montego Bay, which sure does beat the many hours of travel and connections. The flight leaves around 10:30 at night and arrives early the next morning. I had been ready for the airport since at least noon, and was the only one at the Air Jamaica ticket counter, I was so early. Check in was very efficient. I decided to buy a magazine to read after the bar closed and kicked me out. I was sitting there minding my own business, when I hear a voice in my ear that says, “I’ve got my baggie packed, let’s go”. I immediately recognized Bette’s voice and was so shocked that they’d travel to the airport to see me off. I had been so disappointed that Gum and Bette weren’t going to be able to make it this year. They were such a key part of the original trip, I couldn’t imagine a trip without them. Bette told me they had their bags packed and were ready to go. I saw the Air Jamaica flight envelope in Gum’s pocket and I still thought to myself, he must have gotten that at the counter downstairs just to fool me. It wasn’t until I saw their boarding passes that it finally hit me......they were really going. I think they heard me scream three gates down. I was almost the last to know. I was really excited now.....two of my best friends I’d be spending the next week with. Life is good.
Our
trip to Jamaica was very uneventful...other than the plane was extremely hot
and there is NO leg room, we left a little late, but arrived on time.
Arriving at Sangster’s International Airport at 5:45 AM (remember
when I said I wanted to see a sunrise? That
was the only day I did see the sun rise over Jamaica, and it was beautiful
from the air) made immigrations, customs, and the Tim Air flight over to
Negril a complete breeze. We were
at Hedo’s front desk just before 7AM. Beth
(Ro and Beth) was the first to greet us.
She came up with her coffee in hand and said Ro was sacked out.
Sounded like he would be the first one we needed to wake up.
We filled out our paperwork and were even given our exact room numbers,
but of course, it’s way too early to check in, the guests in the rooms aren’t
leaving till noon. No problem mon..... After
we went and woke Ro’s butt out of bed, and dropped our stuff in their room,
we all ventured out to the nude beach and run into the early morning
risers....Jeff and Kim, Damian and Robin, Tom and Barb, and Bill.
I’m sure I forgot someone, apologies in advance.
Most were as surprised as I was at seeing Gum and Bette there also.
A decent size group had arrived by 8 AM, and we decided to venture up
to the dining room to get some breakfast.
I’d been up since 6 the morning before, and couldn’t sleep on the
plane, so I’m a tad slap happy by the time we finish breakfast.
Bette and Gum decided to go crash somewhere, but I thought Denny would
be in by 10 AM, so I decided to tough it out.
When he wasn’t there by 11, I decided I couldn’t last, and found
Bob and Anni, another couple from Phoenix, and crashed in their room for a
while. Thanks to all of you who
offered your room to me. I woke
up three hours later, felt brand new, and here is the spot where it all
becomes a blur.
I
got up and went out to the beach.....the WWWers that were there already were
all in fine form. Laughing,
hugging, renewing old friendships and meeting new faces. This is really what a WWW trip is all about.
It had been a year since I’d seen some of these folks.
Many more I was meeting for the first time, yet we had corresponded for
weeks and even months prior to the trip either via email, AOL IM sessions or
in Denny’s chat room. So many I
felt I’d known for years after an hour or two.
Denny still hadn’t arrived, and while I wasn’t overly worried,
Keith (Keith and Lisa) insisted that he brought a whole stack of AT&T
phone cards and we were going to find Denny (via the phone??
I really would have rather gone to the grotto).
We went up to their room, and of course, the AT&T cards didn’t
work. Then again, we really had
no idea of where to start looking for him.
I kept telling Keith that he will contact us, but nooooo, Keith was
insistent. Lisa and I basically
sat there and laughed at him, I think the booze was starting to hit us. I still wonder how much all those information calls were that
you billed to your home phone number Keith.
Sometime around 5 to 6 that evening, here comes the Dennymon......what
a happy sight he was to see. He
had an ordeal getting to Negril, from Omaha via Atlanta, Miami, Kingston and
finally MoBay. The original
ticket agent kept his return tickets.....but Denny is NEVER one to complain
and he was ready for a good time now, he’d worry about his return tickets
another time. We spent the rest
of the afternoon in the pool and hot tub until it was time to meet some
friends that had arrived before us from Phoenix in Pastafari’s for dinner.
We had a great time with Bob and Anni, and it was great to see Jeff and
Shannon, even though it was their last night at Hedo. Jeff and Shannon had been virgins just 6 days before, and I
do say......they lost that in a hurry and it was all we could do to keep their
clothes on during dinner. Hope to
be able to have more days together at Hedo next time with you guys.
You are definitely Hedo naturals.
Saturday the majority of the WWWers began arriving. It was soooo good to see everyone again, and to meet all the new people. From this point on, it was one constant party of which I have to vote Beth (Mike and Beth) as the distinct leader of locating fun and trouble for this years trip. That girl could have fun in a paper bag, I swear. Mike was the guy who secured the coveted WWW hats this year. That was a great way to find people. Beth was constantly up to something, if anyone wanted to have fun, hang with her for just a few minutes, she will come up with something new and fun. Of course it didn’t hurt to have her fun sidekicks along, Patty (Patty and Chip, who was voted the Denny look a like for the week. Even I thought Chip was Denny one time, do I owe you an apology for anything I did that day?), and Bonnie (Bonnie and Kevin). Seemed as those three were constantly making me laugh. Was it the water balloons and raid on the prude pool, the climbing in the window of room 2180 when new people arrived and left their window ajar, or the licking of the outside of the window at Pastafari’s with ones tongue that got to me the most? Either way, I laughed so hard, my sides ached.
I
remember that they changed the wet T shirt contest to a different day (I think
Monday to Tuesday) that week, which gave an extra day of confidence to the WWW
gals. I am happy and proud to
announce we had a WWW sweep......Clista, Beth, and Heather won 1st,
2nd, and 3rd place respectively. Here is a picture
of 1st and 2nd place winners, and of course, Denny. Wow, hard to believe that some of the contestants were Hedo virgins
just a few days prior. Everyone
did a great job, and it was one of the funniest wet T Shirt contests I have
ever seen. The funniest
participant was Patty with her HUGE inflatable boobs, and that sexy little
butt of hers. She really did ham
that up well.....tell me Patty, did you really use to be a topless dancer
before you had those boobs reduced?
The
catamaran trips are always one of my favorite activities.
Remind me not to drink so much next time the day before.
Why is the WWW private one the night after PJ party?
I was really feeling like crap that day, but finally started to feel
like a normal person about the last hour.
I remember floating in the water at the Pickled Parrot, and seeing
Brett (Brett and Ellie) climb up that ladder and turn around, and thinking to
myself, “that sure is strange, he has the same bathing suit bottom that I
just saw Sharon in. Weird...a
mens and a womens version of the same suit, and they both wear it the same
day.” Last year I was so embarrassed for her that night the guy
that was doing the battle of the sexes had on the same exact dress that she
wore. Still two years in a row, I
had no clue it was HER bottoms. Guess
I’m a slow learner. I
swear I will realize it next year!!
One of the most humbling experiences of this trip was the school supply collection that Denny arranged. He suggested this on the message board about a month before our trip, and suggested that if anyone wanted to, that they bring some school supplies for the local school in Negril. We didn’t get much direction as to what age group the school was, and were told that they need anything.....pencils, sharpeners, erasers, the stuff we take for granted. The overwhelming response from the WWWers really moved me. Every single time we returned to our room, there seemed to be a bag or two of more school supplies. Someone else (I believe it was Dennis, thanks for that), suggested back packs, which many people brought and packed their supplies in those. I ended up trying to combine things when the space on our floor was becoming non existent. I think we ended up with probably 35 or 40 completely filled backpacks and what turned out to be two additional HUGE boxes of school supplies. I think this school will have school supplies for the next couple of years. Hedo was not willing to be responsible for collecting the items, so if you plan to do anything like this in the future, know that you have to be responsible for collecting and keeping it until they are ready for it. Denny was working with Robin in the PR dept, and he kept saying tomorrow, tomorrow. Finally on Thursday, Robin called and told us that he would be down to get everything that night, and the teacher from the school would be there tomorrow afternoon and he wanted us to do a presentation then. We couldn’t do it on the nude beach, that would just be too hard for the teacher, she didn’t want to be there. Cool and totally understandable. They brought a luggage cart down, and it took the 2 guys about 6 or 7 trips up and down the stairs to get all of it. This was after piling 5 or 6 back backs on each arm for most of the trips. Robin told us to all meet at Veronicas Friday at 2pm. We passed the word to those WWWers who were interested in going along.
On
Friday at promptly 2pm, we arrived at Veronica’s in clothes.
Lots of other WWWers showed up also.....pretty soon around 2:15, here
comes Robin, but no teacher. We
hung around and she showed up around 2:45, but that was cool with us, we were
hanging where it was cool, doing the same stuff we’d been doing all week,
laughing and being silly. Novia
Parkinson was the teacher. We did
the presentation, and went up
to the office where everyone was able to finally see the mass of school
supplies that the WWWers all contributed.
I know Ms. Parkinson was very surprised and happy.
We went back over to Veronica’s and she shared about her school and
her passion for the kids. She has
been a teacher for 27 years, and loves it.
She told us that the school we were contributing to was more of a
preschool, ages 3 - 6, and they also had an older grammar school that they
would share the supplies with. The
Jamaican children go to school for 10 months out of the year, with the time
being split into 3 terms. The
cost of maintaining the school is borne very slightly by the government, but
the teachers salary is dependant on the charge made to the parents.
The cost is $1,000 Dollars per term....wow, that is expensive, I think
to myself. She tells us that if
the parent can’t pay, they still take the child, but basically the teacher
just doesn’t get her full salary. She
was very emphatic that if they do have to talk to a parent about the tuition
that they “do it out of the ear of the child.”
For this $3,000 a year, the kids get breakfast and a hot lunch.
All of a sudden, it hit me, and I asked are you talking about 1,000
Jamaican or US dollars? She looked rather stunned and said, no Jamaican dollars.
I realized it costs me J$1,000 just to get out of Jamaica from
vacation. Those of us sitting
there could have put 4 kids thru school for a year just on what we pay to
leave their country. I paid that
twice last year, and will do it again this year. Talk about a humbling experience. I think all of us were moved beyond words, and life shifted
just a little bit for me that day. We
wrapped it up with Ms. Parkinson and said our goodbyes, hugged and promised we’d
see her again. I walked away with
conviction that this won’t be the last time I will help with this kind of
project, even though I did very little.
Think what we can do so easily at Christmas to bring some smiles to the
children.
I was ready to get my clothes off, that was the longest they remained on during the day. We all ended up back at Delroy’s, and there was Ms. Parkinson. Of course, she was dressed (I almost felt like I wish I was too). She was so thankful, she just decided she wanted to come down and thank everyone. We told her there were over 200 people who had contributed and those of us there, were just a handful. She came down to thank everyone else. Probably most of you missed that part, but she was very grateful and a very gracious person. I hope we can someday see her at her school, which she invited us to. This year the kids had just gotten out of school on July 6th, so no way to see them this time around. I’m sure there will be other opportunities.
Toga
night is normally my least favorite evening.
We decided to have any of the WWWers that wanted to participate
(everything is optional with WWW) wear purple togas rather than the
traditional white ones. There
really were some outstanding togas this year, and we definitely stood out as
the WWW crowd. We had some talent
among the WWWers and several participated in the talent show.
I sure do wish they’d drop the staff acts and just go with whatever
the guest are willing to do. Thanks
for the great talent guys. Wilson plays a mean piano, Brett and his great
singing, and Denny for his magician act. You guys were really great.
All in all this was the best toga night I’ve ever been to, and by far
the most creative togas. We didn’t stay for the congo line, it was over to Veronica’s
for us. We ended many of our
evenings there, before retiring to the hot tub.
The hot tub was sedate at times and wild at times.
Of course the wild times will be the ones playing over and over in my
head. As always, those kinds of
things remain at Hedo.
My
favorite night at Veronica’s was when the gals were standing in line waiting
for Dave to play “piece by piece”. We
laughed so hard that night even Dave had to stop them from jumping up on the
piano. I think that was the night
we met Bo and Dixie, an absolutely adorable couple from the South.
Dixie and I decided we were going to leave and go pretend to be
lesbians that night. We headed
off towards the hot tub with our arms around each other and the guys close
behind us. We made them walk far
enough behind that people would believe we were.....or was that just the
alcohol that made us think that? That
is another special night that the details will remain at Hedo.
One last highlight definitely had to be the icing, pudding, chocolate party. That was one of those things that could NEVER have been planned to turn out that fun. It got started, and just wouldn’t stop. Denny had a jar of really good chocolate sauce and I was painting nipples of anyone who wanted them painted. Pretty soon everyone was wanting theirs done. The object was that someone else was suppose to lick it off before anything got in the water. I will admit that maybe that wasn’t the best condition we left the hot tub in, but I did check with security once during and he said he had NO problem with what we were doing.....”No problem mon, we are going to clean it soon anyway.” He stood there and watched us the whole time, seeing how much fun everyone was having. I had a blast that day as it seemed like everyone did...well everyone except that one couple in the cool tub (and I DON’T mean The Baron). When I see people being THAT miserable at Hedo, I really have to wonder. Oh well, enough of that subject. A zillion great memories vs one bad one.....great odds in my book.
Speaking of The Baron....now there is a man with a heart bigger than all of Hedo. It’s hard to believe that I met The Baron and his lovely Theresa just a year ago. I feel like I’ve known them both all my life for some reason. We went to dinner with them one night at Pastafari’s and the wine was called Baron d’Argidoth (or something like that....Baron d’something). I always enjoy eating at Pastafari’s, I think the food is better than the dining room and the company is always great. We normally make reservations in the morning, and then ask others to join us, gives us a great time to meet people on a different level than we do at the beach or pool. This year the air conditioning wasn’t working so well in Pastafari’s. After I got use to it, I never noticed it, the company was always what I way paying attention. Thanks to all I got to know better this way. Mark and Clista, Dave and Nina, and The Baron and Theresa. To the others we had dinner with, I enjoyed it equally well, I just didn’t get any pictures on my camera of those nights. Thanks to all for the good memories.
OK,
I’m getting to the end, the Hedo highlights are over, the rest you can skip
if you want to, it’s about my trip home and a couple of observations I had.
I had the time of my life this year at Hedo, by far the best trip I’ve
ever had in all respects, until our trip home.
As I’ve been writing this trip report, I realized all the things I
learned this year, and the lessons that I learned on our trip home would not
have happened without what came next.
The
check-in the morning at Hedo was
the fastest I’ve ever seen. We
were waiting since around 10am, and the Air Jamaica guy shows up early.
He handed us our boarding passes, collected our departure tax and we
were out of there before 10:30 (normal checkout time is 10:30 to 11:30, sharp,
according to them, I always laugh when I read that part). Back to the pool to
enjoy our final few hours. Most of the WWWers as well as other friends I’d met were
gone by now, so it was very sad for me. I
was just kinda able to chill that day, visiting with the few that were still
there. I was thinking of all the
fun we had, and yet being filled with sadness that I might not see some of
these people for another year. Thanks
to everyone who has been keeping in touch since we got home....it’s part of
what has gotten me thru all the DIF.
We left Hedo around 2pm on Monday, grabbed a cab to the TimAir office, and soon we were off. When we arrived at Sangster, we were able to avoid that horrible line, and I went right to the main waiting area (Denny had to chase his earlier kept tickets down via three different lines). Our flight was soon announced as slightly delayed and updates would soon come, no problem. I had a connecting flight in Atlanta with a two hour layover, so I wasn’t worried. Well, this delay turned into a 3 hour delay, which was now going to cause me to miss my flight. I had to go stand in line to get my tickets rebooked for a morning flight. Eventually we all got on the plane and took off. About 10 or 15 minutes into the flight it appeared that we were going down rather than up, and I noticed that while the sun had been setting on my side of the plane, it was now setting on the other side. I mentioned this to Denny, and he said, “I think we’ve turned around”. Pretty soon the pilot came on and announced that he was sorry, but we were going back to Montego Bay due to electrical problems. I had never had this happen, but still not worried, I said a few prayers and was confident everything would be fine. I've always said when I die......I want to die on my way home from a vacation, preferably a vacation at Hedo. I think I really meant I want to be able to go to Hedo until the day I die. I've told all my friends and family that for years. I love to travel, and since I've found Hedonism, that is where I’ve found out so much about life. The part of life that is the most important to me.....people and attitudes. When the pilot came on and said that we had turned around, I looked over at Denny and said, "Maybe I should have been more careful about what I say."
One
of the things that I've learned from Hedo is....pick your battles.
You can't fight all of them. After
we had to turn around, the behavior I witnessed in that airport was such a
huge lesson for me. People went
insane about things that they could do absolutely nothing about.
We were on the ground, safe, maybe some were tired. We were all standing in lines at customer service, and
people are bitching, complaining, yelling at each other and the ticket agents
and basically being about as rude as anyone could be. I thought to myself I can't believe all these people just
spent a week in Jamaica, they all should have gone to Hedo. Tom and Barb were still there as they were also late leaving,
and I sat there and laughed at everyone with Tom.
Yes, the customer service at Air Jamaica had a lot to be desired, but
the truth was, that we couldn't do anything about it, so why get upset?
Eventually they got us all on busses after we retrieved our luggage and
got us to a decent hotel. This
one was larger and somewhat nicer than Hedo.
The hotel workers were great, they had closed their kitchen, but said,
no problem, we will have dinner ready in an hour.
There were two other couples who had been with us at Hedo, David and
Kay and Jerry and Wendy, and the six of us decided we’d make the best of
it....and wondered if we could make their hot tub a nude hot tub for the
night. We went to the bar, and
just continued what we had started at Hedo, except this time, we had our
clothes on. Was it a hassle, a
little....but what were we going to do about it?
I bet the friends and family of those that were on the Concord last
week wished their loved ones had been delayed a night.
Unfortunately, when we got back to the airport in the morning, we had
to stand in line and recheck in. Again,
it wasn’t handled right, as they made all of us stand in one line with one
ticket agent and it took us an hour and 45 minutes.
People got downright nasty. This
one woman, ended up screaming “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP” over and over
again at another woman who she tried to take cuts in front of.
She had the entire airport staring at her, and again, I thought to
myself, ‘pick your battles for God’s sake, the plane isn’t going
anywhere without all of us’. We
were in line in front of this woman at immigrations when we got to Atlanta,
and it was all I could do not to say something to her.
She didn’t get there any faster behaving like that, in fact, she was
behind me now, and I just giggled to myself.
Well,
that about wraps up my experiences of the WWW 2000 Summer Extravaganza.
To all I got to spend time with, thank you for sharing a part of your
life with me. To those I didn’t
get to spend a lot of time with, let’s make a point of it next chance we
get. To Denny, words will never
be enough to thank you. Thank you for always being my biggest supporter, my
lover, my friend, my teacher and most important, my mirror.
I love you all.
