Gentleness and pet fishes THE EDITOR, Sir: A LOT of talk is being made these days about the need for Jamaica to move towards a kinder and gentler society. As a boy growing up in Kingston one of the things that helped me develop my kindlier and gentler side were the pet fishes I used to have. Like most boys of the time we all would have fish tanks, even if our tank was a huge sugar bowl. Religiously we would go to King Street to buy fish from the vendor who sold some really colorful specimens right across from the court house. They were pretty expensive. So after a while my friends and I resorted to catching our own fish. Normally this would be a 'ticky ticky' or a 'perch' (probably the same type of fish). We would invest our meagre pocket money in brown fish food, sold in the 4 x 5 plastic bag. Again this was a bit expensive for our pockets, so after a while we resorted to feed our fish with the crumbs from dry bread. Now this was no easy task, as you had to put the bread in the sun and wait for it to get really hard. Afterwards, you would have to grate the bread using a grater. Then place the small crumbs in the fish bowl/tank. The saddest moments as a boy was waking up and seeing your fish floating (dead). Maybe the bread killed it, who knows. From that experience I learned that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. I wonder, how many of our children have pets? I am etc., JOHN EASTMOUNT E-mail: eastmount_33@yahoo.ca Via Go-Jamaica
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