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Helen painted bright t-shirts in her store in Cruz Bay. I had my shirt, loaded with bright fruit, for over 10 years and the colors never did fade. Starbo bought it for me for my birthday. The stores walls were painted to look like exquisite marble.

Steve Simonson filmed and produced this video. Steve is a famous St John local, famous for his photography. He is often seen on the cover of Caribbean Life and Islands magazines. I knew Steve as a father of a Pine Peace student, always active in his son’s life.

It is nice to see the two combine their talent.

Fun video filmed from a visitors eye

He lived in a house we shared with Diver Dave above Salt Pond when we first arrived in 1983.

He lived on a boat in Cruz Bay when he was almost two.

We moved back to the states till he was six then we moved back and lived in a tent on a plateform on our property in Coral Bay.

Most of  his growing days were spent hiking the hills, playing on the beach, splashing in the waters, sailing the winds of the Virgin Islands.

He moved off the island for part of high school and college, making his life outside of the island; always holding a special place in his heart for St John.

It only makes sense he would bring his soul mate to the Isand and propose to her at Salt Pond.

She said YES!

Road past Vie's, East end

View of East End

Jeremy and Keri

An interview with producer Steve Simonsen about his project commemorating the park’s 50th anniversary. The video talks about how St John became a National Park and shows 1950 film footage of how St John looked back then. It also lets you know where you can purchase this documentary.

I was living in a van with my boyfriend in 1980. We would winter in Key West then drive slowly up North visiting friends and any cool park along the way. Someone gave us the book “Be here now”. My biggest memory is sitting on a picnic table at a Gainesville college campus reading the book and being blown away with the deep insights that were totally mind expanding to both of us. We were so young with such a free lifestyle. We just soaked all the Ram Dass energy right up.

About 12 years later “Grist for the Mill” was delivered by a spirit. My partner’s mother died. On the plane ride home from St Kitts, the island his mother spent her entire life living on until the day of her death, he found a book left behind by a previous passenger. He brought it home. It was “Grist for the Mill” by Ram Dass.

This was odd for two reasons.

#1) this book is all about death and how we relate to death. It felt like his mother was comforting him.

#2) The fact that he actually brought it home. Starbo doesn’t really deal with anything that doesn’t belong to him. He grew up with a West Indian background. The only used stuff they would take was from close family. He would frown if someone gave me hand-me-downs for the kids. Whereas, I grew up getting excited about free stuff. Also Starbo is not much of a book reader but yet he brought this book home.

What are the odds that this book would appear in the very seat he was assigned; sounds like a message from somewhere ethereal.

I first met Ram Dass after hearing him speak on a hill overlooking the Caribbean ocean. It was when the Christ of the Caribbean statue was still at Peace Hill. The air was fresh and the sky blue. It was a gorgeous day, not unlike most days in St John. There were over a hundred people on that small hill. I have no recollection of the question I asked but I remember the warm smile I was delivered and the gentle handshake I received.

I took this picture in 1991