Author Description

Sitting here in my home on the island of St. Thomas in the United States Virgin Islands with plenty of retirement time on my hands, my mind keeps wandering back to my early teaching days at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic School here on St. Thomas. But, I especially can''t help thinking about Tom, Dick, and Larry, those rambunctious three musketeers-students of my third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade classes. I think they called themselves "The Crusaders", or maybe even "The Great Crusaders", because they considered themselves imaginary crime-fighters. Pretending to be their Saturday matinee heroes, they wanted to be just like them in every way, but mainly they wanted to rid the world (at least their imaginary, pretend world) of evildoers. I did not know much about their childhood escapades until years later after they were all grown and I had retired and moved into, by coincidence, the current neighborhood of their parents. After getting to know them and becoming good friends with them, we decided to meet biweekly for maubi and pick-up salt fish, or bush tea with patés, dumb bread, or Johnny cakes. They seemed delighted to regale me with the childhood escapades, monkeyshines, devilment, and all-around boyhood pranks and games of each of the sons, with each parent trying to outdo the other. The pride in their voices and the gleam in their eyes said it all: Despite how wild or crazy their sons might have been, or the amount of trouble they might have gotten into, their parents, nevertheless, were genuinely proud of them. The boys are now grown and successful men with families of their own, with the exception of Tom who chose to remain single while pursuing his career as a social worker in the United States Air Force. Single by choice, Tom, as a clinical social worker, gains satisfaction from helping the clients he serves, active-duty servicemen, servicewomen, and their families, along with an occasional retiree