Month: June 2005

Kind of hard to find a tasteful image for this post.

So as you may have heard, Wal-Mart heir John Walton died yesterday when his ultralight aircraft crashed in Grand Teton National Park. I don’t think I ever met the man, but I’m sure his friends and family miss him terribly, and if you’re one of them you should probably stop reading.

I understand that the Associated Press needs to respond quickly when things like this happen and they may not have time to edit for much more than spelling and grammar — but still, don’t you think they should have caught this:

Wal-Mart heir John T. Walton, who died in the crash of his experimental, ultralight aircraft, was remembered as a down-to-earth man…

Oh, dear.

The article goes on to quote a spokeswoman for Grand Teton National Park:

She said Walton, "well-known and much-loved in this valley, died doing something that he loved to do."

I think I might have rephrased that, too, unless Walton was known for his love of plummeting.

So, where were we?

Anyway, me and the Mrs. recently returned from our honeymoon in Curaçao, famous for producing an eponymous blue liqueur drunk only by teenagers in the dark, and Aruba, famous for causing people to start singing that Beach Boys song. On both islands they speak Papiamento, which is a patois of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French and Edward James Olmos’ lines from “Blade Runner”

Seriously though, it’s a beautiful language and we did pick up a few phrases. “Bon dia means good day, “bon bini means welcome and “masha danki” I seem to recall, means, “Thank you very much” although Jean says it means, “Faster, donkey!"

By the time we left we had picked up enough to be able to read the sign above, which I’m pretty sure means, "Johnny Walker – the world’s bendiest whisky."

When we landed in Aruba we immediately heard some airport employees speaking Papiamento, and it sounded like this: “Papiamento papiamento papiamento. After we had been in the islands a bit longer, our ears became more attuned and we were able to hear more of the subtleties of the language, and it sounded more like, “Badda bing badda bing badda bing“