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J'ouvert Spirit Alive and Well in 2008

April 24, 2008 – "Get the jam on!" rang out in the Thursday early morning air. And they did. Thousands of trampers lined Veterans Drive before sunrise, jumping up in anticipation of the many bands of J'ouvert 2008.
The annual Carnival tramp was hours late but nobody cared once the music started, or even before, as revelers danced, flinging the traditional white towels overhead to their own rhythms. The tramp is always advertised to start at 4 a.m., but hasn't gotten really rolling before 7 a.m. in years. It's become custom, if not tradition.
Newcomer Devon Garrity, though looking a little sleepy, was game. Between a couple good-sized yawns, he said, "Michelle got me up at 2:30, we were here by 3:15." His wife, Michelle, who was born in Frenchtown, laughed. "This is his first," she said. "I haven't been since 1984 when I was a teenager. It's still great."
"It's kind of cool," Garrity agreed. "I've never seen so many cultures come together before like this. As an outsider looking in, it's amazing, though I do wish the music were a little more continuous." The couple met and married in the States, and recently became Frenchtown home owners.
One of the first bands with a sign declaring "Bouncers Band All Haters Back Off," created some action for Garrity, as hundreds of trampers quickly lined up behind it, hands high in the air, hips swaying.
The bands were slow to lumber down the road in trolleys set up on the enormous trucks, but the happy trampers didn't care, as long as the music kept coming. Good cheer dominated the hugging, dancing throngs, as they grabbed a quick drink or a johnnycake from the hastily constructed roadside stands.
They came on roller skates, on bicycles, on stilts and, one enterprising soul cut figure eights through the crowd with a shiny three-wheel scooter, a Trikke 3 VC. "This is the way to go," Shawn Richardson, laughed. "You kind of rock and roll it. No more walking."
Gerry Cockrell, who led the now dissolved Mocko Jumbie Jamboree troupe for decades, made her way down the street with a light step, enjoying herself. "This is only my second J'ouvert," she smiled. "I was always busy with the troupe before."
The most popular band of the morning looked to be "JDPP Takin Over," with hundreds massing behind the brassy music. The dress code was whatever's handy. The crowd looked like it had dragged out everything in the hall closet –- top hats, high heels, plaid pedal pushers, gaily painted hard hats, wigs every color from purple to green, spangled bodies, early parade costumes, feathers, body paint, shredded shorts and T-shirts.
For the uninitiated, the massive morning party, is generally agreed to have started in Trinidad. The word, from the French "jour" and "ouvrir," roughly translates to "day open."
Traditionally, J'ouvert opens the first day of Trinidad's carnival. Folklorist Ray Allen, of Brooklyn College, says it evolved from 19th century Canboulay festivals, the nighttime celebrations where ex-slaves gathered to masquerade, sing and dance in commemoration of their emancipation.
When the tradition was incorporated into Trinidad's pre-Lent carnival, J'ouvert became an arena for African-derived percussion, satire and costuming. It's been a V.I. Carnival tradition for years, how many, nobody seems to remember.
The crowd, though raucous, was largely well-behaved. St. Thomas St. John Water Island Police Chief Rodney Querrard said, "Everything went smoothly, with more than 50 police officers on duty until noon. We had a few minor skirmishes caused by over-enthusiastic revelers which were quickly quelled by the officers, with no major incidents."

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