My Traumatic Childhood

                                            Because of the Lago Commissary

                                            By: Dan Jensen

From the book CARIBBEAN MEMORIES by Dan Jensen

It was the Commissary, “The Company Store”, in Lago Colony that was the cause of my greatest frustration growing up; in fact, if you were to ask a psychologist he or she would probably tell you that what I experienced because of the Lago Commissary was a traumatic childhood experience that lasted until I was fifteen years old.

To understand this dilemma of mine to the fullest, let me introduce myself and tell you a little about my childhood growing up in Lago Colony on the island of Aruba.

My parents were both from Denmark; my Father came to Aruba in 1926 and my Mother followed in 1928, when there was a house available.  It was not until 1938 that I came along and I was born in St. Petersburg, Florida, where my Mother went to have me so I would be an American. My parents were Danish and did not understand American children, or at least so I thought.

I spent my early years, the war years, in Aruba and after World War II my parents wanted to go to Denmark to see how their families fared, so in 1947 we went from Aruba to Denmark on a Danish tanker, I was nine years old.
As a nine-year-old boy I wanted to wear blue jeans just like all the other boys in Lago Colony so my Mother went to the Lago Commissary and got me Blue Bells.  This is what they stocked in the Lago Commissary.  Blue Bells were blue, made of denim, but they were not REAL BLUE JEANS. I could never explain this to my Danish Mother.  These were blue pants, cut square and big.  They had big square legs, big; I am talking really big, back pockets.  There was even a strap on the right leg to hang your hammer.  There were no brass rivets at the stress points, no leather patch on back of these pants, and they were just not cut anything like REAL BLUE JEANS.
REAL BLUE JEANS were Levis or Lees.  Blue Bells were work pants.
My Mother just did not understand.  She said they were “blue” and “denim” and therefore they were “blue jeans”.  I was young and foolish so I wore them to school, much to my chagrin.
Most of the other boys in the Colony had parents who were American, went to the States for vacation and got Levis and Lees while they were there. That is what they wore to school; they did not wear Blue Bells. Their parents had grown up in blue jeans and understood.  My parents and the Lago Commissary had not, none of them understood.
I understood.  I was different.  I did not have REAL BLUE JEANS and that can hurt a kid.  No child wants to be different.
I began to hope that when we went on vacation we would go through the States and I could get a few pairs of REAL BLUE JEANS, but no, we went to Denmark on a Danish tanker, direct from Aruba to Denmark, no stops and 30 days crossing the Atlantic.
As soon as we got back from Denmark in 1947, I began to hope that in 1949 we would go to the States on vacation and I could get a pair of REAL BLUE JEANS.  In the meantime I suffered the humiliation of having to wear Blue Bells to school, to the movies and even swimming.
My Mother also purchased my shirts and underwear from the Commissary.  The shirts were OK, I mostly wore white T-shirts and so did the other boys and a T-shirt is a T-shirt.  I also started smoking when I was thirteen years old.  I thought it was grown-up and cool. I wanted to be like the big kids, so I rolled my cigarettes in the sleeve of the T-shirts.  This was so everyone could see you carried cigarettes and also the T-shirts did not have pockets.  This was supposed to be really cool, but how can you look cool when you are wearing Blue Bells.  Even with your cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve, the pants just distracted and the entire effect was lost and flopped.   No one saw the cigarettes, they saw the Blue Bells.  I also had white shirts with two pockets that came from the Commissary and were intended for when you dressed up.  I never put my cigarettes in the white shirt pockets because I was usually with my parents when I dressed up and they did not know I smoked.
My underwear was also of some embarrassment because they were boxer shorts, not Jockey, like most of the boys wore, but they could not be seen like the Blue Bells so I did not develop much of a complex over my underwear, Thank God!  A blue jean complex is bad enough without adding an underwear complex to a young boy’s life.
Much to my disappointment two years later we went back to Denmark, again on a Danish tanker without a stop in the United States. Now I was eleven years old, a boy who did not own a pair of REAL BLUE JEANS.  My Mother was still buying Blue Bells from the Commissary and insisting that they were blue jeans.  I knew better but could not explain this fact to my Mother.
It is hard to tell you how embarrassing it is to be in the fourth grade and have to go to school in Blue Bells when all the other boys were wearing Lees or Levis.  Believe me it was hard to have any self-esteem walking around in work pants because the Lago Commissary did not stock Lees or Levis and only stocked Blue Bells.
I wanted to die in 1951, having to wear Blue Bells somehow did that to me.  I was in the sixth grade, thirteen years old, six foot two inches tall and weighed one hundred and eighty pounds and I was still walking around in Blue Bells with big back pockets that were at least 8 inches square.
So here I was, waiting for our vacation again just so I could get a pair of real jeans and my Father announced that we were again going to Denmark on a Danish tanker.  I did not give a damn about going back to Denmark, I wanted to go to Miami and buy jeans. Was this too much to ask? But I guess it was because that was not to happen in 1951.
I attended the sixth and seventh grades wearing Blue Bells.
Another problem was the swimsuits in the late 1940’s, which were made of wool and awful.  They scratched, were heavy, sagged when they got wet and were just the worst excuse for a bathing suit.  But that was what the Lago Colony Commissary stocked, so that was what my Danish Mother bought me.  All the other boys stopped wearing the wool swimming suits and began cutting the legs off their older blue jeans; the Lees and Levis they had gotten when their parents took vacations to the States became swimming suits.  I only had Blue Bells, so I cut the legs off a pair of my Blue Bells.  I went to the Big Dock for a swim.  I dove into the water and when my Blue Bell swimsuit hit the water I stopped dead, legs sticking out of the water while the upper part of my body was under water. There I remained, suspended, for a few seconds. The big pockets on the Blue Bells had expanded and filled with water and air and acted like a parachute.  My Blue Bells had brought me to a full stop half way into, half way out of, the water.  That at least is what it felt like.  If I had not tied the waist of my Blue Bell swimming suit with a piece of clothesline I would have been without a suit.  I do not know which would have been more traumatic and insulting for a teenager; being without a bathing suit or having to swim in cut off Blue Bells.  This whole experience was taking a toll on my frail teenage pride, I feel sure I was becoming a problem child because of the Commissary.
How I survived to the age of fifteen in 1953 I will never understand.  Having to go to school in Blue Bells and swimming each weekend in cut-off Blue Bells was killing me.
I was very happy when I learned that this year, 1953, we were going to St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands.  We were going to the U.S. Virgin Islands because they had once belonged to Denmark.  To get to St. Croix we had to go through Miami, what joy, Miami, a place where I could finally get REAL BLUE JEANS.  Fifteen years old and I was going to get my first pair of REAL BLUE JEANS.
When we got to Miami we checked into the Columbus Hotel.  I could not wait to get out on Biscayne Boulevard and find a store that sold Lees or Levis.
Next morning my Mom, Dad and I left the hotel and soon found a store that sold Levis with a 36-inch waist and 32-inch legs.  I told my Mother I wanted six pairs. The salesman informed my Mother that the Levis were $3.95 per pair.  She looked at me and said that was ridiculous, she could buy me blue jeans at the Commissary for 3.50 guilders a pair, less then half price.
It was at this point in my life that I began to take some control.  I revolted against Mother right in the store.  I told her come hell or high water or, God forbid even if I had to use my own money I was going to have six pairs of REAL BLUE JEANS.  I also informed her in a very loud voice that Blue Bells were not blue jeans.  These pants, the Levis, they were blue jeans, REAL BLUE JEANS.
Mother, I said; “Blue Bells are work pants and there is no way I am going back to Aruba and enter high school wearing Blue Bells.”
My Mother was stunned, but she got me six pairs of Levis.  Finally, at fifteen years of age I had my first REAL BLUE JEANS.  This may have been the happiest moment in my life.

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