Born on the island of Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos, author Charles C. Palmer shares a life's worth of experiences in this, his memoir. Recalling the good times, the bad times, and everything in between, Palmer narrates the hardships of growing up at a time when there was no electricity and no running water and even fewer conveniences. It's My Life tells of what life was like from the 1950s to the late 1990s, including his childhood, his parents, his siblings, his schooling, and the uniqueness of the island lifestyle. Palmer details his experiences and explains how God blessed his life-from being the first native to manage a small hotel to owning a restaurant to winning the lottery. Filled with an array of anecdotes, It's My Life provides insight into one man's life as he sought to overcome the hardships and make a better life for himself and his family. It's My Life By Charles C. Palmer iUniverse, Inc. Copyright © 2012 Charles C. Palmer All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4697-3247-3 Contents Acknowledgments................................................................viiIntroduction...................................................................ixChapter 1 Childhood Days: Fun and Hard.........................................1Chapter 2 First Job, First Love, Bad Friends (1960s)...........................67Chapter 3 First Real Job, Marriage, New Lessons (19691970).....................98Chapter 4 Life, Death, and the Tides of Change (1980s).........................159Epilogue.......................................................................175 Chapter One Childhood Days: Fun and Hard I am a product of the island of Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos, particularly the settlement of Wheeland, where I was born and bred. I'm a child of the 1950s, so the great change in child rearing and comforts of life in such a short time totally amaze me. It is very clear to me since I still live in Wheeland. My parents, grandparents, and stepparents were all from Turks and Caicos, and almost all of them were from Wheeland. My stepmother was originally from Lorimers, Middle Caicos, another island in the Turks and Caicos, and so was my stepfather. As a teenager, my mother spent some time with relatives in Lorimers, where she met and married my stepfather. My mother's and stepfather's marriage didn't last very long because her husband went away shortly after the wedding and didn't return for many years. With the approval of her mother-in-law, who felt that her son had mistreated and disrespected his wife and didn't deserve her, she began to date again. She met and took interest in my father, Thomas Palmer. Now during this courtship, Thomas was married to the lovely Altiny Penn. But he convinced this shy and timid young Emily that this relationship could work. Vulnerable and lonely, she fell for it. You see, Thomas wasn't handsome, but he was cool and knew how to woo the ladies. Thomas, the son of Joseph and Jane Palmer of Blue Hills, Providenciales, grew up in Blue Hills and attended school there until he was old enough to go fishing. He would go in the dinghy boat with his father to row the boat for him—that is, to be the sculler—while he got fish, conch, or lobster. The men at that time always wished for a son or two when their wife was expecting a baby, so they could go in the boat with them as soon as they turned twelve or thirteen years old. Unfortunately, they weren't concerned about giving these boys an education. The challenge was to see which boat could bring in the most fish, conch, or lobster for the week or duration of time they were out. Sometimes, they stayed out for two weeks. Daughters were expected to stay home and learn to keep house or look after younger children. They also helped out in the fields and gardens. My father wasn't a good fisherman, but he was a good boatman and knew how to save money. So as a young man, he saved the money he earned from fishing. Sometimes the men got to go on freight liners to different countries of the world. These trips lasted longer than the fishing trips and were completely different. When my father thought he had saved enough money, he began building a house. It wasn't easy to obtain cement in those days, so he resorted to building a lime kiln. This lime kiln was as tall as he was and about twenty feet in circumference. He used this white lime, along with a few bags of cement when it was available from Grand Turk, our country's capital, or East Harbor, now known as South Caicos, to build the first phase of his house. Upon completion, he lived in it alone since he was still unmarried. In those days, only one fishing plant was in Turks and Caicos, so fishermen from around the islands had to go to South Caicos to carry their catch to the Caicos fisheries. On one of his trips there, my father met a young girl, Altiny Penn, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Penn of Middle Caicos. At that time, she was living in East