You have to bow to untie sandals.

I remember maccoing a PNM election meeting during the 1976 general election campaign. Back then, the representative for Arouca, the late Hector Ormesbie Naughton Mc Clean was our representative -never mind he was a PNM, he remains the best representative any constituency could ever have, perhaps because his name from birth destined him to be such -H.O.N. Mc Clean. May his soul rest in pace!

Back then, the heavily-bearded Irwin Merritt was the Public Relations Officer of the PNM and, as such, invariably emceed PNM affairs on the hustings -may his soul, too, rest in peace!

The meeting in question was a huge one -PNM, regardless, is/was a party of considerable weight- and held on Broadway, Arima, just northwest of the Dial (see map)

It being a General Elections and one fraught with uncertainty -the Democratic Action Congress (DAC) was chomping at the bits to have Tobago get it way in its own affairs, plus, it was the first time that the United Labour Front (ULF) was contesting a General Election. So, for the PNM meeting, there was a battery of speakers...some inspiring, some boring, all perspiring -the heat of the night was intolerable due to high humidity. Yet, no one departed, for with such meetings, the main event is the last on the card -perhaps by collusion with the concessionaires?

Nearly four hours after its 6:30pm start, when the turn of then PNM Political Leader, Dr. Eric E. Williams, came to take the microphone, PNM PRO and outgoing PNM Senator, emcee Irwin Merritt introduced the great man this way (and I paraphrase):

"...And now, dearly beloved! Let me introduce the man you have been waiting for whole night to hear speak! The man the latchets of whose sandals I am unworthy to unloose! I give you our Political Leader, the first, the only, the present and the next Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, the Father of the Nation.....Dr. Eric Eustace Williams!..."

And the Baleezay Crowd let loose a cacophonous fanfare of approval.

Now! Tell me again about PNM's protest over a bow someone made to her ancestral "grandmother"?

I gone!