Pamela Morse, Private Eye

December 29, 2012 — 1 Comment

I got my early training from Nancy Drew in proper detective work. I read all her adventures when I was very young.  She was popular with my friends and neighbors so we used to recreate little Nancy Drew dramas for play.  I fixate on detail like Sherlock, but I like to fashion myself after Jim Morrison’s Spy. My espionage skills are good. My dog is a red bone coon hound named Artemisia. My all time favorite look forever is the performing costume of Mata Hari.  Ironically, I can find no detectives in my ancestry.  Since they were and are undercover, maybe there is no way to find them.  There were many with military careers, which should involve some kind of recon and or intelligence.  To say that I am nosey is an understatement, but I am not interested in the gossip and the trash generally accepted as truth. There is something about my nature that needs to investigate…….everything.  The detective is a dominant archetype in my personality.  I enjoy stealth more than almost anything.

I used to hang out for many months in the winter on a small island in the Berry Islands of the Bahamas called Frazier’s Hog Cay.  The practically unpopulated island had about 6 homes for foreigners to use for holidays.  It is connected by a land bridge to Chubb Cay, where a marina, yacht club, and landing strip makes it possible for life to exist on Frazier’s.  I used to go fishing with hand lines at night and hang out with  two old Bahamian ladies who were my very good friends.  We had our own detective agency to snoop on all the dope dealers.  This was inherently dangerous, but we  were drawn like moths to flame.  I was an instigator in the gang, but they lived there full-time. I only came for a while in the winter, which was height of the smuggling season as well, because of Miami Vice (the lucrative market in 1980’s).   I was contributing to the danger in their lives by organizing reconnaissance expeditions to spy on the Colombians who sailed big boats into the shallow water, unloaded onto fast cigarette boats every night and took off for Florida through the Bimini Straights.  One day on the beach we found an entire bale of Colombian pot, but it was buried deeply in the sand and had been salt-watered to death.  I walked right past it, but my Bahamian friend, who was about 75 at the time said, ” Ain’t that the grass?”   When I think of it now we are all so lucky we did not loose our lives hiding in the mangrove at night to confirm our suspicions.  We were very old ladies to be playing Nancy Drew, but we were compelled by curiosity that ignored all danger.

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