Peter TOSH Island Resort...right?

What is one album that changed your life?

Who are you?
What defines you?
Oh yeah, and whyyyyy?
I guarantee that if you were to even try and answer these questions (which undoubtedly would take hours upon hours), by the time you were finished explaining yourself to a T, the answer would have already become inaccurate. The You now is not the same You from 5 minutes ago. Because we are allllways changing. Every experience you have molds you and sets you up to react differently for the next Tom, Dick, or Sally that comes along. I don’t think it ever rests on these life-altering, earth-shattering moments, but rather a bounty of small sporadic instances that poke and prod us in the direction of our ultimate destiny. That being saiiiiidddd…. I can’t choose one album that changed my life. They all have. However I can roll through my ipod, choose one at random, and elaborate.

Hah! Yes. “The Peter Island Resort” album of Caribbean Paradise. A winner for sure.

The whole thing is reggae and recorded for the sole purpose of relaxing patrons of the Peter Island Resort (or should I say soul purpose?). Basically used for the same effect by me in my freshman year of high school. I was in the process of going through a rigorous boot-camp style training to first learn the sport of field hockey, somehow master it, and then cross my fingers and, with every hope in my tiny tween body, make the team. My mother didn’t want to buy me cleats until I actually made the team, so I was forced to wear shoes from my soccer days. I quit soccer when I was 8, if that’s any indication as to how painful they were. I would come home from practice, strip off the Chinese foot binds, and soak my dogs in a plastic economy sized ice cream tub now filled with hot soapy water. Each day of that summer, without fail, I would immerse my feet for the entire duration of this Caribbean Paradise C.D. I could probably remember every knock of that damn steel drum. It didn’t do much by the way of changing my feelings on music, however it did help my spirit. I stuck with field hockey, made the team, got new cleats, and went on to become two-time MVP, Captain of my team, Defensive player of the year, and All-Ohio. I can accredit all this to the smooth jams of the Peter Island Resort. Oh and my cheap mother.