Back In the 70’s the street that crossed the island at the south end was “Telephone Street”, it ran from Queen Street to King Street and located there was the telephone transmitting office and just north of the old cemetery. At this point there was a microwave tower about 20 feet tall because it was just “shooting” the telephone signal from the island to Miami across 50 or so miles of the Atlantic Ocean.
Here is where “Coconut Mary” had her enterprise, under the coconut trees on the end of the island. If you wanted a coconut on Bimini you could just pick one up any where, but if you wanted it opened, that is to have the husk removed, and if you could find something with which to hack it off and possibly do serious harm to your hands and fingers, or you could just go see “Coconut Mary”.
There was a piece of iron, a three or four inch angle iron sticking out of the ground about 3 feet, it was probably from some construction project, who knows when?
Mary would take the coconut and deftly “bash it’ on the iron a few licks and then peel the coconut and viola it was ready either "green" or "ripe".
She had the knack and this was her only talent as far as I knew. Give Mary a quarter or whatever and she was happy.
I wonder if Mary is still holding court at her business address on Telephone Hill,.
I haven’t been to Bimini in way too many years; at one time Bimini was a “second home” to me, I had an account in the Royal Bank of Scotland, I was a member of the Anglican Church (the parish of Saints Peter and Stephen) and a member in good standing of “The Last Man Standing Club” at the End of the World Bar.
