But Bajans as a nation are themselves successful, and if there really is an official mandate for Happy Barbados, it doesn't need a local campaign. We often feel welcome enough to join in, even when we're not paying guests. Just observing is a pleasure: families cooling off in the soak holes at Bathsheba; large picnics under the wind-bent casuarinas at Barclay Park or Farley Hill; strapping youth at their paddleball marathons on the sands of Miami Beach. My favorite place for commingling is among the stalls at Oistins's Friday night fish fry, where people stroll, sit at long communal tables under the moonlight, or dance beside a ragtag flotilla of beached fishing boats. Beyond the food stalls, on a small square, is Lexie's, an old-timers' dance bar. The music is not live; rather, it's living: in the memories and the flashing feet of the couples who congregate here every weekend. I'm longing to jump in. But the hand is instead extended to the little ones. When my girls are invited to shake a leg by some old geezer swaying in the doorway, the impulse is not to snatch them back and call the cops, only to order a bottle of Banks and wait for a better song.