Posted on October 7, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet

Proof that I kissed the Blarney Stone

 

 

“If you ever go across the sea to Ireland…”

Galway Bay – Arthur Colahan

I was chatting with a friend the other day. It was a business meeting, but invariably these kinds of discussions always get around to the family.  I asked him casually, and a bit tongue in cheek, how many of his children were still “on the payroll”.  He knew what I meant.   As it turns out, his daughter is currently working for a year in Ireland, the home of leprechauns and Guinness beer.  She is employed in the city of Cork.

Upon hearing this I had an immediate flashback. I was lying flat on my back, holding on for dear life to two iron bars, kissing a stone that was centuries old.

Ten years ago I ventured to Ireland on a golf vacation. The first week I explored the island with my brother and we were joined for a second week by six lawyers from Vancouver.  Sounds like the start of a lawyer joke to me.

Do you have any idea what it’s like to arrive in Ireland (Shannon Airport, to be precise), take the wheel of a standard shift car rental and navigate your first roundabout … on the wrong side of the road? It is slightly disorienting and extremely nerve wracking.   Now try this with no sleep for the past thirty hours.  Welcome to Ireland.

On or about day five we headed for the city of Cork, the home of Blarney Castle. It would be deemed sacrilegious to pass through Cork without kissing the Blarney stone, not that either my brother or I needed extra help with “the gift of the gab”.  You see, our mother’s people were from Tralee so we already had the proper DNA to ensure verbosity.

We arrived on a particularly drab and miserable day. It was foggy, rainy and the air had a decided chill.  We saw the first sign for the castle.  It wasn’t the last.  Some places on this planet are simple to navigate. Either the streets are laid out on a grid or signage is easy to follow.  Let me say this to the Fathers (Mothers) of the city of Cork; your streets make no sense and your signs might as well be in Gaelic.  Oops.  Most of the signs were in Gaelic.

In most countries where we speak the language, asking for directions is a reasonably simple exercise. We hopscotched all over Cork trying to find someone who could explain to us (in English or a reasonably good facsimile) how to make our way to the Castle.  Oh, they all did a fine job explaining but we couldn’t understand a word they were saying.

“And the women in the uplands digging praties speak a language that the strangers do not know.”

Slightly exasperated, we arrived at the Castle, purchased our tickets and made our way to kiss the stone. To get to the top of the castle you have to navigate a very narrow, winding staircase which, in and of itself, is no big deal.  Except for one thing.  The stairs were a series of smooth stones completely exposed to the elements.  Treacherous does not even begin to describe the footing.  Walking on sidewalks after a mid-February ice storm is child’s play compared to our ascent to kiss the blessed stone.  Luckily they had stolen some huge ropes from local tug of war teams and these allowed us to reach the top.

The deed of kissing the stone was somewhat anticlimactic after several hours of trying to find the damn castle and risking life and limb to fulfill our quest. Travelling back down those same stairs was every bit as daunting an exercise as the ascent had been.  We were in dire need of refreshments.

With rain pelting on our backs we hustled to the car.

Our vehicle was locked. Not so unusual seeing that we were the ones who had locked it.  Problem was, the keys were inside the car.  And the downpour continued.

It took some time, skill and several strings of expletives to finally gain entry to the car.

We had indeed received the gift of the gab. Luckily it was “in a language that the natives did not know”.

Posted on October 6, 2014 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Some Fall foliage

 

 

I was on my way to the Homecoming Football game when I saw this flaming red bush at Chisholm Park. As most of the locals know, the lower part of Hawthorne Street has a lot of student rentals. It was a spectacular Fall afternoon with the temperature creeping towards 20. Let’s just say that the parties had a full head of steam with students hanging from the roofs and rafters. A part of me ( a very small part ) was envious watching this youthful exuberance knowing that I had done the same thing over 40 years ago.

Speaking of football, I got a lot of response to last week’s story about playing football at St.F.X. The morning after the story was printed in The Casket. I was stopped twice on my way to work and both people said the same thing: “ I didn’t know you played football at X.” My response was terse, “ I didn’t.” There is a not so subtle distinction between playing football and being a football player. I was simply an equipment manager wearing football gear.

With Halloween just around the corner, I figured that I better pen something about this. I certainly have a lot of childhood memories going door to door with a pillow case. All of our costumes were homemade. I think I even when dressed up as a football player once. Oh,  no, that was at St.F.X. in 1972! You could get quite a haul just on our street alone. Do any of you remember going to the Pottery House on St.Ninian Street?

I certainly have memories of some adult Halloween parties which were all the rage for the longest time. I live such a sheltered existence these days that I don’t know if these are held any more. So what was your most memorable Halloween night whether it was as a child or an adult?

My Halloween story is called “ The Case For Halloween” … or “Black and Orange Day” as the joyless curmudgeons of political correctness would have us call it . Back in the 70’s, six St.F.X. education grads ended up teaching in the Peace River country of Alberta. Five of us ended up in the same school. This was in a German/Ukranian farming community. I don’t want to spoil the story but I will give you one clue. We went to a staff masquerade party dressed as a six pack of Schooner beer. Those poor people were scratching their heads from the day we arrived in Alberta until the day we moved back to Nova Scotia.

Well, you weren’t very forthcoming with stories about dieting so I went ahead and wrote a story on the subject anyway. It’s called “Lost and Found.” Just about every mortal has tried to lose weight at one point or another in their lives. Someone mentioned the other day that their goal was to lose 10 pounds. When asked how they were doing they said that they only had 13 pounds to go. This was a fun story to write.

Coming up on Tuesday is my recollections of the day I kissed the Blarney Stone in Cork, Ireland. It’s called “ Put a Cork in it.”

If you’re a turkey, keep your head up this week. “If you can keep your head, when all about are losing theirs and blaming it on you.” ( Thanks to Rudyard Kipling for his ode to turkeys on the eve of Thanksgiving! )

Have a great week.

Posted on October 4, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet

Check out Part 1 and Part 2

 

Life is a series of learning opportunities. You survive some hard knocks along the way, and when it comes to a job or career it can take a very long time to decide what you want to do.  The flip side is that most of us can quickly discover what we don’t want to do for the rest of our lives.

After a few months in the mill and having worked in two different departments, I was beginning to wonder if the administration saw some hidden aptitude in me and might be grooming me for a management position. Nothing could have been further from the truth.  Any talent I had was clearly buried under mountains of sawdust.

My last shift with the construction crew started and ended with an accident. We were building a new shipping and receiving dock and, of course, the old one had to be dismantled first. The beams were truly massive and despite having been in place for decades they still had a distinct smell to them … the smell of railway ties.  Come to think of it, I think that’s what they were.  I was helping a fellow worker move some of them.  They were very long and we had to take opposite ends.  One lesson I had learned early about lifting heavy objects was to bend at the knees to protect the back.  As we hoisted the timber, I felt a tear in my jeans followed by a stabbing pain in my thigh.  This plank had an old rusty nail protruding from one end and it had made a nasty gash in my leg.

I was hustled off to first aid and immediately dispatched to the hospital to get a tetanus shot. The needle found its target. Let’s just say that it got to the bottom of the matter.

Recognizing that I was now a serious threat to the mill (and myself!), I got my transfer papers and was moved to the maintenance crew.

All of the equipment in the mill had to be maintained. Time was money and they couldn’t afford to have work stoppages because of malfunctions.  My new job was to keep the machinery cleaned and oiled.  I wandered the floor like a gypsy, largely unsupervised, cleaning the huge machines that spit out sawdust and profits.  I spent a lot of time underneath conveyor belts and I will never forget the feeling of wet sawdust going down the back of my flannel shirt.

From Day One, my boss didn’t like me. It only took me two days to be able to say, with certainty, that the feeling was mutual.  He was a joyless, menacing troglodyte.  And I’m being charitable with this assessment.  No amount of draft beer at The Colony pub could shine a brighter light on him.

I had a pretty good work ethic and often finished my tasks long before the whistle blew to indicate the end of a shift. These gave me time to day dream and yes, even write letters.

My last day at the mill was like many others. With an hour to go and all my work done, I crawled under a conveyor belt, just far enough away to avoid the sawdust.  With pen in hand, I dashed off a note to my folks back home.  And then old sourpuss himself showed up unexpectedly.  He was in a near rage.  I had a broom beside me and after listening to his diatribe for about ten minutes; I grabbed it and threw it at him.  I said something to him and I don’t think it had anything to do with having a great day.  I had learned a lot of new language at the mill and I gave him my best shot.

I calmly walked to the time shack and punched out for the last time. I sauntered over to The Colony and sat with a frosty glass of beer, contemplating my next move.  Teaching, which had always intrigued me, was starting to look like a great alternative to a career in a saw mill.

And so the next chapter began … with a move back east.