It was August; I was 17 and my Dad was 52. I had just graduated from high school and had been accepted into a college, the first in my family to be going to college. This trip was not a graduation present. I at first actually declined because traveling with my Dad to visit his family seemed pretty much like a month of those Sundays in a starched white shirt sitting on sofas, quietly, while the adults talked. I went because my neighborhood friends thought it was special.
The flight was on a propeller plane and as I looked at them, the engines seemed to be on fire. I didn't look much and tried not to think about the fact that we were floating in the air. My Dad was sick the whole flight and blamed it on one of the vaccines we had to get to travel to Ireland.
Aunt Kate Ann and Uncle Jimmy met us at Shannon Airport. I wish I could describe myself accurately at this time as an explanation of why I missed this special moment. Suffice to say my adolescent brain was filled with everything concerning me and missed what was happening at this moment. I missed all of what must have been an extraordinary: my Dad's arrival home. He left Ireland in 1929 and had not been back in 32 years. All I remember of that first meeting was how shabby, shy, awkward and, I thought, backward my Aunt Kate and Uncle Jimmy was. In their hometown, Glan, they weren't at all. They were quite well off. Uncle Jimmy owned half a mountain filled with sheep, a bunch of farm animals, two grocery stores with a post office and the only 'cab' service within 30 miles. Kate Ann was a school teacher with a working farm. I believe, and all I have to say about the Irish is pure conjecture, they were self-conscious of putting on airs. They lived and looked as their neighbors, customers, and students did.
Uncle Jimmy drove us to his home from the airport and we must have stopped at a half dozen bars. Some of them were no more than a plank of wood on two beer barrels. I was introduced by Uncle Jimmy to Irish Whiskey and Orange, the orange being a kind of soda, and that's what I drank for the month, quite possibly every day. Jimmy knew everybody and they were all glad to see him. This was his routine: bringing home the Yanks and giving the trade to his friends. I liked Uncle Jimmy a lot. He immediately treated me like an equal. He was fun and took a lot of pleasure in my American ways. Kate Ann was my Dad's great heart; there were times I felt she was the only thing he loved about Ireland. She gave him the money to immigrate with some hardship to herself and her family. With me, she seemed the school teacher. I felt I was being graded. Dad's other sister Mamie, the total of his surviving siblings being three, lived in Drumshambo, married to a doctor, with three sons and a grand house overlooking Loch Allen. She was not self-conscious about anything. I liked her and her husband. They concerned themselves more than anyone with my comfort, the warmth of the fire, it was damp and cold everywhere you went in Ireland in 1961, with foods I would like, offering me an American chocolate chip cookie.
Uncle Jimmy seemed to have a lot of children, one son Justin and 4 or 5 daughters who always seemed to be darning clothes. Justin was the boss in the house until his Mom spoke. Uncle Jimmy never spoke much in the house and I never saw him drink alcohol in front of his wife and children.
Kate Ann had two children living with her, Maeve whom I immediately fell in love with, as almost everyone did, and Mehaul, who was a bit goofy. Kate Ann's husband, her second marriage, was very quiet, nice but not memorable. Her first husband had died, quite possibly as an 'IRA man'. Mamie's husband was reported to be an 'IRA man' as well. But in those times if you patched a wound or fed a neighbor's starving family because the 'troubles' had robbed them of the makings of a life you were with the IRA.
Ah! I was beginning to feel like I was riding a merry go round. Distant, looking out at so many people, my perspective constantly shifting and enjoying myself.
More tomorrow, I hope. I have a trip to Spain to explore. I want to get some history of the country, etc. before I go to Madrid. It'll be here on the blog when I get to it and more of Ireland as I build my way to Mom and I, our story and my story. It's all about me, here anyway.
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