Traveling

This looks a little like my Uncle Jimmy's house minus the wires.  Not a fancy thatched cottage you would see in the travel guides just a loving place.  Picture a mountain, very green, behind it, sheep grazing and then add some rain, gray skies, and a dampness 'to the bones' as they would say.  That's how I remember the place.

The names of places I will probably confuse.  It's  been 55 years after all.  Dowra was one town always talked about and I would say that was their town, literally, because Uncle Jimmy owned its only shop with the only Post Office and telephone.  But they also talked of Glangevlin [aka Glan] which is another town and also the name of their Parrish.  Glan may also have been the name of my Mother's home town.  They're easily confused because there's no discernable difference between these two places.  You'd have to travel out a bit for something different.

Our first trip was not very far in distance.  It was to My Aunt Mamie in Drumshambo.  Mamie had married Dr. Flynn and 'had prospered' as they would say.  The Flynns had a beautiful house overlooking Loch Allen.  [Google maps will show that it is not a big distance from Dowra and Glan but Mamie's world was].  The first thing I noticed was the wide variety of drink and store bought pastries.  But what was special about their home was the million dollar view of Loch Allen.  Though hundreds of feet from the house there was no obstruction, just like this photo.

  
We had an afternoon tea with them at this first visit and they talked politics, American and Irish, and medicine.  Dr. Flynn and Mamie were as nice as everyone I had met.  Often asking my opinion and what I was interested in.
It was different with Uncle Jimmy and the people in Glan, he might comment to people "Now look at the young American.  Would you look at the size of him?  A fine broth of a boy."  He always made an effort to include me.
I'm not too sure of that 'Broth'.  It may have been what he said and meant and then it might have been breath.  Unfortunately, for me and greatly missed was a lot of what he and the people in Glan were saying.  If they talked directly to me, Dad would have to translate back and forth.  We all grew tired of that.  The difficulty was confounded by many factors.  Their brogue, the speed of their speech, the chatter of multiple voices adding to stories and all the names and nicknames.   There was a lot of talk about people who had died so my father would have the history of his hometown.  It was close to 40 years since he had been here. There'd be some somber talk about someone and then another story would bring laughter. Then maybe someone would pick up the fiddle and there'd be music.

I never once thought of television or the radio.  They were all such good company even when I didn't know what they were talking about.