‘The Matters of March’
“The potholes of spring have our neighbors concerned.
The snowplowing budget’s at zero, we’ve learned.
The old timers doubt that the seasons have turned,
Till March makes a motion that winter’s adjourned.”
Hurray! On Sunday, Hubby and I were checking out the height of the snow around our home. The only place where we could see bare ground was near the warm cellar window on the side of the house. The snow had melted and there was about a three-inch patch of ground at that spot. I decided to double-check the ground because one year we had bulb shoots as early as Christmas Day. This year, despite six feet of snow in our yard, I discovered, to my surprise, five tulip shoots, each about an inch high, near the cellar window. Spring is really coming!
***
People always ask why we continue to attend St. Christopher Church. Here is one of the many reasons: Many years ago, when the kids were little, Hubby was working two jobs. He taught school during the week and was the Customer Service clerk on weekends at a local supermarket. (He covered the front end of the store, including the cashiers.) Then the stores were allowed to open on Sundays. If we swapped Masses, Sundays would be at least half gone. We decided to go to St. Christopher’s with the three kids. The church was not as filled as our own. We could put the kids in separate pews so they wouldn’t get rambunctious.
***
It was at St. Christopher’s that we first met George and Helen Bradley. (They were our neighbors but we hadn’t met them as yet.) They were so kind to us and so nice to the kids that we became part of their group of church friends.
We sat with them during church celebrations and even at Thanksgiving, even though they, along with Helen’s brother Jack and his wife Ann, spent most of the church’s Thanksgiving celebration serving food to the parishioners. We would talk outside church after Mass and we met many of their family who would join them in church.
After George’s death in 1999, we kept in touch with Helen. We often met their daughter Joan at Wal-Mart and learned how she was doing. On March 1, I received a call from Joan telling me that her Mom had passed away at the wonderful age of 98. Our daughter Sue especially felt terrible because she had sent Helen a hand-made card every holiday for years. Helen always showed her kids and grandkids the cards and mentioned that Sue had hand-made them for her.
Helen enjoyed a wonderful life with George after raising their kids: Henry, or “Hank,” as everyone calls him; Joan Abban; and H. Micki LeMoine. (They were also the parents of the late Elizabeth Bradley.) There will be more about the death of our longtime friend Helen Bradley in next week’s paper.
***
Because all the functions that I had hoped to attend were cancelled because of the snowstorms, I am sharing stories of my trip to Ireland with you:
“A Diary of Our First
Irish Vacation” – 3
Reprinted from The Boston Irish Reporter, August 1994.
“Thanks to all the work by our stateside pal John Byrne, checking the train schedules for us through his friends in Ireland, we spent our last full day in Ireland tracking down my roots. From our hotel in Dublin, we grabbed a cab to Heuston Station, where we rode the 8:30 a.m. to Westport in County Mayo, on the opposite side of the country.
The train ride was pleasant and reasonable (about $20). Because it was a Saturday, we had difficulty making connections back to our hotel in Galway City. To our rescue came Cousin Michael McGing, who offered to drive us back to the hotel from Westport. When Michael greeted us at the train station, he told us he would give us a tour of the town in which my grandmother was born. (Her name was Mary Murphy, a fine Irish name.) Even though we had copies of Cousins Margie and Janet’s photos of our grandmother’s house taken on their visit 15 years before, we were not able to find the house. (The relatives who showed Margie and Janet the family home had since passed away.)
We walked all through the main streets of town, meeting Cousin Tom Navin in our travels. We returned to Cousin Michael’s home where we ate a lovely lamb dinner made by Michael’s wife Maureen. (One of the vegetables was a delicious combination of carrots and parsnips.) After dinner, Michael took us on a drive through the countryside. We gazed in awe at beautiful Clew Bay, and even climbed up to the statue of St. Patrick on Croagh Patrick. (You’ll need the sure-footed ability of a sheep for this climb.) Michael told us that a great aunt, May McGing, had made the trip to the top of the mountain at least 60 times – in her bare feet. He had made the climb 13 times. Michael also took us to the local cemetery, where we viewed the graves of those relatives, JohnTom and Mona Navin and Michael’s dad, Dan McGing, with whom we had corresponded for years. We also paid a visit to St. Mary’s Church, where my grandmother had been baptized. (The church underwent major renovations 30 years ago and is one of the largest and most beautiful Catholic churches in all of Ireland.)
Finally, Michael took us back to his home and showed us his photography studio, called Heronsbrook, named for the estate in County Galway where his grandfather had worked. He also pointed out Matt Malloy’s Pub, which was his Dad’s place years ago. Then Michael drove us all the way back to our hotel, the Corrib Great Southern, for which we were most grateful. We felt bad that he had to make the one and one-half hour return trip to Westport at such a late hour. After coffee with our group, we retired, unaware that another surprise awaited us in the morning. It was only after a good night’s sleep that we realized that our room overlooked Galway Bay. After singing a few choruses of “Galway Bay” while packing for our trip back to Shannon, we went outside and took the last photos of our group with the Bay in the background.
Thoughts on Ireland: We were thrilled with the pleasant manner of the Irish people, from the Aer Lingus flight attendants, to the waiters and waitresses, to the shop clerks. We just loved the fact that it was light until 10:30 p.m. each evening. We were amazed at “the forty shades of green,” the lush countryside neatly laid out in patches with rock walls keeping in the cows and sheep. (Hubby thought the sheep looked like cotton balls spread out on the hills.)
The food was excellent. We credit much of the joy of our trip to the pleasant group of 26 intrepid travelers in our tour. As the week went on, we became an extended family. They were a hilarious bunch of people, there to enjoy themselves to the fullest. Much of the success of our trip certainly rested on the shoulders of our tour guide, David O’Brien, who answered all our crazy questions, who armed us with a great deal of info before we visited a site, and who maneuvered our large coach through some scary situations. (He was applauded quite a few times by our group.)
Would we pay a return visit to Ireland? Of course we would — perhaps in a few years when we replenish the bank account. Speaking of banks, we found them to be the cheapest places to exchange American money. By the way, thanks to the urging of daughter Sue, we did most of our shopping at Shannon’s Duty-Free Shop — a wise choice, because the prices were great and we didn’t have to lug gifts along the tour. We purchased quite a few gifts for Christmas, which were boxed for us at the shop and put on our plane to Boston. (They arrived unscathed.) Finally, there is an especially fitting way to end this diary of our travels throughout Ireland – with an ancient Gaelic greeting, which we learned at Bunratty Castle during the medieval dinner: “Sláinte agus Saol!” – in English: “Health and Long Life!”
