In the Autumn of 1997 Ty Spaulding and I resided in a roughly renovated schoolhouse west of Galway. The Atlantic Ocean was a five-minute walk away. The waves pounded the shore. Summer was gone for good.
We were surrounded by rain-swept bogs, fog-wreathed mountains, and the damp beneath our feet. Fall was the season of rain in the Connemarra, but sometimes there wasa glorious sun. The house phone only accepted in-coming calls. We wrote letters to our friends.
Here is one to Jocko Weyland.
EPISTLE FROM BALLYCONEELEY
Yeah, it wasa little strange with Todd aka TY SPAULDING. September was fine. October grew grim. November the rains struck with sodden ferocity.
The first day in town (Ballyconeeley) I went to the village pub expectng pipe whistles and sitting around a peat brick fire. Instead the brooding huddle of EU-subsidized cow farming bacholers greeted my entrance with a squnty stare. I offered a round and settled back to listening to the brogue, thinkng, “This is the language of my people.”
A shove interrupted my reverie and a gnome with a tam covering a Brillo-pad sweep-over demanded, “Whacha lookin’ at?”
I answered honestly, “The wall.”
We both gazed at the wall. It was blank. Nothing special, but the dwarf shouted, “Well, I’ll be troubling yer not to look at that bit of wall. It’s mine.”
“That wall?”
It was no different than any other wall in the pub. The barkeep told ‘Mikie’ to shut his hole
After that night the locals shunned me.
Didn’t matter, I walked around the bogs with my Wellingtons. Todd had a bad back. I spent most of the day on the telephone with his future wife. Laurie was a dream he told me all the time. I agree, because Ty’s wife swam with me in the East River on my 50th Birthday Day. The blonde beauty wore a sarong from a restuarant table cloth.
Ty and Laurie are still happily married.
Of coursse the reason for going to Ireland was my mother’s deathbed wish.
“Meet someone like your aunts or sisters.”
This sounded very incestuous to me, but the only women in Ballyconeeley 14 year-old grls six-months pregnant, matrons waiting for their hard-working husbands to retire from slavery in the UK, and two lesbians in Cliften.
One night I was drinking with Mikie at the pub. An attractive plus-18 brunette was tending the Guinness stick. Mikie called her over and asked, “Does my American friend stand a chance with you?”
“Noe at all.”
Mikie was quick with his advice.
“Go back to your beer and keep your eyes off my wall.”
