Things Found

(An excerpt from "Along the Banks" in answer to a request from some friends)

The journey you’ve now completed (from Dublin to Enfield) is about 45 kilometres long and constitutes one of my favourite stretches – I’ve done parts of it many times and the full route is something I always enjoy.  But entering the town of Enfield itself is always a little bittersweet for me, and to tell you why I have to talk a little bit about Babe Ruth, lost coins and being an American ex-pat in Ireland.  

Don’t worry, it all comes together.

A Word About Things Found

I moved to Ireland from America, more particularly from around Boston, some 20 years ago now.  It was a good decision, made much easier for me by my Irish born wife and her family, not to mention my own Irish roots.  But anyone who makes a move like that and tells you they don’t miss anything is lying.  You may not miss the day to day grind (and if you do you should move back) but you do miss the big events – the wedding of a favourite cousin, the funeral of someone who was important to you – those sorts of things.  Being about as mad a sports fan as there is I include matters involving any of the Boston teams on this list of “major events”.  And so, in the fall of 2004 I found myself missing home as the Boston Red Sox prepared for an attempt to break what had (foolishly) become known as the “Curse of the Bambino”.

The Bambino in question would be one George Herman “Babe” Ruth, the greatest baseball player in history (I will brook no debate on this point) and someone who the Red Sox had, in a moment of pure greed on the part of their then owner, sold to the New York Yankees in 1919.  Since that fateful move the Red Sox had failed to win a single World Series championship, a trail of tears that extended 86 years.1   This wouldn’t be so bad except that the team had come so incredibly, impossibly, excruciatingly close to victory on numerous occasions.  In 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986 they had been within one game of ultimate triumph (in the case of ’86 actually within one strike).  In other years they had fallen victim to defeat in special play-off games (twice), labour disputes, losses in the regular seasons’ final games and, most frustratingly, had managed to lose to the hated Yankees themselves the previous year when, needing only to hold on to a three run lead over the last two innings, they had ended up losing in extra frames.  Now the team was poised to take on the Yankees again, with the winner to advance to the World Series.  I prepared myself for late nights in front of the television watching events unfold back in America.

It seemed at first that there weren’t going to be too many late nights.  Following a Saturday defeat (that took place at a relatively sane hour for Europe), in which the Yankees scored 19 runs and absolutely destroyed the Red Sox pitching staff, the Sox found themselves down three games to none, which meant the Yankees needed only one more victory to close things out.  “Not to worry” you might say “all they need to do is win four games in a row – surely that’s been done before”.

Except it hadn’t – not in baseball history anyway.  Major league baseball extended back to the turn of the prior century and not once had a team come from three games behind to win a series.  There had been plenty of chances – but it had never happened.

This was the prospect that faced me as I dragged myself out of bed on Sunday morning, 17 October 2004.  It was late and if I wanted any breakfast I’d have to go out to a nearby bakery to pick something up.  I made my way to Leixlip and parked the car, as dejected as you can possibly imagine. Then, while closing the car door, my eye caught sight of a Euro one cent coin towards the back tyre.  Now understand something - a Euro cent is so worthless a monetary unit that it is being eliminated from the realm of coindom.  You literally cannot spend it on anything.  It is not worth the metal contained in its exceedingly small circumference.  It was, to me, probably not worth the effort to bend down to pick the thing up.  Nonetheless – I did it anyway, thinking that found money might represent just enough good luck for the Sox to eke out a victory, just one victory, and avoid the ignominy of being swept by the Yankees.  I put the coin in my pocket and promptly forgot all about it.

That night, in a thrilling game that lasted into the wee hours of the morning Irish time, the Red Sox did manage to win at least the one game, salvaging a little pride and keeping the flame of hope, however flickering, alive for another day. The Red Sox had miraculously come back against the Yankees’ best pitcher, tying the game in the ninth inning and winning in the twelfth.  Players like David Ortiz, Dave Roberts and Bill Mueller etched their name in baseball history with this win.  I, of course, reserved a certain amount of credit for myself and the dinky little coin I had rescued from the roadside.

The next morning was a work day – and for the second year in a row I was forcing myself to get to the office on time by napping right after supper and grabbing whatever sleep I could after the games finished.  That strategy wasn’t proving to allow me much sleep as the Sox and Yankees had spent the last two Octobers setting records for the length of the epic battles between them.  This was rough enough on the U.S. based fans who were getting to bed past midnight every night.  For someone facing a five hour time difference it was a killer.  But – you do what you have to, and every morning I’d wander into work like a soup sandwich, where I’d meet up with another ex-pat (albeit an English one) and bring him up to date on the latest events from the baseball realm.

That sympathetic ear belonged to Ian Storrar, a massive man who had been a Metropolitan police officer in London prior to moving to Ireland and becoming head of security for our office. Aside from his 6’6” rugby player’s frame Ian stood out in a crowd for his booming good natured voice, willingness to organise a good time at the drop of a hat and, most impressively for the owner of such an outgoing personality, his ability to listen.  Ian was a follower of Arsenal soccer club (he often said that he didn’t have to read Nick Hornsby’s “Fever Pitch”, the classic book outlining the obsessions of an Arsenal fan, he’d lived it) and he understood the vagaries of following a team from afar.  He listened to my tales of Red Sox woe, the miraculous win of the night before (along with my having found the lucky penny) and understood exactly what was going on.  I finished my tale with one small addendum “On the way in to work today I spotted a ten cent coin next to a doorway”.  

“You grabbed it up didn’t you?” queried Ian, immediately grasping the importance of the event.  Ian was a man who would understand that where you sat, what you wore and the type of meal you ate could have drastic consequences for your team.

You bet your ass I had.  Striding in to work with my wife Margaret that morning I’d spotted the brassy glint out of the corner of my eye.  I took about two steps before what I’d seen registered, then I broke off and went back to retrieve my prize.  Margaret, whom I hadn’t yet filled in on the importance of the previous day’s find, looked questioningly back at me as I bent down to pick up scraps from the sidewalk.

“It’s 10p!” I said, as if I’d suddenly won the lotto and we would now be retiring to the Greek islands.  

“O – K” she said haltingly “I’m so happy for you – don’t spend it all in one place”.

I then explained the circumstances to her and, being the exceedingly good sport that she is, she understood right away what was going on.  (The woman did, after all, marry me).

That evening the Red Sox were again on the brink of elimination late in the game when they once more improbably rallied to force extra innings.  The game stretched out for nearly six hours until, with the season in the balance, the Sox pushed across a run to somehow eke out a win.  The exploits of Messrs. Varitek, Wakefield and Ortiz would be carved in the annals of the sport.  They had done well – and of course there was my coin to be considered.

On the way in to work that morning we were crossing Clarke’s Bridge (which spans the Royal Canal just below Croke Park) when I shouted out to Margaret (who was by now actively searching as well) “LOOK!”

There, shining on the footpath over the bridge was, amazingly, one two Euro and two one Euro coins.  Just sitting there – in the middle of the bridge.  I scooped the coins up and put them in my pocket. Now – one cent was immeasurably small, and ten cents barely moves the needle, but it’s not every day you find four Euro just sitting in the middle of the footpath.  That was more than five bucks American at the time.  Something was happening.

Margaret and I just looked at each other, shook our heads, and continued in to work. When I saw Ian, even before telling him of the previous night’s win, I told him about the money.  “You’re on to something mate” he said, confirming my suspicions.  I was on to something – but whether it continued was dependent upon my finding money prior to every damn game.  That night’s game was now seemingly covered – but I would have to keep this up.

Later that day, in an anteroom off the Red Sox clubhouse, a doctor stood over the ankle of that night’s starting pitcher, Curt Schilling.  He looked down at the sutures he had put in to said ankle only the day before, when he had improvised a procedure that had, up to then, only been attempted on cadavers as practice for this unique treatment.  Schilling’s ankle had been severely injured in a previous game, rendering him unable to push off with his foot.  The surgery was designed to alleviate the discomfort enough to give him back the mobility he required.  Amazingly – it worked.  Despite the sutures leaking blood throughout the match (leading to its famous designation as the “Bloody Sock” game) Schilling performed admirably.  In addition to this medical miracle the Red Sox benefitted from the reversal of two calls – one when a Yankee fan reached over to grab a ball hit into the stands and again when Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez intentionally interfered with a fielder.  These things never, never, went the Red Sox way in the past.  Now, in one game, everything came together.  Schilling, Dr. Bill Morgan, Mark Bellhorn – all gave great efforts to allow the Sox to draw level. But then, there was the fact that I just happened to be holding €4.11 in found coins.

Just sayin’.

By now I was obsessed.  I needed to find lost money.  So much depended on it.  On my way home from work that night I stopped at a local ATM machine to stock up on cash, seeing as I was not going to spend any of the funds I had found until after this incredible streak was over.  There, on the ground near the machine, was a scattering of about seven cents worth of coins.  I gathered them up, not sure whether cash found the night before a game had the same power of treasure found the morning of the contest. I hoped it did as I was unable to find a cent on the ground on the way in to work, a fact I nervously shared with Ian over coffee, the liquid that now fueled my existence.

“I think you’re OK” he said, completely seriously.  “I think it still counts”.

The man was right.  Not only did it count, it produced a blowout.  The Red Sox had miraculously stormed all the way back from the brink to eliminate the Yankees and advance to the next stage of competition – the World Series.  The same World Series they had not been able to win for 86 torturous years.  Sure, Johnny Damon’s two home runs, David Ortiz’ continued heroics and Derek Lowe’s pitching were key factors – but I would simply like to record that I had found money every day of the comeback.  

Just sayin’. 

So on to the World Series.  Four wins and we could put all the nonsense about curses, and Babe Ruth and 86 years and the entire laundry list of near misses to rest for good.2  If one thing was clear above all others it was that I had to keep finding lost coins.  An entire nation (Red Sox Nation) – was depending on it.  So I kept looking for change every morning – and I kept finding it.  For the first three games of the series I would stumble across money on the way in to work.  I never knew there was so much dropped change in the world.  Each morning I’d show Ian the day’s take, and each game the Sox won.  They were now only one win away from the elusive championship.  Boston was on a knife’s edge.  Friends and relatives, knowing and sharing my obsession called each night to run through the sheer improbability of it all.  We seriously discussed whether it was theoretically possible that a total eclipse of the moon (scheduled for the night of the potential clinching game) could somehow divert an asteroid from its course thus bringing about the end of civilization just as the Red Sox were about to win the World Series.  MIT is in Boston. I believe astrophysicists were consulted.  The general consensus was that this was unlikely.  Most Sox fans focused on the world “unlikely”, noting that it was not “impossible”.  The skies were scanned nervously.

Closer to planet Earth I was having a really rough time finding any loose change on the morning of Game 4.  I absolutely could not go in to work without at least a found penny in my pocket, but I seemed to have hoovered up all the stray coins within a 10 square mile radius.  Then, just outside a small convenience store, while looking down into one of those grates that they put beside a planted tree (and within sight of the Royal Canal, by the way), – I spotted a five cent coin.  It was wedged down amongst the discarded soggy cigarette butts, chewing gum, general rubbish, rat entrails and God only knows what else – but it was a coin.  The only question was whether I’d reach down into that slimy mess to fish it out.

C’mon.

Later, when I was displaying the coin to Ian over coffee I confided that if the only way to get it out was with my tongue I’d have still gone after the damn thing.  “Of course you would mate – it had to be done” he agreed – “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t even brush your teeth after”.

The result is probably well known even to the most casual observer.  The Red Sox won that World Series.  Following my initial coin find they had reeled off eight straight wins for the single greatest comeback victory in all of American sports history (on this point I will also brook no debate).  Manny Ramirez, Keith Foulke, Kevin Millar, Terry Francona and the rest of that incredible team combined to do the impossible.    I sat in my house in the early hours of that morning, after the game had been won, fielding calls from the States and making a few myself, watching the replay over and over, revelling in the triumph of the moment, knowing that I had to get through one more day at work and could then go to sleep at a reasonable hour. I also didn’t need to find any more coins.

Now I accept, deep down, that the Red Sox winning was not due to my finding all that lost change.3  But the win was still an intensely personal event – and like I said at the beginning of this whole story –it’s the events that you miss.  I knew that at the same moment I was heading in to work, Boston was like New Orleans during Mardi Gras.  Meanwhile, I was like a kid with the biggest secret in the world – I had this great news – but there was nobody I could tell.  Baseball isn’t really on the Irish radar.  I trudged in to work, looking forward to at least sharing the information with Ian – but to be honest, on that morning, I felt a long, long way from home.

Anyway, I entered the office via a side entrance and went down the short hallway to the cafeteria.  I opened the door ready to grab my coffee, but barely got my foot inside before a huge roar went up, followed by an ovation. High fives all around. It seemed like the whole place was there.  Storrar had heard the result and had organised the whole thing.  Let everyone know I’d be in, got them all assembled, clued them in on what had happened, watched for me to come through the door.  I could see him towering over the crowd, grinning like he’d just won the series himself, although he may never have seen a baseball game in his life up to that point.  But the man had still managed to make me feel like I was right in the heart of the celebration, had brought a little bit of Boston into that office.

There aren’t too many friends like that.

Since he’d moved to Ireland Ian had met and married a wonderful Irish girl named Elaine and they bought themselves a house in Enfield.  Margaret and I went to their wedding and even after I switched jobs we stayed in contact, golfing or meeting for a beer after work.  One day I got a call from Ian – he was obviously a bit shaken.  “I had some kind of a seizure” he said – “the doctors are going to check me out”.  

I won’t draw this part out.  The news was bad, about as bad as it gets.  There was a tumor. Cancer is a terrible disease.  Ian fought like you wouldn’t believe, but in the end that evil ailment called home the man who had brought a little bit of home to me.  Elaine still lives in the house in Enfield.  I think of Ian every time I go through the town.

That’s not a bad thing, he’s a man worth remembering – and there is no way I’d ever avoid this section of the canal – I like this particular stretch too much for one thing.  It’s a part that merits revisiting.  For those who can I’d urge you to find such a fragment along the banks and then go back multiple times – different seasons, different weather, with different people or different purposes. There are, I believe, two types of people in the world, those who will tell you that there are two types of things in the world, and those that will never use such a simplistic, meaningless and ultimately misleading rhetorical device.

Having cleared that up let me just say that there are two kinds of journeys in the world, first time journeys and repeat journeys.  The value of going somewhere for the first time is that you know from the outset that everything will be new and exciting.  The value of going back on a repeat journey is to surprise yourself as to how new and exciting everything still feels.  It’s like re-reading a favorite book and discovering little nuances in the author’s use of words or remembering just what you were doing the first time you read it.  

The majority of the narrative in this book has been one of initial impression, talking as if you are going down the Royal Canal for the first time.  In truth I try and cycle down the canal over and over again.  It took me several times before I even realized, for instance, that you can actually see Connolly’s Folly from the towpath near Carton House.  New appreciations and enjoyments rise up with each trip.  One time I’ll go down a stretch and it seems slightly boring – but if I give it a second chance – well, maybe I’m rewarded with a glimpse of a kingfisher, or there is a new type of flower blooming – or this time there is a fisherman landing a huge pike.  The canal is the kind of place that is just reassuringly familiar enough to allow you to experience it new each time, if that makes any sense.  

---

[1] The term “World Series”, for some inexplicable reason, seems to piss my European brethren off more than anything other than Donald Trump.  “How can it be the World Series if only American teams play?” they ask indignantly. Where to start.  First of all – Canada is a country (really, you can look it up), and they can have a representative in the Series (in fact they’ve won it – twice).  Secondly, the teams are based out of American cities but you don’t have to actually be from Milwaukee to play for the Brewers folks.  Baseball is as international a sport as there is – every team has players from all over the world – Japan, Cuba, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, South Korea, Australia – all have players in the Majors, some have hundreds.  The difference really is – there aren’t that many Europeans (a few – there are German and British players).  To the continent that puts sports like luge, biathlon and rhythmic gymnastics in the Olympics a non-Euro-centric sport is an anathema.  Also – baseball is not ruled by an international cartel like FIFA or FIBA (thank God) and so international play is not dependent upon pseudo nationalistic fervor such as accompanies the Olympics or the World Cup.  When the championship is won in baseball no one pontificates about the superiority of their system of government or genetics.  They just spray champagne over each other and get drunk. I like the World Series just fine the way it is, thank you very much.

[2] For the record – I never believed in any curse.  I definitely had an incentive to keep finding coins (it was working, after all), but not because the Red Sox were cursed.  The reason the litany of near misses hurt so much wasn’t because the Red Sox were so bad – it was because they were so good – just not quite good enough. And here I’ll use the “C” word only to put it in context – the Red Sox and their fans were never cursed, (we’d seen the greatest hitters, many of the greatest moments, had the best ballpark, etc.) we were, to be quite honest, blessed. Just not blessed with a championship. We knew, the hard way, that despite all the magic – championships don’t always follow even the seemingly most perfectly scripted seasons.  We needed that one little bit of mojo to complete the circle.

[3] Bullshit.  It was totally down to my finding those coins.  I’m expecting my championship ring in the mail any day now Mr. Henry.

RETURN OF THE DRAGON LADY

So Donald Trump has actively solicited a foreign head of state to influence an American election. 

Again.

You might expect me to go crazy and declare this “the worst example of a presidential candidate selling out his own country in my lifetime”.

Sorry – nope.

This is the second worst example of interference by a presidential candidate in my lifetime.  It has managed to knock the 2016 Russian “intervention” out of that position by virtue of the brazenness of its appearance and the danger of its impact.  But it is still second.  An understanding of the incident that holds first position is necessary in order to understand why stopping this one early is so important.

In the latter half of 1968 the government of North Vietnam came under immense pressure from its allies to conclude a peace with the United States. (Full disclosure - I was 5 years old at the time - I had absolutely nothing to do with this). The motivation for the peace effort was partly an effort to avoid the increasing cost of the war to the Soviet Union and Communist China, and partly due to the desire of those countries to avoid the possibility of Richard Nixon becoming President as the result of the November elections scheduled in the U.S.  Lyndon Johnson, sensing an opening and a chance to secure his own legacy opened a dialogue which seemed destined to end the war.  All he needed was to get the South Vietnamese government to sign on to the proposed peace accords.

At about this same time a Washington socialite by the name of Anna Chennault mysteriously began making regular contact with the South Vietnamese embassy and other representatives of that government.  Before we talk about the purpose of her visits – a bit of perspective.

Between 1969 and 1972 well over 20,000 American service personnel were killed in Vietnam.  Estimates vary, but most agree that hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese military and civilian deaths occurred during this same period.  It was also during this time frame that the final die was cast for the Cambodian civil war, which resulted in the death of more than 2.5 million people as a result of the fighting and a subsequent genocide (most famously described in “The Killing Fields”).  During this period the number of American prisoners of war held by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong increased exponentially, while those prisoners who had been captured prior to this period continued to suffer torture, deprivation, starvation and disease.  

There is a good chance none of it needed to have happened.

In 1968 a peace deal that was at least the equal of the one that ended up being put in place in 1972 was on the table.

Had it been instituted the South Vietnamese government, unburdened by the ensuing four years of war, corruption and unrest may have been able to survive.

It is certain that the United States, free of the constraints imposed by Watergate and its own internal unrest would have been in a better position to defend its interests in Vietnam in the event that the treaty had been breached (as it was following 1972).

No “Christmas bombings”, no Kent State, no Cambodian invasion, no women and children being abandoned on embassy rooftops, no helicopters being pushed in to the sea off aircraft carriers.

Instead we got all of that – and lost the possibility of saving all those lives – because of the interference of a presidential candidate who put his personal interests above that of the people of the United States.  

For the mysterious Anna Chennault, also known as the “Dragon Lady”, was Richard Nixon’s clandestine personal representative and she was under orders from him to “monkey wrench” the peace talks, extend the war and get Nixon elected. She instructed the South Vietnamese government to boycott the peace efforts under secret assurances that they "would get a better deal" if Nixon was elected.  (Spoiler Alert: they didn't). Watergate was serious – but it was not Richard Nixon’s worst crime.  His sabotaging of the Vietnam peace talks in 1968 was, in my opinion, much worse. 

Nixon denied a connection to Chennault until the day he died and went to extremes to conceal the efforts he made to derail the 1968 peace talks.  While long suspected it was not until the absolute last set of classified documents from his papers were made public that the clear link between Nixon and Chennault was revealed.  Then, in 2017, the disclosure of a set of notes taken by H.R. Haldeman during a conversation with then candidate Nixon removed all doubt – in black and white he sets down Nixon’s explicit instructions “keep Anna Chennault working on S.V.N." (South Vietnam). 

It might as well have read “keep Americans dying in Vietnam”.

So Donald Trump’s shenanigans with Ukraine are still in second place when it comes to undermining your own country’s interest – but it would be incorrect to describe it as a “distant” second.  For one thing – Nixon wasn’t actually President when he pulled his stunt.  The other thing is that we are only going to be able to judge the true impact of Trump’s actions when given the perspective of history – the Ukrainian situation is extremely volatile and the apparent willingness of the U.S. to withhold defense funds on a mere whim could still rebound spectacularly against us.  Finally – what Trump did is right now on the verge of being excused by a huge portion of the American electorate who have come to view any criticism of the current President as an exercise in “fake news” or “witch hunts”.  If that happens, if this activity is not accurately perceived for what it is, then we are doomed to be left at the mercy of the act itself – and no good can come of such an act.

Richard Nixon was not, at heart, an evil man.  He was incredibly paranoid and overly ambitious – but he did not know that his actions in 1968 would lead to the millions of deaths that can now be potentially ascribed to them.  Yet in overlooking his duty, and the law, he now must be judged complicit in those deaths - the rotting corpses, the orphaned children, the ruined lives – the lost opportunities.  But Nixon’s actions were hidden from view. In this current situation we know what has gone on with Donald Trump – and if this is allowed to stand because we are willing to excuse the inexcusable then, this time, we will be complicit in the ramifications. 

EVERYBODY WANTS A DO OVER

One of the (many) insights that an English professor of mine conveyed back during one of the film courses I took in college (Jaysus, I never thought those would prove so useful), was that the underlying political and cultural paranoias of a time can often be discerned from the subtext of its movie plots.  How do we know that nuclear annihilation preyed on the population in the 50’s?  Because nuclear experiments created movie monsters in “Godzilla” and “Them”.  What reflected the “Red Scare” fears of the same era?  “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, with its ending of “They’re here!, They’re here!” is often cited as reflecting the fears of a population certain that they were being overtaken by insidious invaders.  In the ‘70’s there were a number of political thrillers which perfectly reflected the fear of government conspiracy such as arose out of the real life Watergate affair.  The Parallax View,  Three Days of the Condor, The Conversation and more reflected the vision of a government out of control and conspiring to do the sorts of things to its own citizens that previously would have been attributed only to an outside agency.  Other eras all have their own set of films with their own cultural watermarks.

So what do we have now in the latter teens of the 21^st century?  Well, if you were to look at just this year, you’d have to at least consider the possibility that we are collectively calling for a second chance to get things right.  Consider the following: (Warning: Some spoilers)

Yesterday – A struggling musician wakes from a worldwide power outage induced coma to find he is the only one in the world who remembers Coke, Oasis and – The Beatles.  While creating a sensation by covering the songs that only he is capable of “re-composing”, he experiences what can best be described as “cultural survivors guilt” – leading him to nearly give up the effort until he is reminded that there are other survivors (one in particular) for whom the chance to do things over is not so troubling. 

The Irishman – In many ways Martin Scorsese’s star-studded entry to this list seems to be an attempt to tell a straightforward, rather than a revised, history of the Jimmy Hoffa tale.  That is, until you realize that the book upon which the story is based is almost certainly a complete fabrication.  Scorsese is no fool – he knows that what he is putting on film is as much a re-write of history as any of these other films – but he has a point to make, and if he has to go back in time to make a few … “adjustments”, he’ll take that trade off.  (By the way – this wasn’t Scorsese’s only history changing release this year – he also dropped “Rolling Thunder Revue” a documentary that mixes the real with the unreal – including a previously non-existent documentarian).

Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood – For Quentin Tarantino reworking history is not anything he hasn’t done before.  In both Django Unchained and Inglorious Basterds QT imagines alternative scenarios under which Hitler is fried alive and slaves take bloody vengeance on their ostensible masters.  His latest offering follows the same path, with the Manson family killings resulting in, well – Manson family killings. 

Of course, the biggest “do-over” both in terms of the change to the history of the universe and (perhaps most importantly to Hollywood) box office, was that enacted in Avengers – Endgame wherein half of the living things previously exterminated in a colossal extinction event are resurrected.  The universe in question is, of course, the Marvel universe but, hey, when your take goes over a billion worldwide – you make your own reality.

All of this begs the question – why?  Why now?  What is the zeitgeist that gives rise to the need to take another crack at things?

C’mon.  In this age of Brexit and Trump do we seriously have to look very far for the reason why there are millions out there who are begging for another go?  There has never been more of a cry for a “do-over” than there is now.  Given the chance there would be truckloads of volunteers ready and willing to find another 75,000 people throughout Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to drag to the polls if they could just go back to November, 2016.  “I know you’re hung-over – but this is IMPORTANT!” There are an equal number who would brave the rain to be willing to re-think their decision that it “wasn’t that big a deal” to vote since no one would ever go along with that moron Boris Johnson.  Just give me ONE MORE CHANCE…

Well, for those pining for the fjords of the past there is a solution short of the invocation of a parallel universe or time travel.  Democracy does indeed give the ability to have a do-over.  It’s called “the next election” and, if an alternative ending was really what was meant to happen – it will.  The downside – Quentin Tarantino or Danny Boyle cannot supply the ending you want.  Hard work alone can re-write the script.  If you want an alternative ending you have to get up off your ass and write it yourself.  Of course – you can be a pod person, sit in a darkened room and eat popcorn – your choice.

11th Hour

When I moved to Ireland (and thus Europe) quite some time ago I brought with me my American pre-conceptions and what sometimes turned out to be a fresh pair of eyes.  The former led me to hold with the idea that of the duo of World Wars the first was a mere prequel to the main show, the second.  After having spent a small amount of time here however it became apparent to me that while this might be true in terms of sequence there was no “mere” about it, and the first World War wasn’t to be regarded in the way I had always thought.  To extend the analogy (however inappropriately) a bit further – if the World Wars were to be regarded as movies  it would not be as if the first World War  was Star Wars episodes 1, 2, and 3 followed by the main attractions and the stars everyone knew.  It’s actually more akin to the Godfather’s One and Two.  Each is equally important to the story – but you can’t really understand Part 2 unless you know what happened in Part 1.

To be honest, as I sit here on the 100^th anniversary of the “end” of the first World War, I’m pretty sure that the case can be made that the “Great War” is the single event in these last 100 years that has shaped our lives more than any other.  In Europe and the Middle East that fact is visible everywhere you go - for WWI left scars that are exceptionally visible, (except in Germany, a fact that would have consequences).  From O’Connell Street in Dublin, where the bullet holes in the statues are very much artifacts of the war; to Belgium and France, where a ribbon of pockmarked land snakes its way across the landscape marking the trenches that bordered no man’s land; to the map itself, where the answer to why there is a Saudi Arabia,  a Jordan, an Israel (and a Palestine) even an Iran and an Iraq can only be understood in the maze of crosses and double crosses coming out of the war. 

But the First World War has one overriding difference when compared to the Second.  All of the after effects of the first war can be known, but they cannot be understood.  That is because none of the aspects of the war, including its very existence, should ever have unfolded the way it did.  (The same cannot be said of the Second War, which was birthed in evil, but at least you can get your head around “good versus evil”). The most notable thing about WWI is that it was birthed in stupidity, run in stupidity and ended in the same overwhelming bath of stupidity. 

The apex of Western civilization is not to be found in the present day. It most likely was at the start of the second decade of the last century.  In science the mysteries of the universe were being revealed.  In literature great works were being created in a multitude of languages.  In engineering the world was building as never before. In politics the nations of the world seemed to be stumbling towards at least some resolution of the importance of the individual.  Then, in that second decade, a surprisingly small number of morons managed to fuck it all up.

The challenge we all have in the second decade of this century is to not make the same stupid mistakes.  We’re making it a very close run thing.  Take global warming.  Somehow the answer to whether the planet is endangered by greenhouse gas emissions has become a political litmus test.  There should be no politics here – If you believe the planet is warming due to man made emissions, excessive CO2 is a bad thing.  If you do not believe that (or are unsure) -well, then, excessive CO2 is still a bad thing.  You see, the key here is the word “excessive”.  You can argue about where that line lies, but the fact that we are throwing too much garbage into our atmosphere is pretty much uncontrovertible.

On a somewhat less global level – consider the debacle that Brexit has become. When I moved to Ireland some 20 plus years ago a trip across the border entailed being stopped at dual checkpoints by automatic bollards and then armed sentries.  Your crossing was recorded by a massive fortress-like guardhouse, and then you would proceed through a narrow pass until emerging on the other side of the divide – where you were, for all intents and purposes, still in Ireland and could proceed to do your Christmas shopping.  There was nothing more dehumanising, or more unnecessary, than the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. 

Then came the Good Friday agreement.  Within a period of a couple of months not only were the automatic bollards and armed guards gone, but the guardhouses had been removed foundations and all.  You could not have found a trace of where it had been with a magnifying glass. Everyone agreed – this was a good thing.  In fact – the agreement represented probably the most successful resolution of an armed conflict in the past half century.  No one, and I mean no one, regardless of their political persuasion, was advocating a return to a hard border between the North and South of Ireland.  To do so you would have marked you as certifiable. 

And yet – here we are – with the border being cited as the reason for the failure to conclude a treaty to implement a “soft” Brexit.  It seems that rather than demand the retention of (let’s say it again) the single most successful resolution of an armed conflict in the last 50 years – certain elements within the British political establishment would insist that the border once again be closed – this time due to the entirely specious argument that people and goods might slip into the UK through, I guess, Swanlinbar or, perhaps even more outrageously – on the grounds that to make the border with Ireland anything less than as hard as the border with say, Belgium, it would mark the North of Ireland as something less than suitably a part of the UK. 

Of course this ignores a few (score) relevant facts.  For one, there is a major difference in that at every other touchpoint the UK has an ocean border, not a land border.  Thus the Irish border is unique and so you should be able to treat it uniquely.  Sovereign states not only differentiate between sea and land borders all the time – they treat different land borders differently all the time as well.  The argument against a differing Irish standard might stand up a bit better if the Irish border hadn’t been treated differently from the rest of Europe for every single day that the UK was part of the EU. First because of the ongoing Troubles, then because the Troubles were ended.  There has been something called a “Schengen Zone” in the EU for decades.  Somehow it never seemed to bother anyone back then that different standards applied to different borders.  Hell – just fly to Gatwick airport from Dublin.  To this day there is a different standard applied to that sort of travel.

Yet now we are told that to keep the Irish border open would threaten Britain's security and sovereignty.  I smell, if not a rat, then some fairly rancid fish and chips.  In order to uphold some largely imaginary principle a few witless officials are blindly catapulting an entire region into crisis.  No – we are not too far removed from 1914.

Today, of all days, we should take the time to consider the consequences of folly.  High sounding imperatives – whether the need in 1914 to rush to war so the other side wouldn’t get their trains loaded before you, or the need to insist that abandoning the (one more time) single most successful agreement of the last 50 years is “the only course open to us” – will generally lead to disaster.  On many fronts, we are fumbling towards catastrophe.

“Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.”

You Can't Spell "Team" without M and E...

A hard hitting one on one interview about the upcoming release of "Along the Banks" in which the author sits down with himself for a heart to heart...

Me:  Let me just first say what an honor and privilege it is to finally get a chance to interview you, me.

Me – Indeed, thank you me – but don’t you mean “honour and privilege” given that the UK spelling is used throughout the book?

Me:  Of course – was it difficult to keep the spelling consistent?

Me – Brutal – I never realised how many times I would have to spell “harbour”.

Me: Not to mention realizing you would have to spell “realised”.

Me- (Nodding head slowly)

Me:  But anyway – you’ve written a book – tell us how that happened.

Me – Well – I go through this in the introduction - a few years back a group at work decided they were going to do the Ring of Kerry cycle, which is a one day 180 kilometre ride.  I thought it sounded good when it was first suggested but then realised that I was saying that I would hop on my bike and basically cycle from Dublin to Galway.

Me:  Wow – that’s something that people in Ireland get – what about our U.S. audience.

Me – Pittsfield to Boston.

Me:  Had you ever cycled before?

Me- Sure, I used to have a bike when I was about 12.

Me: How far would you go?

Me – Usually from my house to the store.

Me:  How far was that?

Me – Hmmm. Let’s see – about 200 metres.

Me: Seriously?

Me- OK – about 150 metres.

Me: So you were not what would be deemed an “experienced cyclist”.

Me -  Not experienced – no, not experienced.  Definitely not.  That would be a “no”.

Me:  So you needed to get back on the bike.

Me – Yeah – for a couple reasons, one, I wasn’t 100% confident I knew the finer points of biking, like when to change gears.  Second – I wasn’t sure that I would actually be able to pull the ride off fitness wise.

Me:  You mean the Ring of Kerry?

Me – No – I meant the 150 metre ride to the store.  I was 100% sure that I couldn’t do Kerry.  At least not yet.

Me: So how does this lead to a book about the Royal Canal?

Me – Well – I got a bike and started looking around for places to train.  If you’ve ever seen the roads around Ireland – especially Dublin, they aren’t bike friendly.  They are often actually bike unfriendly.  Not an ideal place for a novice to try to re-learn cycling, if they want to keep their head attached to their body.

Me:  C’mon – they can’t be that bad.

Me – Wanna bet? – this is a cycle lane in Dublin:

 

Me:  Point taken – so you went to the Royal Canal?

Me – I did – and it was the best move I ever made.  The canal runs close to my house, is without traffic, forces you to work hard through the grassy stretches while not being too hilly.  It was ideal for training.

Me:  But why write about it?

Me – Because in addition to being a great place to train I kept running into things that made me ask questions.  There was a plaque on one of the bridges that told of 16 people being drowned at the spot back in the 1800’s.  The canal is only about 20 feet across there – I couldn’t understand why they drowned and wanted to find out how it could have happened.  There was a whole stretch of the canal that was about thirty feet down below the path – it made no sense as to why it would be dug that way. I wanted to find out why.  There was this old tower out by Maynooth that stood in the middle of a field – I was curious as to who would build that.  And as I asked the questions and dug up the answers I got more and more intrigued by the canal itself – why was it there, how was it built, who kept it up – and, as with any trip – what is around the next bend, and the next one – until I wanted to go the entire length.

Me: And why write about it?

Me – I’ve always liked to write – I do a lot of it at work but that is usually fairly dry, and I’ll write an occasional blog article.  I’d been wanting to write something longer for years – I even started a book when we first moved over to Ireland.

Me:  What was that about? 

Me – It was going to be an “American’s Guide to Irish History” – I had the idea that I would focus on the things that Irish American’s often got wrong – you know – like the fact that St. Patrick wasn’t from Ireland, that the English were actually invited into Ireland way back in the day (admittedly not something anyone regards as the best idea ever, a bit like the first Trojan saying “Look, someone left us a horsey!”), that the Blarney Stone legend really only extends back to the 1800’s and that much of the rest of what they’ve heard is exactly that – blarney.  I actually wrote several chapters before events conspired to make me put it aside.  First – we decided to stay in Ireland, which meant I had to become gainfully employed.  Next, I went to Barnes & Noble on one of my trips back to the States and saw about 15 other books, just like mine, in the remainder aisle.  It was fairly obvious that the world didn’t need another book like that.

But the itch to write something was still around.  Once I started finding out about the various aspects of the canal I found the hook I needed to make this book different, to emphasize the “story” part of history, because, in addition to being a guide that is what the book is – a collection of stories.

Me:  Stories about history?

Me – Some of it, sure.  I think there is probably a way to tie in to almost every aspect of Irish history somewhere in the book.  Prehistory when I talk about what has been dug up out of the bogs along the canal, the War of Independence when you go by Croke Park, the Irish aristocracy when the canal passes Carton House, the English Pale, the Land League, Ribbonmen, Daniel O’Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell – they all make appearances.  But not in linear, chronological order, like most histories.  Instead each topic comes up where it fits in the journey down the canal, and not all the stories are what would be considered classically “important” – they’re just as likely to be an offbeat, unexpected or strange story that comes up because it happened somewhere along the canal.

Me:  What are some examples of off-beat things you found?

Me- One of my favourite ones ties back in to where I grew up.  I’m from Western Massachusetts, a very rural area.  There are two towns out there, right next to each other - one called Lenox, the other Richmond.  While researching the book I found out that the canal ends at “Richmond Harbour”.  When I checked to see where it got its name I discovered that it was named after Charles Lennox, the Duke of Richmond.  Originally I thought it was just a coincidence – but it kept bugging me.  So I checked to see where the American towns of Lenox and Richmond got their names. 

Me:  Was it from the same guy.

Me – Nope – it was his uncle – the prior Duke of Richmond.  Both towns were named after him. It seems when Lenox split off from Richmond (somehow the spelling got changed) they didn’t want to be “South Richmond” or something like that, but they did want to continue to honour the same guy.  So they named themselves after the family name rather than the title.  The people in Richmond would tell you they’re named after a Duke – but the people in Lenox are just named after some guy named Charlie.

Me:  Perfect  - but why would American towns be named after a British Duke?

Me – Well – this particular Duke was the strongest and most vocal supporter of American independence in the British parliament – so strong he was called the “radical Duke”.  The townspeople in Massachusetts obviously appreciated the effort.  It seems that other people did as well – when they went through his papers a few years ago they found an old parchment that had been partially eaten by a mouse.  It turned out to be one of the original printed copies of the Declaration of Independence.  Someone had sent him the copy and it sat around in a folder somewhere  in England until it was rediscovered. That story is in the book.

Me:  Cool – why did they name the harbour after his nephew?

Me – The nephew had a government job and they wanted to get some money out of him.

Me:  Got it – some things never change.  So is it just history that these stories are about?

Me – No – look – you can’t write a guidebook these days that is just about how far it is from point A to B, or who things are named after.  Not because those things aren’t important - they are - but pretty much everyone carries a guidebook that’ll do that in their back pocket nowadays.  It’s called a smart phone – and with Google and its maps they can cover all those details.  What the phone can’t do is tell you a ghost story (the book has that), or discuss what constitutes the world’s funniest joke (according to an academic study), or talk about the Red Sox, friendship, repeat journey’s, Presidential rodeos, why not having to worry about traffic can lead to remembering eclipses, Tom Jones, Jack Nicholson, Irish political parties, why you shouldn’t have to pay a tax on your damn water, Annie Oakley’s husband, the greatest mile relay ever run or any of the sorts of things that make this a book not just about where you should go down the canal – but why you should go down the canal.

That all comes up in the book - and while you can cycle the canal now there are still some fairly rough patches.  If the government would just finish the damn greenway that's been promised there would be a fully complete natural destination available for people to come to Ireland and experience the same sort of thing for themselves.  Like I say in the book - it would be a "bucket list" ride for people who like that sort of thing.  And there are a lot of people who like that sort of thing. 

Me:  OK – that’s quite a rant.

Me – Sorry.  I’ll shut up now.  Hope you enjoy the book.


"Along the Banks - Cycling Ireland's Royal Canal" is due for publication within weeks.  Stay tuned for more details.