A Return to Benevolence

Denver, CO 80212

Tuesday, April 4, 2012 – Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Fourscore and seven halfweeks ago, I was just wrapping up my travels to and fro Europe. Apparently, and I’m sure much to your chagrin, this meant I was folding up my web blogging tent and heading for the Land Down Under, which here in Denver is a restaurant that outlaws greybeards and web blogging of all shapes and sizes.

Without your semi-daily fix of travelogue goodness, which undoubtedly you had been devouring along with a single poached egg at brunch, as per the instructions on the box (which box? why?), I bet there was a sense of forlornness. Of depression. Of momentary euphoria when you realized the shackles had finally fallen off and that you were free to eat brunch however you wished, which quickly slid into a much deeper depression when you remembered that one night a week ago in Vegas.

But please, cry no more! Plug up them eyes! For goodness sake, hold your tears! For, in the words of Rafiki, the King has returned, and the King is actually one of those aliens from Signs that took its chances on the planet whose surface is 76% water in spite of having an anaphylactic allergy to the stuff. In fact, could you move all wet wipes and discarded oyster shells from the vicinity of your computer? It’s really a terrible affliction.

Soon to be deceased extraterrestrial rulers notwithstanding, what better way to celebrate a renowned web blogger’s return than to offer you all a million dollars of my hard earned cashmonies? (Elated gasp!) Well, duh, I’ll post another story from my travels! (Disappointed sigh…) The only question is which story, and the only answer is the one about the Fake Cousins: A Day in Oopsland.

It was just your average, ordinary day in war-ravaged Ireland. Scratch that. It was a superordinary day. At any rate, the wind was howling and the rain was blowing us eastward, away from the coast and far from the lunar landscape of Connemara and the bouncy, lively, international city of Galway and its Girl.

The previous night, I had gotten in contact with a (distant) cousin of mine that lived within a day’s ride of Galway. Her name was Bridie Kenny, and my cousins back home raved about how kind and sweet she had been some ten years prior, when they had visited the Motherland. Unfortunately, my cousins did not have her contact information and so were doubtful that I could find her. But living in this Age of Information (AoI) is a wonderful thing, which can allow you to find almost anyone almost anywhere and located for me one Bridie Kenny living just inland of Galway in the very town where my Great Grandfather grew up, or at least one town over. My hopes were high as I dialed her number, my breath was held in anticipation as it rang, and my mind was utterly befuddled when a younger man answered the phone. To my knowledge, my cousin was a much older woman that lived alone. Joe, the man on the phone, calmed my fears by telling me he was her son taking care of her house while she was out, but he raised some new ones when he told me they weren’t aware of any relations in Chicago. Are you sure you’re not from New York? Or Texas? No, Chicago. Oh, well, no problem, we’ll figure it out tomorrow, after 7pm when Bridie returns from a trip to the doctor’s! The die had been cast, the wheel spun, and the spuds lightly fried with some salt and pepper. More on the spuds in a bit.

Knowing that we had all day to dilly and/or dally, Sean and I took our and probably everyone else’s sweet time. I got myself a snazzy Irish haircut in a town with a massive castle sitting smack dab in the middle. The barber was an older woman and was very kindly. But there was a catch: She had absolutely no sense of what hairstyles actually look good. She actually might have been blind. I’m not sure. But the fact remains that she was about to let me go with a veritable rattail when Sean spoke up on my behalf.

Not so bad after all, eh? Now that I look at it, I should probably clean behind the ears more thoroughly...

Leaving the barbershop with a sharp haircut, I was nearly to the point where I could declare the day a success. However, I was missing one key ingredient: food, and lots of it! So Sean and I stopped by a local deli and picked out our favorite Irish meat treat, which is of course corned beef. The only thing was that this deli product resembled bologna more than the corned beef I cherished so dearly. We wrote it off as just being the real stuff, not the American knock off version, and ordered half a kilo. I recall wondering why such a treasured and delicious food was so cheap out here, but again concluded that there must be such an abundance of it being that this is where it originated. We made our way to the castle’s playground to enjoy our feast.

Not two bites into our sample of corned beef, we realized our folly. In fact, opening up the package and catching a whiff of… whatever it was that was inside was enough to make us question what we were about to do. But too late! We had already started munching, then halting mid-chew, then looking around in a forlorn and confused manner, then nodding to each other in agreement before spitting out the horridness in our mouths and depositing the .499 kg that remained on the ground, hoping that it would be edible for the birds. Having learned our lesson, that we just weren’t in Kansas anymore and that Irish “corned beef” is the equivalent of cat food not fit for feline consumption, we packed up our lunchables and continued on toward the stormy skies in the East.

After taking another break to warm up, nap, and write a few letters at a tea shop, we were once more on our way to Bridie’s. Not 30 minutes after we had set off for the final leg of our journey through the windy, wet, and twisty hedge-lined passages of Western Ireland, we were met by wild honking. My first reaction was the natural one coming from years of experience as an athlete who has shared many a road with many a disturbed driver, which was to instantly tense up and ready myself for a projectile of some sort. Who knows – maybe it would be money this time (it’s never money).

But lo! And behold! It was Bridie herself, along with her daughter Patricia, who were just on their way back from the good doctor’s in Galway and were stopping in a petrol station on the way back. Once more, they greeted us warmly but expressed their confusion over having a living, breathing cousin in front of them who hailed from Chicago, of all places! They took our bags and gave us encouragement to meet half an hour later at their farmhouse two towns over.

By the way, this is the wonderful thing about Irish roads, or most European roads in general. They go from town to town as opposed to East/West or North/South, and there is typically only one road – and a motorway – to get where you want to go. So if you know someone is going from Galway to Kilconnell, there is but one way to get there once you get off the motorway. Coming from the southwest suburbs of Chicago, with a gaggle of parallel country roads to choose from, all going directionally and not according to living centers, this is a huge change. Highway robbers must have made a killing on these roads!

In spite of the downpour and chilly conditions, as well as the drastically reduced braking power that made us miss several turns thanks to speeding from a stiff tailwind, Sean and I were in high spirits. The only thing was that I couldn’t help but notice that not once but twice did they doubt the existence of cousins in Chicago. I started to voice these concerns to Sean, but by then we were already at their driveway and being gestured at frantically to get inside.

Another thing I learned in Europe was that Europeans have a far, far greater appreciation for the elements than do we here in America. Not only do they stay away from getting wet when they can avoid it, but they always wear slippers inside their houses, have fires going for the need to stay warm, are actually severely impacted by things like snow and ice (there is absolutely no infrastructure whatsoever in Ireland to battle snow, meaning that a mere 3 inches shuts the country down for days), and have some of the warmest beds that I have seen. In fact, I fell in love with the “hot water bottle” that my Irish cousins would fill with boiling water from a kettle and place under the covers just before bedtime to make their beds cozy as can be. I’ve since used this while camping to great effect.

Once inside, we learned that they had sent out Joe, the man who had answered the phone, to rescue us in his pickup truck. These people were so kind as to spend expensive diesel fuel and risk getting wet just to save us from a little storm. Again, the conversation turned to our origins, showing their curiosity in the matter. But, again, their kindness showed through, as they urged us to shower and eat before we would examine the family trees.

Get yer spuds! Never mind the mud...

And what a shower it was, to get out of the sopping wet and bitterly cold clothes! And what a dinner it was, to fill our bellies with chips aka fries (made from freshly picked spuds), sausages, baked beans, tea galore, and wonderful butter and scones with homemade blackberry jam. ‘Twas truly a feast for kings.

Dry, warm, and stuffed, we set out to connect the past with the present and Ireland with America. Much to our chagrin, we couldn't seem to quite make the pieces fit. It seemed that every cousin of theirs was accounted for, minus one man, but he was sure to have died back in the ‘40s. Patricia and Joe, the progeny of Bridie, were hard at work solving the puzzle. Michael, another son, was also on the way over to help hash things out. Just before he arrived, Patricia had a sudden realization, which I had gotten after the rendezvous in the petrol station – namely, that I was at the wrong house. Surely enough, it turned out that way after all, and we even found the real Bridie Kenny in the phone book.

I was somewhat worried about what would happen once they figured out the truth. But, instead of any ill-will, they laughed heartily and thoroughly, and kept laughing each time they reconsidered the situation. I was even awoken by laughter in the middle of the night, though that might have been a result of the demons I had awoken earlier in the trip (but that’s another story altogether).

Indeed, rather than casting us out into the unknown, they took us in as though we were family. They treated us better than I had expected to be treated, perhaps as a result of the gaffe. We got the royal tour of the town, including an ancient abbey and the local pub, where we sampled some of the finest Guinness around and played some pool with their young boys. They gave us a warm bed to rest in and had breakfast waiting for us the next day. We even were invited to dig up some potatoes and pick some fresh eggs for the dinner they were feeding us before sending us on our way to meet with the real Bridie Kenny. I think the way they felt about us can best be summed up by how they left us: with tears in their eyes. Though Sean and I were merely looking for a place to get out of the cold and meet up with distant relatives, we instead bonded with a loving family that welcomed us as one of their own, in spite of the clear evidence to the contrary. I can still remember the sheepishness I felt upon hearing that we were not in the right place, but even more I will surely never forget the warmth, hospitality, and love I felt emanating from the entire family.

A joyous farewell, until they come to visit their family in Chicago...

The Fake Cousins, as they have become known, taught me of course to welcome family and strangers alike into your life and treat them with utmost care. If you ever have the opportunity to welcome a stranger into your life, to save two poor lads from a raging storm and feed ‘em potatoes and Guinness, do so in honor of the Fake Cousins.

But what about the real Bridie? What was her fate? After saying goodbye to Bridie, Patricia, and Joe, we set out for my real cousin. Well, let’s just say she wasn’t in the best of health, had had a rough life, couldn’t use her legs, needed us to open up a can of tuna as dinner for us, and was too tired and fed up with life to do much of anything, except to waste away. It was a shock, like going from day into night, to have had this visit not an hour following our stay with the Fake Cousins. And it made me all the more appreciative of the role chance has in our lives, which can take a turn for the better just as soon as it can for the worse.

Now that I’m done pontificating, I ought to end this post. I’ve written a bunch and said not much of anything. But this is a step in the right direction, and so I hope you’ll follow me eagerly to the precipice of the gaping abyss gleaned by the adventures of traveling. After all, we’re all cousins in the vast scheme of things.