Ill Take You Home Again 1800s
By Terence Patrick Molinari
The Author With the Girl of his Dreams
Thoughts of Ireland had taken up permanent residence in my head after the trip the girl of my dreams and I took there eighteen months ago. I am set in my habits and getting quite worn around the edges. Many guys I had worked with in the New York State Police were dropping like flies from heart attacks, Parkinson's disease, cancer and you name it. To put it simply, "they are rolling balls down our alley". I had the urge to return to Ireland before the reaper closed in for the final visit. I asked Cean if she was game. Coming from a long line of Missouri farm women she is tough as nails and up for most anything except meanness and sky diving. We decided to see if we could gather some recruits to accompany us on the adventure. After flying in and out of Dublin our focus would be Northern Ireland. Belfast is where my mother grew up and I was born. Northern Ireland would be our destination.
Having a high-risk personality I contacted my siblings. Five of the six were immediately onboard. My brother Kevin and his wife Linda, who live in Charlotte, North Carolina, were the first to sign on. They both retired a few years ago. They are now were operating a full-time day care program for their grandchildren Isabella and Santino aka "The Beast." Both toddlers were just over a year old. Isabella was a mild child compared to her cousin Santino. He was a yeller and a fist pounder in true Molinari male fashion. Twin sisters Margaret & Christine, retired 911 operators, who both lived in New York State also signed on. Mindy and her husband Bob had just become grandparents. In 1969 when Mindy was 18 she and our mother travelled to Ireland during the height of "The Troubles." Chrisie, a seasoned grandparent and traveler, has sons who live in California and Memphis. Her three grandsons live in California. Trish is also retired and living in New York State. She has a passel of grandkids. She would travel with our youngest sister Maureen. I contacted folks we had met on our first trip. Vicki and Ed Browning from Ohio were happy to join us. Ed is a fellow Vietnam vet retired from Ford Motor Company. I asked if they could bring me a few shares of Ed's old Ford Motor company stock to assist with my plans. That request is still pending.
Vicki and Ed
Vicki and Ed were originally from Williamson, West Virginia. That is about five miles from the Kentucky state line. It was there they met in school. Vicki met Ed when she was seven years old. Williamson is near the area know as Appalachia. Appalachia is a cultural region in the Eastern United States. It stretches from the Southern Tier of New York to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky. Vicki's father and her grandfather were both coal miners. She remembers her grandfather had to crawl on his knees to get into the mines. Eventually the mines were petering out. Vicki's dad went to Ohio to seek work. He landed a job at Ford Motor Company. The family soon moved. You might say when it comes to the term "Coal Miners Daughter," Vicki is the real deal. She is a sweet woman with a charasmatic personality who calls it like it is. Don't ask Vicki something if you don't want to hear the unvarnished truth. Ed's father Charlie was also a coal miner. Two of Ed's sisters married Hatfield's. Wanda married Eugene Hatfield and Shebivia (Sheb) married Cecil Hatfield. Cecil's father was a cousin of William Anderson Hatfield — known as Devil Anse Hatfield — who was the patriarch of the Hatfield clan during the infamous Hatfield–McCoy feud. This feud has since formed part of American folklore. Devil Anse survived the feud. He agreed to end it in 1891. After High School Ed moved to Ohio in hopes of finding employment. He landed a job with Ford Motor Company. After four years he got called up by another Uncle. It was Uncle Sam calling. He needed Ed's service in that crazy Asian war known as Vietnam. He served with honor and returned to his job at Ford.
Lyle Dunlap, is 92. He is a retired Navy Chief and old WW II vet from Illinois. Lyle was also joining us again. Lyle was a handsome man with a pleasant demeanor. He is instantly likable. He treats you as if you are one of the high points of his day. He is a wealth of knowledge with stories from his life.
Cean and Lyle
Our final recruits were our friends Cathy and Gary Jahn. They live nearby us in Georgia. Cathy is the Comptroller for the local garden club. The club was started many years ago by our friend Frances Meeks. Frances although getting on in years, retains a vibrant mind and keeps her finger on the pulse of daily goings on. Cathy is a dot your "i" cross you "t" type of girl who doesn't miss much. Her husband Gary, was able to get time off from his job at a large food distribution business. This was after a couple of weeks of jumping through local and corporate hoops up and down the eastern seaboard. Gary is an easy going guy whose feather's don't get ruffled to easily. He is a proud Navy veteran. The Navy played an even bigger part in Gary's life than his military service. His mother Florence and his dad Warren were both in the U. S. Navy in World War II. They met while they were stationed in Hawaii. His dad was a Gunner's Mate on a LST. He saw duty in New Zealand and throughout the Pacific. While his mom was in Navy Intelligence. I guess she was smart enough to know Warren was a good catch. They were married in New Jersey after they were discharged.
Cathy & Gary
Prior to departure I had many phone conversations with Lyle. They ran the gamut of topics. We discussed many things from his Navy tour and meeting his wife to taking ladies for rides in his new red Miata convertible. He told me about his life-long friends Bill and Sally who were originally from Nebraska. They were neighbors of Lyle and his wife Helen when Lyle was stationed in Hawaii. Lyle met Helen in London during World War II. She was in the British Navy and he was in the U.S.Navy. The Navy forged some outstanding men. Her full name was, "Helen Barrie Swanke". Helen passed away from cancer in 1999. She was related to and named after Sir James Barrie. He was the Scottish novelist who wrote Peter Pan. Helen and Lyle kept the name Barrie in the family by naming one of their daughters Barrie. His friend Bill was a Coast Guard flyer, once the Executive Officer for the Coast Guard LORAN Station (Long Range Aid to Navigation) in Iwo Jima. Bill and Sally now made their home in Tennessee. They often spent their winters in Chauvin, Louisiana. It is a small village in Terrebonne Parrish. It wasn't famous for much. West of the village of Chauvin is the Bayou Chauvin Oil and Gas Field. Fred and Sally stayed at a Bait and Tackle place run by a husband and wife. They had trailers on the property they rented out. Lyle rented one this past winter for a month to escape the northern winter chill. He struck up a friendship with the wife Samantha. She had hinted to Lyle the spark had left her marriage. Samantha was born and raised in the bayou. She lived there all her life. They had taken a liking to one another. The rest remains classified. Lyle flew back down in April for a couple of more weeks. I got the drift it was to see Samantha. Her character made me think of a line from the song, "Polk Salad Annie"; she was a straight razor toten woman." He said he was happy to get back home and see his housekeeper Cindy. Cindy took good care of him. Lyle recently attended an informational meeting at AAA Travel about train trips across Canada. It was there he met a single woman named Carolyn Kyle. She said she was a relative of the famed American Sniper Chris Kyle. He mentioned she lived 45 miles away. She was on her way to see him as we spoke. He later told me they had lunch and took a drive around a nearby lake in his red Miata convertible. They hit it off. How lucky can one guy get? In Ireland Lyle was buying jewelry for Carolyn and anxious to see her upon his return. At 92, Lyle is living life to the max.
Vicki, Lyle and Cean
His Navy tour took him to duty stations all over the world. He saw duty in the Submarine service as well as on land. He was sent to GITMO (Guantanamo Bay) right out of boot camp. He worked at the Rome Embassy Communications Station the last four years in the Navy. He remembers being in San Francisco when they dropped the bomb in Japan. He said joyfully, "They tore that town apart." He looked back at his life when he turned 90 and said it read like a cruise book. On another unusual thing Lyle had two cousins who were Medal of Honor recipients. They are both deceased; Robert Dunlap and James Stockdale. His first cousin Robert Hugo Dunlap was a United States Marine Corps major. He received the Medal of Honor for heroism above and beyond the call of duty as a captain of a rifle company during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. His other cousin, Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale, was also winner of the Medal of Honor. Admiral Stockdale was shot down over North Vietnam on Sept. 9, 1965. He spent seven and a half years as a prisoner, four of them in solitary confinement in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton." While a prisoner, he organized a culture of defiance among his fellow captives. Those men included another naval aviator, John McCain. He went on to become a senator from Arizona. These men possessed an indomitable spirit. I saw this spirit in Lyle as well the first time I met him.
The Charlotte Douglas International Airport was under construction in many areas. It added to the usual chaos of airports in these days of heightened security. We got through Homeland Security screening in 20 minutes. It was a long line when we started. Luckily Cean's brother Nick, an old American Airlines exec gifted us with Admiral's Club passes and upgraded seats. We had a nice lunch on the Admiral even though he was not in. As Cean said, "Any time spent with the Admiral is time well spent." The Admiral's Club in Charlotte was a smooth transition unlike our previous experience in Dallas.
The flight to Dublin was delayed briefly due to a mechanical problem. Otherwise it took off and landed safely in Ireland. We were met by Matt Nolan, a pleasant man with a crisp Irish sense of humor. He was to be our driver/guide for the week. Matt and his wife Margaret had four grown children; two boys and two girls. He said he thought he would save money after they left home but it didn't work out. They often returned home to eat. Matt transported us to the Cabra Castle Hotel. The original Cabra Castle dates back to the 1600's. It has a storied history passing through many owners over the centuries. Since 1991 it has been owned by its present owners the Corscadden family. In 2010 an article in the Irish Times declared it the second scariest hotel in the world by the rating site,"Trip Advisor". I suspect it will probably move to number one when word gets out Molinari siblings stayed there.
Next stop was the City of Belfast in Northern Ireland. Belfast is the city of my birth and my mother's childhood. As we toured the city my mind flashed back to the many stories I had heard growing up from my mother and my aunt Kathleen about Ireland and their people. We went by Holy Cross Church Ardoyne on Crumlin Road. That is where my parents we married and I was baptized. As we rode around the divided city, names like "the Troubles, the IRA , the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the Ulster Defense Association and the Black and Tans all ran through my mind." My grandfather, Patrick Joseph Bradley, signed on with "Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show." There he met Annie Oakley. He took off to Cuba during the Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Rider era. He also worked as a tent pegger with "Barnum and Bailey's"circus. Finally he wandered home to Ireland. He married my grandmother, Jane Christie, raised five children and roamed the pubs of Belfast. My mother told stories of going to the pub and getting her father a pint. My Aunt Kathleen told me of seeing her father drunk roaming the streets and once calling out the "Black and Tans". They were mostly former soldiers brought into Ireland by the government in London after 1918 to assist the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in their work. If he spotted my aunt he would often call out in a drunken voice, "Is that my Kathleen?"
We stayed at the Europa Hotel in Belfast. There we had dinner with Lyle, Cathy, Gary, Ed, Vicki, and a couple we just met from Coco Beach, Tony and Jeanne. She had been a traveling nurse. Someone asked Tony what he did. He said he had been "in finance" but retired early. I flashed back to once hearing Pete Dawkins (former Brigadier General and Heisman Trophy winner at West Point) talk. He referred to how men meet and greet each other. "What do you do?" It struck me funny, the way Tony said, "in finance." I blurted out "I'm in futures." It must have been the Jameson talking. Nowadays I was mostly into cookies after a lifetime of being in caca up to my neck in one form or another.
Shean's Horse Farm
A visit to Shean's Horse Farm, run by Danny McKinley & wife Mary proved quite interesting. After tea and scones made by Mary we were treated to a bit of local history. Then we ventured up into the Glens of the Antrim highlands. There were many battles were fought by Sorely Boy McDonnell, (Sorely meaning summer lad of yellow hair) a Scotch-Irish Prince was born in 1505. It is not known exactly where but the general consensus is that it was at Dunaneanie Castle (Ballycastle). He died at the age of 85 at Dunaneanie Castle, a remarkable age for the turbulent times he lived in. His body was interred in Bonamargie Friary. Sorely came from a large family and had five brothers James, Colla, Angus, Alexander, Donal and several sisters. He belonged to the Scottish clan of the McDonnell – an ancestor had married Margery Bisset who was heiress to a large portion of land along the North Antrim coast and in the Glens. Cean, who has McDonald relatives from Scotland and Ireland in her bloodline may have been related to Sorely Boy. Our hosts bantered that Cean had come to claim her inheritance. I have heard many stories of her Grandmother Gracie Mable McDonald aka "Granny Mac". One of my favorite is when Cean's mother Elsie had to go away for a few days. She did not want to leave her mother, Granny Mac, who was in her nineties alone. So she arranged for her to stay in a local nursing home. When Elsie came to pick up Granny Mac she was sitting in the hall with hands on her pocketbook and her hat on her head. She said, "Elsie, I need a word". She said when she got there she started walking around and she saw they had people tied like dogs in their beds. So she reached in her purse and pulled out her shears and she set them free. Now the director wanted a word with Elsie. They thought Granny Mac was not nursing home material. She didn't have the right attitude.
Danny McKinley owner of Shean's Horse Farm pointed out that just a few miles from the horse farm on the hills of Antrim on October 3, 1942, a B-17 Flying Fortress Bomber crashed with ten men onboard. Eight perished in the crash. There were two survivors who were cared for by local people as well as the Glenbush Home Guard and members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. They were transported to the hospital in Ballymoney. The plane was enroute from the USA to an RAF base to Cambridgeshire, England with re-fueling stops in Newfoundland and Scotland. The information regarding the flight was originally classified. However in 2012 on the 70th Anniversary of the flight a wreath was laid at the sight of the crash and a committee was established to determine the details of the crash. Money was raised and an engraved Memorial stone was installed in the site. It was a reminder of the sacrifices of war and these young men who died far away from their homes and loved ones.
At the northern-most point in Ireland located in the Donegal highland is a pub called The Seaside Tavern. There we had Irish Coffee and a light lunch. I'm not sure about the light part. Although Ireland was neutral in World War II the country did give permission for radar stations to be built to track German activity. The remains of one such facility still exists today in the highlands. The meaning of Donegal is "the fort of the foreigners" which to them meant the Vikings.
We visited the northern village of Keel on Achill Island which lies off County Mayo on the west coast of the Republic of Ireland. Marked by rugged mountains and peat bogs, the island is known for its tall sea cliffs and clean beaches. Its breezy shoreline makes it a popular spot for water sports. The strand (beach) at Keem Bay inspired visiting writers Heinrich Böll and Graham Greene. Keel, the island's main village, has a sandy surf beach. We had a great lunch at the Beehive Restaurant.
A meal with the Merry Plough Boys singing followed by Irish dancers topped off a great night at the Merry PloughBoy Pub in Dublin. They performed a famous song, "I'm a Rambler, I'm a Gambler" which has been done by many artists over the years. It is one my Belfast mother used to sing when I was growing up. It wasn't new to me. Hearing it again was powerful. Everyone spent the afternoon wandering around Dublin. It seemed as busy as New York City but with a different tone. Cean and I had afternoon Irish Coffee at the Writer's Bar inside the Gresham Hotel in Dublin with Vicki and Ed. We rested our feet from roaming the streets. Our server was a Portuguese girl named Vania who promptly informed us her name was a mans name in Russia. She went on to say her middle name, Maria, wasn't so bad.
The next day we left Ireland. Our flight was 10:00am. We got to the airport at 6:30 am. Ample time, right! Wrong. The first line to print out luggage tags, boarding passes and check suitcases ate up an hour. The agent engaged each person in a chat up. People in line were carping and complaining as the agent carried on a lengthy conversation with each person. Often gesturing and laughing. It was an interrogation. He asked things like where do you stay! Have you ever been here before and what did you like best about Ireland? Tough questions as the country has much interesting stuff to offer along with a ton of natural beauty. I realized he was doing some screening for the airline. Next stop was security, that was another long wait. Then my fake knees set the alarm off. Subject to more intense screening we finally made it through. Next stop U.S. Customs prescreening. We hit that about shift change so that increased the wait. Cean had a fever and we got to our gate just as they called our group to board. Thanks are due again Cean's brother Nick. He arranged for much better seats with extra legroom. I covered her with blankets and fed her fluids for the eight hour flight home. Luckily Cathy and Gary drove us home from the airport to our house where we went into physical, emotional and social lockdown recovery mode for the following two weeks.
Yes as I mentioned early on there was family onboard. My siblings huddled together in tribal style throughout the trip and did not mingle with the folks. There was always feuding, real or imagined as James Webb pointed out in his book "Born Fighting." This family fit the bill. It would be difficult for outsiders to understand the illogical stubborn stance of this group. It also explains a lot about myself…a lot to embrace…particularly my own individualism and willingness to fight for a principled belief and not retreat. Cean thought perhaps my ancestors were the ones who had stripped themselves naked, painted themselves blue and went after people with terrifying large hatchets like the 500 BC Celts. We are more refined nowadays. We use our tongues.
Veterans
Source: https://terrymolinari.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/ill-take-you-home-again/