Copyright © 2012 Richard P. Nixon All Rights Reserved.
ONIONS DON' T MAKE ME CRY
Christmas leftovers were uncomfortable in my stomach. Donning a brown wool coat, I decided to take the three-mile walk into the country to visit a family that always had a welcome and a bit of fun to offer. Maybe Willie Farrell would be there, and the little kitchen filled with Gaelic music, lilting, tapping feet and turf smoke.
“See that you're home before dark, young lady,” were my mother's parting words before I went out the door.
In 1938, Ballygawley was typical of Northern Ireland's small towns, without cinema, playgrounds or dance hall, the only restaurant being a fish and chip booth set up by an enterprising family every Saturday night near the courthouse. The day after Christmas was crisp and sunny. Small curls of frozen snow hugged the edges of the cobbled pavements and loose pebbles. The village was silent, the street as empty as Sunday after church.
I walked up the steep hill that was Main Street, its shops and pubs shuttered, past the water pump at the corner where the old courthouse separated Main Street from Church Street, that long straight row of squat whitewashed houses with their half-doors painted every shade of green, red, and yellow. It was on these half-doors that the women leaned, cross-armed, during weekdays, gossiping or watching the children play in the open drains that ran a few yards from the doorsteps. The water from the weekly laundry, bath and daily dishes was emptied down these drains, there being no indoor plumbing in the houses of Church Street.
Christmas leftovers were uncomfortable in my stomach. Donning a brown wool coat, I decided to take the three-mile walk into the country to visit a family that always had a welcome and a bit of fun to offer. Maybe Willie Farrell would be there, and the little kitchen filled with Gaelic music, lilting, tapping feet and turf smoke.
“See that you're home before dark, young lady,” were my mother's parting words before I went out the door.
In 1938, Ballygawley was typical of Northern Ireland's small towns, without cinema, playgrounds or dance hall, the only restaurant being a fish and chip booth set up by an enterprising family every Saturday night near the courthouse. The day after Christmas was crisp and sunny. Small curls of frozen snow hugged the edges of the cobbled pavements and loose pebbles. The village was silent, the street as empty as Sunday after church.
I walked up the steep hill that was Main Street, its shops and pubs shuttered, past the water pump at the corner where the old courthouse separated Main Street from Church Street, that long straight row of squat whitewashed houses with their half-doors painted every shade of green, red, and yellow. It was on these half-doors that the women leaned, cross-armed, during weekdays, gossiping or watching the children play in the open drains that ran a few yards from the doorsteps. The water from the weekly laundry, bath and daily dishes was emptied down these drains, there being no indoor plumbing in the houses of Church Street.
