Shortly after our brother Michael passed away, Johnny and I met for dinner once a month at George Martin’s in Rockville Center. It was nicely situated adjacent to the Rockville Center Long Island Rail Road station, which made it convenient for me to get there and catch a train home to East Quogue via Speonk. Since Johnny lived in Baldwin, it was also an easy drive for Johnny.
We agreed to meet on Thursday evenings when I had an IVIG treatment scheduled for the day after. I was told to hydrate before these treatments and hydrate I did.
There was a specific ritual to be observed when we met for these dinners. Johnny would always get there first, and I would meet him at the bar, where we had a drink before we asked for a table.
Over the years, I learned not to sit at the first table offered to us. Invariably, it was not suitable for Johnny. Eventually, we did find a table that was “just right,” as Goldilocks would say about the Three Bears’ bed and porridge.
Having nestled ourselves into the perfect table, we perused the menu. I picked the same entree as I had the month before: three prime rib sliders and fries. Johnny was less predictable and would get a steak one time and something Italian the next time. The great thing about George Martin’s was that no matter what you ordered, you could be sure that it would be a fine meal.
But we weren’t there for the food.
The purpose of our dinner had nothing to do with the sustenance of the body, but it had everything to do with the sustenance of the soul.
We always talked about Michael and how perplexing his much too early passing affected us and our entire family. Johnny frequently said that it was a blessing that our father had not lived to see Michael die.
But then we would talk about the past, topics ranging from Momma and Daddy getting married and the turmoil (we imagined) it had on Momma’s family, who, like our mother, left Ireland at an early age. Our mother was nineteen. She was, in fact, expected to go back to Sligo, but America in 1926 was too exciting a time to return to the rural life of the west coast of Ireland. She also met Mickey, our father, and no one like him was waiting for her at the dock in Ireland.
We then would speculate about her citizenship status. Our mother never came through Ellis Island like so many of her fellow Irish immigrants. Instead, she came to America as a visitor. We were never sure if she went through the naturalization process, which she surely could have since she married an American citizen.
Because she was expected to return to Ireland, her brother, who was now the head of the family, made it clear that all of her siblings in America must boycott the nuptials. It also seemed that my father’s siblings were none too eager for their older brother to marry an Irish immigrant. This was surprising as they were Irish Americans, with grandparents originating in County Mayo before moving to Manchester, England, where their father was born.
So, the intrigue of our parents getting together always made for good conversation.
The highlight of the evening, however, gravitated to our lives at 1261 Leland Avenue, apartment 6 in the Bronx. We loved life in that apartment. Despite the age gaps between me and my siblings, our experiences were similar.
We always talked about how nice it would be to have a cup of tea and Irish Soda Bread with our parents and ask the questions we never thought to ask when they were still with us. Our father was a great storyteller and often had a crowd of people nearly wetting themselves as he told a yarn. Along with Uncle Al, who was married to my father’s sister and our Aunt Catherine, were my real-life Laurel and Hardy. Uncle Al played Stan to my father’s Ollie. Together, they were hysterical, and they knew it. So, we would ask my father to regale us with stories we had heard all our lives. My favorite was when they bought a car for five dollars so that they could drive up to see Uncle Al’s mother in upstate New York. On the way, they had five flats. But you had to hear my father tell the story to understand how funny it was.
Then, maybe, ask him to put the lampshade on his head, which would then resemble an exaggerated chef’s toque. Just seeing a picture of this had us laughing, but seeing it once again in person would be so restorative of memories slowly receding from our consciousness.
Mama was no less a storyteller. She was an Irish poet and writer but furnished her masterpieces in oratory. “To bed to bet there’s a knocking at the gate.” I heard these phrases for years, every night when it was time for me to go to bed. Then, in an English class, reading Shakespeare those familiar words were uttered by my teacher as he read Macbeth to us.
I was shocked! Shakespeare ripped off my mother!
Lizzie McHugh in County Sligo only attended school until the eighth grade, yet she mastered Shakespeare far better than her idiot son, who never possessed the depth of her understanding of the Bard of Avon.
Her words finally sunk into my Fat Irish Head, and I began to appreciate the written word. Fortunately, she did live to see my transformation.
It would be a mistake to think that she had to rely only on the words of the masters as she was able to captivate us with stories of her own. Life in Ireland or life in the South Bronx both provided sufficient fodder for a lifetime of stories.
Johnny and I would love to hear them all once again.
One of the things Johnny and I agreed on was that because of the gap in our age (he was seventeen years older than me), we had different memories of Momma and Daddy. Our other siblings, Maureen, Barbara, and Michael, would also have their separate memories, and it would be grand to hear all of them in a single session.
Of course, we would need much more tea and soda bread.
Having shared our thoughts and desires, I gazed at my watch. It was time to climb the stairs to the platform for the next train to Babylon, where I would change to the Speonk train.
The last Thursday we spent together was in December 2016, just before I retired and Eileen and I moved to Florida. We still had a Christmas party together and spoke every day when Eileen and I had gone.
We spoke every day, including the day before he died.
Since then, our Sister, Maureen, passed away, so Barbara and I are left wondering if they have enough tea and soda bread and what stories are being told.
As Johnny asked at our first Thursday dinner, “Wouldn’t it be nice just once a year to talk with them and ask them our questions?”
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