May 25, 2022
It had been a long night.
Our flight from Dulles to Dublin was delayed 4 hours and we were forced to deplane while they worked on a mechanical problem. (Note to travelers, at 11:00 on a Monday night, nothing . . . I mean nothing . . . is open in Dulles International).
Our fellow passengers were strewn all over the thinly carpeted airport floor—some in ways not best seen and not soon enough forgotten—so Cath and I wandered through the terminal. We eventually landed in front of a Starbucks where the only thing being served was the Muzak the staff left playing some Dave Koz like smooth jazz. We grooved to the tunes of what we dubbed “The Starbuck’s Jazz Club” much to the amusement of the only other soul in sight, a janitor emptying trash nearby.
Convinced that the flight would likely be cancelled, we were pleasantly surprised to hear over the PA system that the “luck of the Irish” prevailed and the pilot would crank our 767 up to Wild Banshee speed to get us into Dublin as soon as the jet stream would permit.
On board, we settled into the sleeping pods which the good folks at United offered their Business Class patrons, I stayed awake to catch the delicious large ravioli in red sauce, followed by a delightful palate cleansing lemon sorbet, while my traveling partner and wife to be . . . AKA Ant Man . . . curled up, sound asleep, sporting a mask to keep out the Covid, a shade to keep out the light, and earphones to keep out the noise.
Setting down in Dublin at about 1:30 p.m., I annoyed the grumpy Customs guy by apparently too cheerfully responding to his question “Purpose of Your Trip” with “. . . to get married.” He asked, “for how long”, referring to the length of our stay, and when I responded “forever” referring to the length of our marriage, he quickly decided the elderly American smart ass best be stamped on through.
Tickled that the portmanteau holding her wedding dress and my suit had not been lost, Cathy and I approached the Taxi cue where we were directed to the second taxi. The car was a spiffy Audi; the driver looked like a bald 6’4” cage fighter in a t shirt and orange sweat pants shorts and tall dark brown socks. Kinda a Jason Statham who had gone soft.
As I opened the back door to let Cathy in, he brusquely directed me to sit in the left front passenger seat with my daypack in my lap. As I did, fumbling for my seatbelt, he even more brusquely instructed me to mind that my pack not scratch the dashboard of his Audi, the likes of which–he quickly informed us—we were unlikely to see in all of Ireland.
When he asked us what brought us to Ireland, we soon found ourselves telling him our life story and soon found him telling us his. He took one look at Cathy and informed me I was a lucky “fecker.” I agreed and we became over the course of the half hour ride to the Westbury Hotel best friends. On the ride, we learned.
- He has traveled throughout the States on a Harley, and remembered well Sonoma County; he thought Yosemite the most beautiful place in the world;
- He has been feeling melancholy of late, the taxi business being devastated by Covid;
- He has two adult sons; when I asked him “do they live nearby, he said, “too nearby; they live with me and me wife; we can’t get rid of them.”
- We agreed we hated the British after he explained that the stadium we drove by seats 80,000 for Irish football and hurling, and that the British in 1921 drove a tank onto the field and riddled the audience with machine gun fire (Cathy and I had just seen this watching the movie Michael Connelly and wondered if that hadn’t been Hollywood exaggeration).
- He pointed out that the windows we saw in the upper floors of old Georgian homes had been cemented closed because, at the time, the British taxed Dubliners by the number of windows there were in their homes.
- He suggested that when we arrive in Northern Ireland we best keep to ourselves that Cathy’s family heritage was Catholic and mine was Protestant;
- He showed us the sights of Dublin, while talking on his mobile with the real estate agent while passing within inches of cyclists and busses in the tight city streets.
As we checked into the Westbury, Cathy and I agreed: that’s the thing about the Irish and why we love it so much here. It’s not just their gift for gab. It’s the way they treat you, a perfect stranger, as a long-lost friend.
Every interaction . . . whether with the kind lady in the snack shop at Trinity who sold us our Hop On Hop Off bus tickets, or the driver of the Hop On Hop Off who came to an abrupt stop in the center lane to allow us to board after we hailed him from the curb, or the waiter at the restaurant who enthusiastically brought us the bottle of “Lite” tonic so that Cathy and I might verify the Vodka Tonic she was contemplating was Diabetic Safe . . . they all treat you as if no question is a bother, certainly not for you, a friend.
Yeats was right:
“there are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t yet met.”
"Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost" 