So How Was it For You - The Greening of America?
It was always hail more than rain. With winds whipping it sideways. And we’d joke about it.
The rest of the time in Ireland bad weather was referred to as desperate, or sometimes by the people who professed not to believe in God, with anger at the God they didn’t believe in for gifting us such weather beyond a punchline. But on March the seventeenth it really was traditional to laugh at having the worst possible weather.
Until 1995. That’s when the government in a stroke of genius decided to re-invent Irish weather for March the seventeenth and organize the sun to shine on a sunny shiny festival.
When I walked out my door in Kansas City on the morning of March 17, it started to hail. Hail in America makes me wonder if there’s an official naming body somewhere like the crowd who name hurricanes in alternating male and female names as they trip and loop through the Alphabet.
Whoever the Hail Naming Group are, they give the official names of the different sizes hail comes in. And it’s an All-American hail, in much the same way as Typhoons are ignored in the land of the hurricane. So we have baseball-sized hail, instead of sliothar-sized - which you must admit sounds better. And we have golf ball-sized, and grapefuit-sized, and yes we’re still talking about hail.
Anyway this American hail was smaller than a dime. I like to think it doesn’t have a name, much like rain drops don’t, but in America with its need for exactness I’m sure it does. So naturally I said, I can’t go cycling in this, not because I didn’t know what name the hail-size had, but because it was half-seven in the morning and I was cycling to go drinking after having worked through the night. It was clearly a message from God saying, go to bed, forget the rugby, and drink is bad for you.
But God doesn’t do that sort of thing, my dog does, and by now I was so nostalgic for the March 17th of my Irish youth that I said not alone was I damn well cycling in this, but I was going to do it wearing shorts. Really. That’s what I said. It’s not what I did, but it is what I said.
A big tent, a bigger tent, a little tent, a tiny tent, all the pubs were dead. Led to believe the city would be awash with drunks even at 7:30 in the morning, I was surprised to see nobody out and about.
The streets of KC are, as I’ve said before, paved not with gold but with tennis balls, so I counted them as I didn’t pick them up until I reached the midtown tents. Nobody there so I cycled on to the Irish coffee shop. That is actually Irish however, so I cycled on past.
Within minutes I am sitting with English people and Irish people, and Ireland are on a big screen playing Italy. Many European people had emailed me over the previous three weeks for advice on what pub to watch live rugby and other events in, and every time I told them how stupid Setanta are in pricing cities, with minimal interest in Irish sporting events, completely out of providing the service.
That’s not all I said though. I also gave advice to strap a projector to a laptop, pay Setanta their ten dollars, and invite all your friends around for a fraction of what they would have been happy to pay a pub. This only works is you have friends. And ideally friends with a laptop, projector, and big screen between them.
So Ireland won their game but I felt their margin was going to be not quite enough, and I was consoled by the fact that I don’t like rugby and am happy to see Ireland lose. Then France played, almost won, and almost didn’t, with the Scots scoring against them at the death and me risking a reserved cheer - not wanting to spill my tea.
And in injury time with the ball dead but unseen the last act was a television judgment as to whether France had won won, or Ireland, who weren’t playing, had won won. And I felt so proud that this impartial-judge-to-be was an Irishman as he gave the Six Nations to France. Proud because I was sure he was right, yet couldn’t see any actual evidence that he was. And I was consoled again by the fact that I don’t like rugby and am happy to see Ireland lose. And yet I said, Damn! Possibly twice.
However I do like cricket as you recall from our talk on Ireland’s amazing debut in the World Cup against Zimbabwe, so intermittently I was running into another room, with Jamaican beer in hand, checking Ireland building towards an incredible Jamaican moment.
You might recall I said Pakistan would thrash us. So with Pakistan on an impossibly low score I kept reading the Irish bowler Botha’s figures over and over. In bowling eight overs he had taken two wickets and astonishingly allowed only five runs. Against Pakistan. This calls for another Red Stripe, I said after six bottles.
And so on went the day. Who would have forecast that on one of Ireland’s major sporting days that the headlines wouldn’t be about Ireland winning, or not as it turned out, the Six Nations, but of Ireland knocking Pakistan out of the World Cup in cricket? I was now so excited I would join the green masses and drink.
Oh but look, England are now playing. And they’re losing. And I thought, hey I do like rugby. And so I drank another four bottles of Red Stripe in honour of our red-shirted Welsh Celtic cousins. And when it was over I fancied a drink.
In midtown I parked my trustworthy bicycle at the window of a pub I heard music coming from. Riding on a Donkey flowed out the door. Fecker saw me coming, I thought, and looked in the window over the singer’s shoulder and saw a familiar face. I waved. Another familiar face. I waved. Another face, another wave.
The accordion player turned and nodded out the window. And then all I could see beyond the band, was a wall of heaving green sludge, and much as I was excited about cricket and wanted to say hello to people, I didn’t want to wear green beads and somebody else’s sweat. At least not yet.
So back on the saddle I sauntered down to the Plaza. The authentic Irish pub had a tent like everybody else. And a huge crowd. But I didn’t want to drink in a tent. Or with a huge crowd. I complain about the lack of crowds all the time, but that doesn’t mean I want their company.
Brilliant, I said to myself wishing I didn’t sound like an Irish advert, I’ll cycle out south and drink with English people. They won’t care about Irish anything, except maybe cricket. And rugby. It’ll be great.
But everywhere I went there were people dressed as if going to a sports event, one with Ireland in it, and I felt all funny. One thing March the seventeenth in America has taught me is to never speak to strangers. Not with my accent. Or to familiar people where strangers might hear you. Or to familiar people who know strangers.
Anyway it was time to let the dog out. Wearing that grey Mohair all day as I make it pretend it’s an Irish Wolfhound gets uncomfortable so the dog was miffed at me. Alcohol makes me take offence unnecessarily so I said to the dog,
-You know your rugby team just lost
-I’m not Irish, said the dog not unreasonably
-I know. I was referring to your roots. You were bred by an Englishman. So how does it feel to be beaten by a bunch of Welsh Corgis, ha?
-Have you been drinking?
Back outside I weaved a slalom around people dressed in green, that green, and passed queues at large tents and small, until I came to a stop where there would be Americans, and there would be wine, and conversation would be rich, and drunkenness nowhere except for my stereotypical head. And the only green that might be seen would be the kind that doesn’t hurt your eyes.
Before the day was out there would be more cycling, and the drinking of American beer in the company of Irish people, and more tents to be sneaked past in the dark. Because ultimately what the day was for me, was a Saturday; it just so happened there was a lot of other people around as I went about my business.
So at 7:30 the following morning I walked out my door, and around the streets of my southern suburb and of midtown, and marveled at the huge numbers of empty beer bottles strewn all over the city’s streets.
Perhaps the people who dropped them used to drop tennis balls when they were kids.
See Some Horribly Similar Witterings:
• Irish Odyssey in Kansas City
• How Do You Find America?
• Talking Temperatures
• St. Valentine’s Day
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
I thought maybe you didn’t stop at the westsider cuz you didn’t want to pay the $5 cover.
it was a wall of green sludge. it was just as well you didn’t stop in.