Who Wants to Live Forever? The Highlander is a cult classic about Connor McLeod, a Scotsman who is chosen to engage in an immortal battle of good versus evil. He is played in the four Highlander movies by Christopher Lambert. The weapon of choice is the broadsword and the age is imprecisely Medieval. Who should school Connor in the sacred ways of the sword, but an unconvincing Spaniard (more likely a Glaswegian) played by…
Home Again Home Again, Jiggety Jig Vacations are supposed to recreate and relax. I believe we have found the perfect formula for that. Yes, Ireland has been wonderful and greatly exceeded our expectations. We really enjoyed Normandy, and Rome is very special to me and would always be a pleasure. México, both Cabo and Akumal, were fun and restful. Todi in Umbria was perfect for exploring the hill towns of central Italy. Next, we’ve spoken…
Driving Ms. Susie The oldest members of our group in Ireland this week are Pete and Susie Jones of Wabash, Indiana. Both were teachers in Kim’s home town. Susie was Kim’s choir director at their Presbyterian church. That connection lasted over the years as Kim wandered to Los Angeles and then New York, pursuing her musical theater career. Kim had dwindling family connections in Wabash, but Pete and Susie were a strong and important anchor…
The Silence of the Rhododendron The Irish countryside is as lush as its name, the Emerald Isle, conveys. Everywhere you look where there is no stone, there is something vital and green growing. In fact, when I learned that the Irish soil was generally lacking in the nutritional qualities to support much agriculture, I was surprised. I would have guessed the opposite. The give-away is that when you look at the hillsides you see what…
Our Trip to the South Pole Killarney is a fine old town that has a grand cathedral in Saint Mary’s, the Killarney National Park and plenty of other attractions and shopping. That said, I’ve been in Killarney four times in ten days and have been in the cathedral (the stained glass and the stonework are indeed exceptional), have been to Ross Castle twice and Muckross House once and driven through the National Park twice on…
High Tide at Westcove Southwestern Ireland is comprised of four fingers that project out into the Atlantic Ocean. There is a road that meanders through all four peninsulae called Wild Atlantic Way (it actually covers 2,500 km from the top of the island to the very southern part of Cork). The common aspects of that road are that it follows the sea and it’s about as narrow as any road you will ever drive on.…
Tempus Fugit I am no Latin scholar, but I did take four years of Latin in high school. My mother, who had never taken a moment of Latin during her education through graduate school, was convinced that Latin was an extremely useful course of study for a young man heading out into the world. You may recall that doctors used to write their prescriptions in Latin so as to make it less likely that scoundrels…
Reason and Rebirth The Old Country is not so very old any more. I just had occasion to look at Ireland’s level of household income versus that in the United States. The US is at $44k where Ireland is $25k. But when you look at it based on purchasing power parity (PPP dollars) the numbers skew considerably to $60k versus $76k. So in absolute terms the income level in Ireland is only 57% of the…
Edgy Ageism Week Two of the Grand Hibernian Tour is underway. What distinguished this week from last is that the participants are, for the most part, from my wife Kim’s side of the ledger. Siblings, friends from Wabash, Indiana (the ancestral spawning-ground of the Grogg Clan), Theater friends (Showboat, State Fair, Gypsy and Lennie’s Wild Mouse Ride) and a googly-eyed nephew and his beloved Ashley. My friends on this voyage, besides all the befriending I…
Flags of the Realm In case you haven’t been paying attention, we are in Ireland for a few weeks. The length of a vacation is a tricky thing. It seems like the biggest risk is to under-book and leave yourself wishing you had a few more days wherever you are off to. That is certainly less than ideal since fulfillment versus being left wanting does help soothe the demons within. I went a lot to…