The Mountain

We’d been asking Aidan all week if he would bring us up the mountain. He kept telling us to wait for a nice day, then we’d all go and pick up the McCaullaghy boys on the way. There was no point going up there on a rainy day, so we just stayed in the house waiting for it to stop raining and watching the A-Team.

Before going to bed Francis reads us Jack and the Bean Stalk, from a Ladybird Read it Yourself book, it’s so much better when she reads it in her Manchester accent and licks her thumb every time she turns a page. As she puts the light out, she whispers to us that it’s going to be a nice day tomorrow and she’ll have a wee word with Aidan.

Aidan is up before us in the morning and it is so bright outside that it makes the inside of the house look pitch black with only little rays of light splintering through the curtains and you can see all the dust in the sunbeams. Francis has made us a fried breakfast and remembered to put two sugars and loads of milk in my tea. Derek pushes me out of the way and takes the biggest breakfast and Paddy has his own special seat and we know not to take that seat or he’ll be telling his parents and they’ll take his side.

Aidan is in the armchair by the range, rolling cigarettes from a packet of Old Holbourne and calling us little buggers and telling us a story about the half-man half-water horse that lives up in Lough Awe. I’ve never been up the mountain before, but Derek and Paddy have and they say they saw the creature and got to go up the mountain at Christmas and play in the snow.

Francis makes sure we are dressed for the day and pulls down some hats for us to wear. The hats are from the Army Surplus store in Carrick and as usual Paddy has the nicest one, but Francis didn’t let Derek bully me and I got the one I wanted. She tells us we look like smart little officers. My army belt won’t stay on so I leave it behind, Paddy got his to stick and he is a smarter little officer than me.

The dogs are barking ‘cause they know we are going on a big walk and Aidan selects his best hawthorn stick and we walk away from Kits Cottage, the little three roomed stone house Kit Marshal left to Granny when he died. The house is haunted and we think we’ve seen the ghost of Kit Marshal but aren’t too sure. David McHenry did see it and he was very nice to him and told him where he could find Aidan and Francis in Maloney’s bar.

We start up the lane, past the old house, which is also haunted, by a mean ghost and we are afraid to look in the windows in case the ghost stares at us and we see the red glowing eyes. We also have sticks, made from straight pieces of hazel and we use them as swords to chop down nettles and thistles on the side of the lane. A few startled sheep “Baa” at us and run up Ee-aw and Dusty’s hill. We shout to Ee-aw and Dusty and we can see them over by the fence, but they don’t say anything to us this morning, perhaps ‘cause they are sad and want to go on the walk too.

Paddy and I race along the road, but Derek can’t ‘cause he is afraid he will get an asthma attack. We make fun of him and he tells us he will kill us. Paddy tries to trip me up as we run, but he falls instead and Aidan tells him it’s his own fault.

We don’t look at the Burn’s house as we pass it ‘cause Aidan and Paul fell out over a spade and now they won’t talk to each other and we don’t take the short cut through their field ‘cause he’ll be out shouting at us and Aidan says that ever since he lost his hand he hasn’t been right in the head. He gave out to me last summer for making fun of his stutter and I cried so much that I vomited up salmon and Francis had to make me feel better and Paul even said he was sorry and didn’t mean to be so cross. Now Derek and Paddy do the stutter noise and make me mad and I try to say things to them that will make them mad, but only Derek gets mad when we say “Chipsticks, Monster Munch, Salt and Vinegar” and then he hits us and wrestles us to the ground. He doesn’t like those kinds of crisps because of his asthma.

Aidan tells us to walk in single file as we walk in the Line to Carrick. The dogs don’t need to be told and Aidan whistles and they file in behind us. The mountain is on our left as we walk in the Line and we can make out the silhouettes of people already up on the mountain. Aidan tells us that they are German tourists and we all shout and wave to them, probably Nazis so we shoot them with invisible guns and perfectly lined up sights. We are smart little officers.

The mountain is completely purple from this side and I imagine how soft it is going to feel underfoot and there are places of gray and they look like loose gravel to me, but Aidan tells me that they are huge boulders and when I am up closer I’ll see.



They’ve started to build a new Tech beside the old one and Paddy tells us that he’ll be going there, but we’ll have to go to the one in Killybegs which isn’t as good. I pick little green balls from the evergreen trees in front of the old Tech and throw them at Derek and Paddy, Derek throws them back and Paddy says to clear off.

We cross over the stone bridge into the town and spit into the river below, we pass Enright’s Bar and Chappie’s where Francis works and we take a seat outside of McGinley’s shop while Aidan goes into the house next to the post office to get the McCaughley boys. Paddy sees Garda Bradley walk past and go into the police station and tells us that his son Manus is a fucker and Garda Bradley is just as bad.

The McCaughley boys come out and at first we are all shy, then we remember we all played last August at Paddy’s birthday and we relax and Aidan goes into McGinley’s and buys us each a HB Frog and then goes into the pub next door for a few minutes and then comes out and we head off down the Tilan road.

We are still using our hazel sticks as swords, people are looking at us as they work in the fields. They think we look strange with our officer’s hats, but they look strange to us with their big wellies and hay fork and old Masey Ferguson tractor with the link-box and black and white sheep dog lying on the ground beside them. Aidan waves to them and they wave back, but still unsure.

The Tilan road goes along the side of the Salmon Leap river, which we had already spat into back up in Carrick, but up there is its called a different name. We can see northern Irish people fishing down by the Junction Pool and one of them is fly-fishing. Derek tells us that he knows how to tie a fly ‘cause Granda Sharkey showed him and bought him a whole kit for making them, with pheasant feathers, canary feathers, duck feathers and all kinds of colorful wings. Aidan brought us poaching down the Salmon Leap and we had a mono filament net and we had to be very quiet so the fish and the bailiffs wouldn’t hear us. We didn’t catch any salmon, but Aidan had a flue and after being soaking wet in the water it went away and we took home two trout.

As the river turns into the estuary we can see the woods across the way and it feels disappointing that we’ve already walked so far and yet we are just across from the house and we can see the smoke rising up out of the woods from Kit’s cottage and we shout to see if Francis can hear us, but she can’t.

Paddy asks if we can walk down as far as the rusty Mackerel and go up by Bun Glas, but Aidan says no that we’ll go the other way and up to the One Man’s Pass by the little road.

We are at the very bottom of the mountain now and the road rises steadily in front of us and the mountain is so big that you can’t really see it anymore, just all the fields in front of us fenced in with barb wire and skittish sheep with blue necks and red arses that run away when they see you. The lambs are a few months old now and they play and leap about and look like they are having a grand time, but the older sheep know better and it is better to run away and munch on grass than waste time having fun and being happy as a young lamb.

We tell Aidan that we are thirsty and he tells us to lean into a little steam and drink our fill. The water is freezing and refreshing and tastes so good. The McCaughley’s are worried that it is not clean. Aidan tells them that it is a lot cleaner than the water they drink everyday from the tap at home, filled with chlorine and chemicals and aluminum and all kinds of bad stuff. “Why do you think they give you teeth tablets at school?”

We meet some of the tourists coming down the road and they don’t look like Nazis at all, but they do speak like them and Aidan says to them “Guten Tag.” They giggle and walk on with their red and blue rain gear swishing with every step, just like the red and blue of the sheep.

There is a lake in the bowl of the mountain and Aidan tells us that a few years ago is was much bigger and in ten years there won’t be much of it left, so enjoy it now while you can.

We see a bird way up in the sky hovering like a helicopter and then it dive bombed like an aeroplane, quick as lightening down to get its prey. We said it was an eagle, but Aidan said it was a hawk and the last eagle in Donegal was killed a few years ago by some English wanker and now it’s stuffed and sits in a case in the Highland Central Hotel in Donegal Town.

After a drink of water in a little well we leave the path and begin a very step climb up to the One Man’s Pass. We had to go over the boulders now that I thought were gravel and I couldn’t believe how big they were. A little further up Aidan told us to find blueberries in-amongst the heather and we found so many that our mouths were blue and we had a great feed. Derek was complaining of his asthma and we stopped to take a rest and let him take a puff on his inhaler.

The One Man’s Pass is the most dangerous little piece of land in all of Ireland. On one side there is a drop 1972 feet down into the Atlantic Ocean and on the other side there is a steep drop back into the valley we had just climbed up. If you fall to either side you are going to die. Aidan asked is any of us wanted to go across it. I said no, but Paddy said yes and crawled along it on his hands and knees. Aidan did it standing up and I was terrified that he’d fall or a strong gust of wind would come and blow him into the sea.

While they played with their lives I looked down on the ocean below. You can see the Giants Table and Chair that was used by Finn McCool when he was in this part of Ireland and there are little fishing boats bobbing up and down on the waves. We’d been shark fishing out there before and I know what it’s like to bob up and down on those waves and Derek knows what it’s like to lie seasick on the nets all day while the seagulls and gannets squawk over head.

Aidan rolled another cigarette from his plastic pouch and said “a horse, a horse, my Kingdom for a horse,” and then started to sing some old sixties song that Paddy knew the words to. You were only allowed to listen to The Beatles and Sixties Mania at Paddy’s house and Paddy told us that all there was on the radio now was shit.

We left the One Man’s Pass behind and walked over the plateau of bog and rock. A big cloud had settled on top of the mountain and a light mist of rain and fog surrounded us. None of us had a raincoat so we took shelter by the old Spanish Church while Aidan told us its story.

A Spanish monk or man of God was ship wrecked just off the coast of Slieve League and somehow he managed to swim or drift ashore to one of the beaches at the base of the cliffs. He looked up at the tower of rock that lay before him and prayed to God to help him once more. That little Spaniard climbed with no rope or pick or anything, all 1972 feet to the top of the cliffs. He was so thankful to God for sparing his life that he built his church up here out of the mountain’s rock. He only had a few gold doubloons on him and he used these to fund the church and a few years later he built another church a few miles between Carrick and Kilcar. That little Spaniard had a wealth of courage, strength and perseverance.

When Aidan finished the story the rain had lifted and we explored the ruins of the church for archaeological evidence and gold doubloons. We didn’t find much but we did find carvings in the rock that read: Peter Murphy, Dublin 1962 and Hans Von Height, Berlin 1935. Aidan said it was a fucking disgrace the way they defaced the place. No respect whatsoever for history.

Before we left the site of the Spanish Church we built a little rock monument to mark that we too had been here. All around the place were hundreds of little rock monuments and some of them had photos in them and plane tickets and other little trinkets. We wanted to take some of them with us but Aidan said to leave them alone.

We began to walk over the plush purple heather now and Aidan ventured us to the edge of the mountain to look at Lough Awe where the half-man half-water horse lived. Lough Awe was one of many lakes left behind after a great glacier had ripped its way along the valley leading into Glencolmcille on its way down to the sea. But Lough Awe was the only one that was red and gold in color and looked like magic. The sun shone down on it and I was hypnotized by its beauty. I looked closer and closer and suddenly I lost my footing and went to fall headfirst over the edge of the mountain to the lake below, but Aidan caught my jumper and pulled me back, close one.

We continued on over the mountain and came across a tiny little pool of water that was shaped in a perfect circle. Aidan said that was the place where the half-man half-water horse came up in the middle of the night to steal sheep off the mountain. We threw stones into the pool of water and stuck our sticks into the mud at the bottom and the dogs barked and jumped in after the stones, but the half-man half-water horse didn’t eat them.

From there we could see where the estuary meets the sea and the big rock that is shaped like Moby Dick and Aidan does an impression of Captain Ahab. Then just around the corner is Derrylaghan beach where we saw the naked tourists a few weeks ago and we couldn’t get them out of our minds and we talked about their breasts all the time.

We were now at the very corner of the mountain as I called it. On one side you had the road into Glen and to the other was the way back to Bunglas and all the places we had been earlier in the day and right before us was a sloped drop of purple fields and rushes and small farm houses below.

Aidan said “on yer marks, get set, go” and the whole gang of us boys ran down the side of the hill as fast as we could. Some of us ran so fast that our feet came up over our heads and we tumbled a few yards and crashed and picked ourselves up again and continued running. Some of us got our wellies or shoes stuck in muck holes and ran on without our wellies or shoes and had to run back to get them. The dogs ran along side us and barked at our progress and wove in and out of the rushes. The startled sheep didn’t know what to make of us and ran away and went “Ba, Ba” and the young lambs jumped in the air to see such commotion coming down the side of the mountain.

Within a few minutes we were at the bottom and climbing over a barbed wire fence and the sweat was pouring off our foreheads. Derek was wheezing like he was going to have an asthma attack and Aidan was coming down the hill just behind us with a rolled cigarette in his mouth.

We were back on the Tilan Road now and Aidan told the McCaulghey boys to just walk on up the road to their house, as their parents would be waiting. They wanted to come on home with us, so he told them next time they could. It was strange that it had taken all day to go up the mountain and then in just a few minutes it was all over.

We crossed the river just up from the Junction Pool and Aidan helped us across the water and then helped us across the fences “one, two, three, jump.” We didn’t go the direct way home, instead we walked down by the shore and the tide was coming in for the night and Aidan told us to be quiet when we were near the otter’s holes. A big pollock was coming up the estuary and the water was so clear that we could see its big mouth opening and closing as it made its way up to the place where the salt water turned to fresh water and it would have to turn back after feeding.

We found an old bust football on the shore and kicked it back into the water and Paddy and I could see where we had lined up about fifty old bottle last week and then threw stones at them. Aidan saw all the broken glass and started cursing and giving out about how people had no respect. Paddy and I kept our mouths shut and Derek threatened to tell on us. I remember the way the light bulbs broke with a little puff of smoke when I broke them and the bottles just shattered and little splinters of clear and green glass just went everywhere.

Aidan found a good piece of rope and brought it with him and we followed him up through the ferns and up the path that brought us home through the woods. Paddy ran to be the first one on the tire swing and we pushed him on it and when it was our turn he ran on home so he didn’t have to push us. Then Derek and I ran on too ‘cause we were afraid of being left alone in the woods and getting attacked by a badger that wouldn’t let go of your arm until it was dead.

Francis said she was happy that all her smart little officers were home and had a lovely dinner cooked for us. Aidan sat down in his armchair by the range and rolled another cigarette and sang along to Hey Jude on the radio. Francis stuck newspaper in our wellies and put them down behind the range so they would be dry for tomorrow. We put on the telly and all three of us lay back on the sofa watching the A-Team and felt totally exhausted after our big hike up the mountain.

Shark Fishing

Shark fishing is something most people only read about in National Geographic or see on the Discovery Channel in some exotic location like the Caribbean, South Africa or The Great Barrier Reef. It’s never somewhere average and plain such as the tepid waters of Great Britain and Ireland in the North Atlantic. With only the mid-Atlantic drift giving any warmth to those waters in the summer months. All the same, this is exactly where I’ve seen my fair share of shark fishing, deep-sea angling and all the life that goes with those watery sports.

The first memories I have of shark fishing are from when I was about eight-years-old during the Killybegs International Sea Angling Festival. The festival, held every year in either July or August, depending on the mood of the committee in residence at the time, is the absolute pinnacle of the calendar for any boy over the age of five and under eighteen in the Killybegs area. Hundreds of people enter the competition from Ireland and abroad. You’ll find English, Welsh, Scotch, German, Swedish, even the odd Yank and Aussie along with young boys, young girls, old men and old women and every demographic in between. The variety of competitors leads to an even greater variety of categories you are able to contest in.

When we were children we use to stare, mouths wide open, drooling, in the window of Michael Quinn’s electric shop at the prizes. There were new Penn fishing rods and reels, tackle boxes, silver trophies, crystal, china, boat equipment, cash and many other amazing treasures. Our little finger prints greased over the glass and we could only imagine what it must be like to win one of those treasures and get your name engraved on the silver trophies.

That first year I was not a competitor, either was my brother Derek and cousin Paddy, merely spectators, under the supposedly watchful eyes of my Dad and Uncle Aidan. We’d have to wait another year or two before we could actively take part in the events.

I remember the boat was large and green, perhaps a sixty-footer, with wooden planks splitting the deck up into many sections, which we never tired of climbing over. There were nets piled up on the side of the deck, ideal for a rest and a place to lie down if you were getting a bit wheezy and feeling the need to get on ‘the big white telephone to God.’ There was a fair few people allotted to our boat, as I remember dozens of rods dangling over the edge of the boat, their taut lines disappearing down into the deep blue-green waters of the Atlantic.

Boat allocations are maybe something I should explain because you can’t just pick your boat, that would be an unfair advantage. First of all there is a deadline each year for entries, usually a day or two before the Sea Angling Festival, which always started on a Friday. Then a specific number of boats, usually with one or two in reserve just in case the numbers exceeded expectations, were designated for the competition. Individual names and group names were allotted to certain boats with a maximum number depending upon the size of the vessel. Like everything else in life, not all boats are created equal and sometimes it is the physical ability of the boat that holds the advantage and sometimes it’s the human element, the skipper himself. Skippers with names like Enda O’Callaghan, Smithy Campbell, Jim Parkinson, Tony Boyle, Brian McGilloway and vessels like The Bangor Crest, Persistence, Sinbad and The Girl Naoife. These were all names that held a certain amount of magic and if you were allotted to any one of these skippers or one of the boats, your chances just tripled of earning a prize.

Many sharks were caught on our boat and in others over the three days of the festival that year. Paddy and I found ourselves brave and ventured across the deck to touch the sharks. Their skin was surprisingly rough, it had always looked velvety in the water. We got quite a fright when one of the supposedly dead blues opened its mouth revealing an amazing array of razor sharp teeth. We both jumped back and found ourselves not so brave. Sharks can live out of water for a long time, just like their little cousin the dog fish that is often found dangling out of some fish box in the auction hall hours after a boat has landed.

There is a tale told that one year someone caught a small blue and when she was being weighed in the judges found her too small and had her thrown in the tide. The shark revived herself and swam around the bay for a long time, feeding on discarded fish from fishing boats and didn’t leave the harbor until she was big enough to face the open sea again. If this is true or not I don’t know, but I could well believe such a fisherman’s tale. Coastal town’s like Killybegs are rich in a special folklore all to themselves, unknown to inland towns and cities.

Some foreigner on our boat caught the biggest shark, a nine-foot blue. He had a wild time getting it on board, and the skipper had to gaff her a few times before it stuck. It wasn’t the best looking shark as it was rather skinny, but very long and its color was a gray-blue instead of the rich azure of the other sharks. After the weighing in of that fish, my first sea angling expedition was over.

A shark-fishing trip starts long before you ever set a land-lubberingDonegal Town to Dogherty’s was in order. Dogherty’s was a tackle shop with a twist. He sold all the things you needed for a deep sea-fishing trip, but also had the best array of pocketknives and torches for sale anywhere in County Donegal and all for under a fiver.

Granda Sharkey often brought us up there and while he would talk to Mr. Dogherty about something or other for eons, we would busy ourselves getting lost in dreams of owning this knife or that. Calculating at fifty pence a week pocket money, how many weeks it would take us to save up for it. All the time in hope that Granda would see how much we really wanted it and buy it for us as a little present. He was always giving us little presents that made our day, our week, our lives.

On our visit to Dogherty’s, Dad fitted Derek and I out with our own deep sea rod and reel, yards upon yards of eighty pound test and hooks that could have landed Jaws. Two of the most important things to take with you deep-sea fishing are feathers and lead weights. Without feathers you can’t jig for your bait and without lead weight you’re never going to get your hook to the bottom for the nice points fish.

Dad let us know that this first year we would not be fishing for shark ourselves, although he might have a wee go, but there were plenty of ling and congers, dogs and pollock to keep us busy. Considering I was only ten, I had no objection. Derek and I ended up with the same rod, but he got the better reel and I was in tears most of the way home, ‘cause mine looked like a giant fly reel and his was the proper shark fishing kind by Mitchell.

Next stop was to one of the chandlers in Killybegs to get our dappers or oilskins. These were to keep us dry while at sea. As these were our first ever set of oilskins it was really important because for years we had watched all the men down the pier wearing them and they were a sign of adulthood. My green pair dwarfed me and felt very heavy, Dad laughed saying I would grow into them. With that done, we had everything we needed for the sea angling festival, all we could do now was wait.

On Friday morning of the contest we were up at about seven a.m., God knows when Dad had risen. He was a real early bird and was fond of saying “when you’ve the name of an earlier riser you can sleep all day.” A great debate emerged between Derek and I as to whether or not we should eat a big breakfast. Dad was in the mind that we should, as a full stomach would keep us from getting seasick. I had never been seasick and knew not the pain or misery of it. Derek did and he would rather have less in his belly to throw up. Dad was in charge of making a flask of tea and putting the lunch together: ham sandwiches, egg sandwiches and smoked salmon, off course, was the fair de jour and a few pieces of fruit completed the seagoing picnic.

After registering and finding our birth, The Sinbad, we had a few minutes to kill and this was spent running back up the town to Gallagher’s to buy chocolate and sweets and the last few bits of tackle that suddenly came to mind. Paddy was with us, but he was not going fishing this year, as his aul fella was in the pub. We begged Dad to let him come along and reluctantly he agreed. His dad sobered up the next day and came out with us for the last two.

Our boat was birthed alongside a few others and as the clock slowly ticked towards eleven we got to know our boat mates and skipper. Jim Parkinson was the skipper, we knew him since we were very little and this put us at a great ease. Our mates were mostly Northerners and English lads and one fella from Finner Camp, the army training camp between Bundoran and Ballyshannon that we passed every time we went to Sligo with Granny and Granda to do the shopping.

The diesel engine cranked over loudly and the fumes were making us a little wheezy even at the harbor. Dad showed us a basic knot to tie our hooks and clips, we called it the double hoop and under, it was easily achieved and held with great strength. With our clips attached we jigged at the edge of the boat, sheans gathered around our hooks, but much too little to take a bite. We were suppose to draw for places around the boat but it seemed like it had become a first come first served basis and all the Juniors ended up with the places nobody else wanted.

At the stroke of eleven all the boats began their exodus of the pier towards the open ocean and into the Atlantic. Soon, we were passing Mooney’s Boat Yard, with the fishing boat graveyard beside, where several boats Dad had fished on as a young man lay wasting in skeletal decay, up to their keels in green sludge, lying at embarrassing angles to their once glorious and dangerous lives as fishing vessels in the Irish fleet. The town was growing smaller behind us and the mountain of Conerad began to come into view, the constant sentential of Killybegs. The town always looked so much smaller from the water. Nature seemed to cradle her on both sides, protecting her in a little pocket where man was allowed to be civilized and not disturb her peace.

We watched Dad and the other men get their gear ready and imitated them the best we could. I think we had Dad’s head wrecked with questions about fishing, and the how far, how long, what time, when, how many? Basically all the annoying questions ten and eleven-year-olds can ask. This was a whole new part of life for us; no longer just the quiet observers of our childhood’s, we had become cogs in the machinery that made our community a living, breathing entity.

Once past the Smooth Point and Rotten Island lighthouse we were into the open sea with St. John’s Point on our port side and Drumanoo Head on the starboard. We looked to the land, picking out the spots were we had fished off the rocks in the past and looking out for the house at Scottish Hill, it was haunted and once lived in by the Murphy’s, our cousins. Soon Fintragh beach was in sight, looking like a golden streak between the land and the sea. Many birds had begun to follow us, but there was nothing for them to scavenge yet, until we caught our first mackerel.

The Sinbad was a steel hauled vessel, about twenty-five feet in length that Jim used for piloting in larger vessels to the harbor and diving for wrecks and salvage. She was making great steam out the bay and easily overtook the boats that had set out a few minutes before us, with a nice steady cruise of 13 knots according to Dad. She wasn’t ideal for angling as her sides were very low and had few places to get a comfortable seat. Fish boxes were annexed into seats and one beside for your catch. This was The Sinbad’s first trip as an angling vessel and Derek, Paddy and I were disappointed that we were not in one of the sixty-footers like we had been in before.

The engines slowed and Dad let us know Jim picked up some fish on the sonar and it was time to start jigging for mackerel. I was amazed how quickly the fish began to hit. Usually on land you could be fishing for hours before anything even smelled your hook. Now we had six feathers attached and all around the boat people were pulling in full jigs. Mackerel give a great fight and when you have four or five on at time you feel like you’re about to land a great fish, not the little mackerel that you eventually pull of your hook and toss absentmindedly into the bait box. A few gannets now joined the gulls as if they knew we were into some good fish. When we had enough mackerel for bait it was decided we would steam ahead just a little and anchor off Inish Duff, where Paul Callaghan caught the thirteen-foot conger last year.

I was afraid of using a wire trace and felt comfortable with my feathers. So Dad helped me bait the feathers and showed me how to lower them all the way down, feel the bottom with the lead weight and then take her up about a fathom and keep her there.

Paddy with nothing to do was just bounding all over the place, taking it all in for when he got his rod and reel. Derek on the other hand was already beginning to get seasick and was hardly taking any notice of his rod in the water.

I felt my first real bite and the line got heavy. I wound my giant fly reel with all my might, making sure to guide the line on evenly as not to have it bank up and fall and after what felt like a life time I landed my first points fish in the 1988 Killybegs International Sea Angling Festival. It was a dogfish, a lesser spotted one to be precise, or jimmy-dog as all the adults called it.

The Sinbad bobbed up and down all afternoon and I had a great time fishing off Inish Duff. When it was decided to go on a little further and put out some rubby-dubby, I had a full box of dogs and two good sized pollock. I was feeling very pleased with myself and even more so when one of the other young fellas on the boat came to me for advice on where to catch the fish. I gave him the same advice that Dad had given me, but off course making those words sound like mine and not his.

I didn’t do so well further out, but was very intrigued with the baiting of the shark hooks, the blowing up of the balloons as floats and the importance of not running over your rubby-dubby trail. Rubby-dubby is a mixture of mashed mackerel and fish oil that is poured overboard to attract any sharks in the area to our boat. It smelled terrible and looked even worse. It had the effect of turning Derek’s stomach even more and soon he was lying down sleeping the rest of the day away. We fished for shark off Slieve League for a few hours without landing any. Lying there in the water off such beautiful cliffs more than made up for the lack of sport. The cliffs rose nearly two thousand feet out of the water and falls of spring water could be seen dashing off into the sea below. When you are this far out into the Atlantic you can look off into the distant horizon and see the curvature of the world. Your mind runs and you can imagine that if you kept going straight for thousands of miles you’d eventually reach Nova Scotia in north eastern Canada. You realize that we are not separated by oceans, but merely connected by a constantly changing liquid.

We commenced our steam home when Jim announced “Lines up, six o’clock.” There were a few grumbles to be heard from the Germans, then all lines were in. We ate the rest of our lunch on the way home feeling at ease, even Derek was revitalized by the turn about in our direction. We began to play and feel like children again, throwing the guts of mackerel at the gulls and watching the gannets diving for whole mackerel. We even looked at the sea and surrounding coastline like tourist, noticing houses near Bunglass and people climbing the cliff-face. We even remembered the stories Granda would tell us about Ben Bulbin way off in the distance towards County Sligo. Stories about Finn and the Fianna, Witch de Vanny and Queen Maeve’s grave.

As the town came in to view I felt a great feeling of home and joy. A feeling of coming back after being away a very long time, even though it had been only eight or so hours since we left.

Jim let us stow our gear on the boat until the next day, so we didn’t have to drag much back onto the pier. My first few steps on dry land were funny, it felt as if the earth was still swaying like the deck of the boat out on the ocean. Dad helped me weigh-in my fish and with all my dogs and two pollock, I managed to amass forty-five points. I found out the next morning forty-five points placed me in first position in the Junior category.

I slept well that night and was eager to get out on the boat again. However, my luck was to change and after getting my feathers stuck on the bottom with my first drop, I lost heart. Seasickness took over and I spent the next two days as a sick bystander.

Our boat managed to land two blue sharks and lost another “must have been a fair size” as it snapped the rod belonging the army fella from Finner adding to the proverbial one that got away. I had great empathy with Derek during those two days as we shared in the miseries of seasickness, probably the most I ever had with him in my life. And when the last line was hauled in on Sunday evening I was the happiest lad in Ireland.

That night we went to the prize giving in Fawlty’s Bar and I received twenty pounds for Best Junior on Friday. I had hoped for one of the bigger prizes that had been in Quinn’s Window, but was very content with the money. Dad didn’t go to the prize giving as he didn’t drink anymore, but Uncle Aidan was there to check on us.

I repeated the ritual of the Angling Festival for many years changing boats and skippers, always hoping to catch a shark myself, but the best I ever did was just more dogs and pollock. I did manage to win a big silver trophy for the heaviest whiting one year, but that’s not an exciting fish you can brag about. The best thing about the festival is there is always next year and the dream of landing your shark.

Now that I live twelve hundred miles from the nearest coast, I miss the sea; its feel and its smell and its unique way of life. Right now I’d give anything for a good dose of seasickness, mackerel guts and the feel of a fish biting at my line twenty fathoms below in the dark, unknown depths of the Atlantic Ocean. To see that curvature once more and feel the mystery of a world yet discovered.

The Film Crew

My mother writes poetry, good enough to have her own book and renown in literary circles, but when I was a wee lad she was still one of the ‘emerging’ breed. She was always writing on cigarette boxes, magazine covers, shopping receipts, if a pen could scratch the surface then she had penned upon it. Submitting her work to every award, contest and event and sure enough people began taking notice of her.

Anyway, one day I arrived home and there was a television crew at our house at the Five Points. They were from Channel Four or the B.B.C, one of the British stations and they had come to film my mother reading her poems in her native setting, like she was some kind of animal hanging out of a tree or something!

Mum was a rural housewife-poet and was touching the hearts of all those other housewives out there, with the idea that they too had passion and dreams beyond the ability to lay back and do their duty and produce children. This made her somewhat of a feminist at the time and many women looked up to her, even though she was really just a young girl herself.

Well back to the filming. They took Mum over to Connaghan’s garden because there was great view of the mountain, Conerad, in the background and that must have looked fierce rural to the city film crew from over the sea.

Being only a wee lad I was a bit shy and as interested as I was in seeing what was going on I stayed back a fair distance and kind of spied on the crew from our garden.

I had a good view of my mother. The wind was blowing her hair back from her face, she was holding her papers in one hand and looking at the camera with a real stoic eye and even though I couldn’t hear her soft voice from where I was, I could see her lips moving. She was completely poised and looked in control of the event. I could see why all those other housewives looked up to her.

Then out of nowhere came a burst of language “Jesus fucking Christ, ya bastard and fucking cunt, get the fuck out! Out! Out!” Quickly followed by our Boxer dog Judy running through the half-closed patio door with an entire spiced beef between her jaws. The voice belonged to my Dad, the inspiration of most of mum’s work and the dog had just snatched tonight’s dinner off the table.

The film crew jumped to a start, the mystic moment of my mother’s reading shattered in a rupture of reality. Her composure broke, her face slacked, the camera appeared to grow in size beside her and even the mountains behind shrunk.

Dad’s voice kept up it’s litany of words and I could hear the director of the crew saying in his English accent “Take five people, let’s try this again in a few.”

The dog was nowhere to be seen, but wherever she skulked off to she was wolfing down the spice beef and for days after the poor girl was shitting fire. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Neither inside or outside sounded like a good idea, so I walked down the road to see if Michael was in, at least until six o’clock when it was time for dinner and see what kind of a replacement Dad had come up with. Something told me it just might be roast Boxer if he could find her in time.

I guess the film crew was going to have a lot of editing to do before they could portray my mother on tape as the feminist poet from the wilds of Donegal.

The Burger

Every lunch time at the Niall Mhōr National school I had fifty pence from Mum or Dad, to go down to Melly’s to get a small bag of chips and if I was lucky enough a burger too, which wasn’t too often. I loved loads of salt and vinegar on my chips and then would plaster them with ketchup or red sauce as most people called it.

The counter in Melly’s was stainless steel and if you had just even a little nick or cut on your hand, which was most every day when we were kids, then you would receive the smallest electric shock. Enough to make you say “Jesus” and want to do it again.

Anyway, this one day, I met my uncle Bill on the way down town, he was my father’s brother a fisherman, prematurely gray and I loved him. He was always so good to us, but I was really surprised when he gave me two pounds and told me to get some lunch. I now had two pounds and fifty pence to get lunch. I felt like a millionaire and had no idea what I would get. After staring up at Melly’s menu for a few minutes I settled on a small bag of chips, can of coke and two cheeseburgers with coleslaw, leaving me with pennies in change.

I was brimming with excitement, I never had two burgers to myself before and felt like the dog’s bollocks or the cat that got to cream to use a nicer phrase!

I ate the chips while I walked back up to the school was careful not to spill any or share any with all the scroungers who having already eaten their lunch were only too willing to help you with yours. And I was especially aware and on the look out for some of the school bullies like the Murran twins, Brad McGillinchy or Andy Sullivan. They would have taken it off me and made me cry.

Having made it back to the school-yard with my two burgers and can of coke, chips all gone at this stage, I sat down and ate the first burger. I tasted so good, and I was thinking to myself that I wish I could always have this much for lunch, much better than the peanut butter or chocolate spread sandwiches that we use to get last year when I was in second class over at the big school.

So, there I was sitting on the steps of the old school and ready to start into my second cheese-burger when my friends Declan and Rory came up to me. I got up to go with them taking my burger with me, to go over to another part of the school yard.

Then I see the burger lying on the ground upside down and beside me is a sixth-class boy laughing. He was one that I would have considered harmless, one that would never have bullied and he was wearing a cast on his arm. I looked at his face, laughing, then to my burger on the ground. I bent down to pick it up, but it was covered in stones and dirty as hell. There was no rescuing it. I put it in the trash and held the tears back. The sixth-class boy apologized when he saw how upset I was, but that didn’t change anything, the burger was gone and nobody else knew what it meant to me to have had two burgers.

I ran to catch up with Declan and Rory, but I will never forget the boy’s face laughing when my burger hit the ground and I will never forget how good it made me feel to have had two burgers, a small bag of chips and a can of coke all to myself.

George's Dirty Shorts: A Collection of Short Stories

George's Dirty Shorts is a collection of short stories I have compiled over the past seven or eight years. Some of them are short family potraits, some are funny snippets and others are long and personal.

I'll post some every few weeks, I'd love to hear your comments, I've a tough skin, I can take the criticism, in fact I probably need it!

I hope to publish these in a book format within the next year, so I can start flogging it to publishers and local book stores.

GV

The Onion Infused Red Raleigh Chopper

I’ve a bike in the garage that cost about two thousand dollars, weighs twenty-four pounds of the finest hand-welded aluminum, with ultra light wheels and top-of-the-line components. Twenty-four gears that can get me effortlessly up any small hill or mountain road. It’s more like a rocket ship on wheels than a bicycle.

When I think back to my first bike, I often think about the racer Derek bought me begrudgingly with his bingo winnings, but that memory is false. There was another, my first real bike, and it came from Granny and Granda’s coal shed.

The coal shed in the back garden was a dirty little building. It’s where, true to its name, they kept their coal and slack. But it was also a home for dogs and their pups and lots of old junk they no longer used but didn’t have the heart, or gumption, to throw away. There were old spades, saws and even a petrified string of onions on the wall. But among all the clutter, the biggest thing stuck to the wall was my aunt Magella’s old bicycle.

It was a red Raleigh Chopper. The kind with the little front wheel and the oversized back wheel, the long saddle with the high back and the gear shift in the middle of the low, slanted crossbar, oh and I shouldn’t forget the big droopy Harley-Davidson style, low rider handlebars, from which it earned the chopper distinction. Jesus, she was a sight. When we were really little, before we could ride a bike, we always wanted to have it down off the wall to play with, but always the answer was “No!”

Then Derek had his first Holy Communion and ended up with enough money to have Granda take him out to Mervin Morrow’s in Fintragh, just up past the wee bridge, to get a new bike. At the time Mervin’s was the only place you could buy a bike in Killybegs and technically, since he was on the other side of the wee bridge, he was in the parish of Kilcar. Donal Burn’s in Ardara was the next closest place and he had BMXs and Raleigh Burners in stock. But Mervin’s it was and Derek’s choice: a nice, bright blue Super-Delux with back-pedal brakes. He got the one with the small, regular looking saddle, not the long variety like Eddy Burn’s, a better decision all round.

Off course, the advent of Derek’s new Super-Delux made me extremely jealous. As I remember, I threw one of those fits where all I could do was cry and bubble for several hours. And since there was no way in hell I was getting a new bike, there was no known method of shutting me up, bar a good slap across the head, which I admit I probably deserved, but am equally glad I didn’t receive. The most ignorant part of all was the fact that I couldn’t ride a bike yet, but that was of no consequence to my self-centered, six-year-old mind at the time.

The next day when we were down at Granny’s, Granda brought me out to the coal shed and took the Chopper of the wall and gave it to me. My reaction was one of pure repulsion! Derek gets a Super-Delux and I get the onion-infused, rusted red Raleigh Chopper off the coal shed wall! Where was the justice?

Derek taught me to ride the beast and after a few falls out the back of Granny’s, beside the clubhouse of the St. Catherine’s Football team, I was ready to take her on the road. We rode our bikes back to our house on St. Cummins Hill, but I ended having to walk the bike up the hill as I was not quite able for a gauntlet of that magnitude just yet. It was while pushing it up the hill that some little brats on their new BMXs came by and started laughing at my bike. It was OK for me to hate it, but not anybody else. I got really embarrassed and Derek told them to “feck off!” My relationship with the chopper was always like that: love, hate and shame.

Despite the embarrassment I endured as the owner of the two wheeled anomaly, she served me well and after several months I began to take pride in her and love began to emerge as the prevalent emotion over hate and shame. Since no one else had a bike like it, those who tried to ride her usually fell off. Due to her unusual shape they found her impossible to control; it would be like a Chelthnam Cup winning jockey trying to ride a camel for the first time!

For about three years the red Chopper was my main mode of transport. I took her out to Glen-Lee forestry, Fintragh beach, up to Conlin Bridge and the Mass Rock, all over town and no matter where I went, some ass-hole would have to say some smart-ass remark about her.

There was one day when the burden as master of such a beast, became too heavy and I felt like I hated her beyond redemption and could never love her again. The incident that caused this shame arose from a visit Declan Cunnigham received from some of his rich relations in Kildare. They were staying up for a week and had taken their nice new racers and BMXs. Needless to say, I was all excited to go down to Declan’s after school and play with them.

As I was coming down behind Conlin Road I met them out the back of Declan’s, just in front of Granda’s shed and before his stout (polite word for fat bastard), blond hair cousin even took a moment to say hello to me, he sneered “Who owns that yoke?” Meaning the bride of Frankenstine straddled between my two legs. I wanted to cry right there and then, but I held face and cycled on with balled up pride. Later I did cry and I was told not to be stupid and get over it. But they didn’t have to ride a Raleigh Chopper, the last of a dying breed from the Seventies when it was midway through the Eighties, the BMX era. Come on, had they not seen the movie? It was BMX Bandits, not Chopper Cross-Breeds!

Soon enough, I began to dream of getting a new bike: a BMX, a Racer or a blue Grifter with twisty handlebar gears. Mum and Dad didn’t have the money and as we were always reminded “money doesn’t grow on trees,” all I could do was hope and pray. So, in the days of my reality I had to put up with the rusty old Chopper.

Then, as if by providence, Derek won the Snowball at bingo with Granny and the word was he was going to get himself and me new bikes with the money. I couldn’t believe it, but when I saw the four hundred pounds in Derek’s hands I knew it was real.

Mervin Morrow had stopped selling bikes as the years were piling upon him and the market for the Super-Delux was dissipating in the wind of a growing country that could afford the bicycles of its children’s dreams.

We had to go up to Donegal Town, to the bike store behind the cinema. After looking through a brochure for about forty minutes I chose a red and white President racer and Derek picked out a blue Peugeot of the same variety.

It felt like it took a lifetime for the bikes to arrive, since they had to be ordered from the “main supplier.” I kept telling everyone about the new bike I was getting and showing them the picture in the glossy, full color brochure. Inside, I wanted them to be jealous of me and my new bike for all the years of embarrassment I had to suffer at the hands of the Raleigh Chopper.

When the new bike finally arrived it didn’t live up to its picture in the brochure. Don’t get me wrong, it was a fine bike and I was grateful that Derek bought it for me with his winnings. It was just that, with the chopper I had no illusions, she was ugly and took me where I wanted to go, I never imagined she was anything else. My new racer, I had built it up so much in my mind that the reality could never equal the desire I had created. Derek’s Peugeot was very slim and fast, mine in comparison looked fat, slow and a little girlie. Everyone said they loved it and I am sure they meant it too, but I had wanted to shock and awe the world with this new bike, and quite frankly, it didn’t do that.

For a few weeks I rode only the racer and had a nasty crash on it the second day. The brakes had not been tightened at the bike store and in the rain it didn’t stop at Tommy Blane’s and I went flying right into the ditch. Cut myself up really bad and had to walk the bike back to Granda’s to get it fixed. Granda said Mervin Morrow would never have sold a bike to anyone without first checking everything was adjusted and tightened. I had a few accidents on the Chopper, all of which were my own fault, but nothing like this one. This was completely the fault of the bike and I felt terribly cheated.

I eventually took the Chopper out for a go and it felt funny to ride after the crouched, aerodynamic riding position of the racer. I think, now that I had a bike people couldn’t make fun of, I could let my bias go and love the Chopper for all her ugly, archaic beauty.

Not long after we got the bikes we bought a new house and when we were moving Dad told me to get rid of the chopper as it wasn’t coming with us. I sold it to Leo Friel for six pounds and as happy as I was with the money I felt as if I was betraying her, selling her, prostituting her out to another. Leo sprayed it green and then gold and a year or so later I saw it out by Port na Crosh. Leo had a bag of periwinkles over the crossbar and to use a nice phrase, she looked knackered. The little front wheel was straining under the weight and the seat was even more torn than when I had it.

That was the last day I saw my Raleigh Chopper. I imagine now, she is in some bicycle heaven somewhere. Where chains are always oiled and tires properly inflated and all the roads are down hill. She deserves such an end after surviving the 70s, 80s and the beginning of the 90s.

Bikes come and bikes go, but our first bike is the one ingrained into us, part of our soul and lives. Mine made me a better person cause I had to suffer, struggle and live with such a burden at a young age. I’ve learned never to take anything for granted and always to make the best out of the hand I’m dealt; whether it’s an ultra-light handmade mountain bike or a hand-me-down onion-infused red Raleigh Chopper.

Fishing With Granda

Granda had a fish tank, that he made himself, in his shed and in it lived a trout called Roger. He was a large brown trout and helped Granda test all his inventions, the one we knew best was the Electric Fisher. It was a tool of science that helped people catch fish without killing them. It sent an electric shock wave through a pool in a river and then the stunned fish would float down stream into the net.

But Granda was also fond of more conventional methods of fishing too. He taught Derek to tie a fly and brought him on a business trip where they fished all the major rivers in the country. Derek came back with many big stories and I was sad and jealous that I wasn’t as close to Granda as he.

All the same, Granda would take us trout fishing up to Conlin Bridge and I got to enjoy those experiences. A trip like that would always start with the collecting of big fat worms. As kids we looked under rocks and logs in the back yard and put our finds into jam jars.

Granda had other methods of enticing the worms into his jar. One way was that he would squirt dish washing soap into the ground and they would rise up and out to escape the poisonous liquid. He had another method too that he didn’t use anymore. It was an electric method of extracting the worms from the ground.

It was a by-product he invented for his need for worms to feed his test fish. He inserted some metal prongs into the ground and then sent a few volts through the prongs. The worms would literally jump out of the ground and all he had to do was gather them up. He didn’t have this tool anymore because he gave it away to a young American intern he had a few years back. Since then the intern went on to become a millionaire using Granda’s invention to create his own business back in America. We never really believed Granda about this, until one day it was on John Cravin’s News Round and all Granda said was “that’s the little fecker, that’s the worm machine I invented.” It was then I knew how great Granda could have been if he wanted to be. But he was more content with an easy life. Money and he were like oil and water; they didn’t mix, unless artificially held together by an emulsifier that would eventually break down.

Anyway, after we had the worms, we all loaded into Granda’s car. Declan and Kevin Cunnigham would come too, they lived two doors down in No. 62. They had fishing rods that they used to catch bian in Kilcar and Derek had a rod too, but I didn’t have one yet and a red plastic spool of gut did just the trick for me.

I caught a nice big brown trout and Derek and Declan got their fair share too, but the catch of the day was a huge rainbow trout Kevin pulled in from the bridge. Its colors shimmered beautifully in the fading summer evening sun. Granda explained how it was he that introduced the rainbow trout to the waterways in Donegal. The brown trout was indigenous and he wasn’t sure if the colonization had been successful in this little river, but Kevin’s catch was a strong affirmative of that fact.

When we got back to 64 Conlin Road, fish were cleaned and Granny cooked them up for us. There is no sauce like eating food you have provided for yourself.

We don’t go fishing with Granda anymore, ‘cause he’s in a place where he gets to use a Hardy fly reel every day and the wind is always in his favor. I miss him and I wish he were here to show me how to tie a fly and let me know how it is to be a man. We all miss him and wish he were still with us. But in a way he is still with us ‘cause I will always have those memories and lessons learned from fishing with Granda.

Dad's Watch

At 14 St. Cummins Hill there was a new brown wooden door. It replaced the green one, with the flaky paint and the rotten sides. Inside the door was the cabinet. Some of the glass in the front was broken, but not dangerous enough to keep us from exploring its contents. It held my christening mug, the one that called me ‘Charles,’ even though my name was George, my brother had one too with his own name and my sister’s was an owl with an egg-cup.

There were rings in there too, but nobody ever wore them and the silver set’s function was too expensive for our life, so it just tarnished in the cabinet, but Mum did use the pickled onion bowl for an ashtray.

Dad kept his watches in the cabinet too. Derek and I liked the big black and green diving one. It glowed in the dark and at night we would take it under the blankets and watch the second hand tick by. Derek was allowed to wear it to school once and everyone liked it a lot. I wanted to wear it too, but I was too young. You must learn a lot about wearing a watch in just one year.

When the summer came, it was hot and we were allowed to cycle our bikes to Fintra Beach with Shane and Brian McCourt. They were our best friends. They were from Northern Ireland and a lot of people did not like them because of this, but I liked them more than anyone in the whole world. Their mom was very nice, but Tommy, their father, scared me. He was always nice to us, but someone said he was involved with the IRA and I knew from the ITN News at 5:45, the one my Dad called the Bad News at 5:45, that they were mean and so too were the UDA, the other letters they fought against.

Some days we didn’t cycle our bikes and we walked all the way from the McCourt’s house to Fintra. At the Glenlee crossroads the wee road hit the main road to Carrick and we could hitchhike from there. We were good about walking in single file cause my mother always made us do that and we were trusted to go places by ourselves when we were safe and careful. If we didn’t get a lift to the beach with some tourist or generous local person, which we usually didn’t, we knew a shortcut if the tide was out.

It was over at the sinking sand, where the little golf course ended and the beach began. There was one house down the road, I use to think the three bears lived in that house, but they didn’t, and there was something of an old bridge that went half way out across the sinking sand, over at the channel. The bridge didn’t go anywhere now, but one time Brian said it went all the way across and erosion had taken it away. Shane and Brian knew a lot of facts and we always went exploring to find out if they were real.

Since the bridge didn’t go all the way across you had to put on your shorts and wade across the channel for about twenty feet or so, depending on the tide.

This one day the tide was not out too far and I had taken Dad’s diving watch from the cabinet without asking cause I wanted to show-off in front of the McCourts and another boy called Bernard, who was a friend of Brian and Derek’s. His father owned one of the pubs in town, but he was English and not many people liked him either. The biggest reason I wore the watch was too see how it looked under water, but I was afraid of getting it wet.

I put it in my shoe while we waded across the channel. When we got to the other side it was not in my shoe and I got scared. I made everyone help me look for it cause I was afraid of my Dad. Derek was mad at me and said I was in deep trouble. I made him promise he wouldn’t tell. He said he wouldn’t but I was still scared.

We didn’t find it and I wasn’t able to enjoy the beach at all. It worried me and I felt sick. Derek didn’t tell Dad when we got home and I never mentioned it again to anyone. A week or more passed before Dad started shouting “What little fucker’s lost my watch?” We kept silent and eventually his anger went away. I would have been angry too, the watch was the best one in the world and its second hand glowed as it ticked in the dark at night under the blankets.

Hands

Small, not exactly man-hands, is what most people would say about these hands. Many times they’ve been engulfed in size by those of other males, laughed at and called girl-hands. But they’re mine and for me they work fine.

I’ve arm-wrestled brutes and the look of disbelief when these small hands slam theirs to the table is certainly worth any joking at the expense of my hands.

These hands have fought bare-knuckled, saving me from a beating. These hands have taken me many miles away from my home. A young girl once fell in love with them and I followed her across the ocean so she could feel them wrapped around her in the cold mid-Western winter.

These hands bare fruit to me, from the poems and stories I craft to the culinary delights I create in the kitchen everyday at work.

These hands are scarred, the skin is sucked dry of moisture from long hours in the hard-water of the kitchen. Flecks of hair grace the knuckles and the back of the palms. The scars from digging as a kid and finding the sharp edge of glass in the dirt, scars from frustration crashing into to walls and barroom brawls. Scars from clutching a pan too hot and having the skin painfully peels away as the pain is forgotten in the haste of having to get the meals served.

The nails are well-kept, sometimes black builds up under them and I meticulously pick it out with a file or knife-point. The palms are well lined, with a long lifeline running down the left one and an unpredictable marriage line going perpendicular to that.

These hands are mine and when I curl them in hook-like to examine them I recognize them as those of my heritage, those of my grandfather, those of my mother they are Sharkey hands, small and soft yet capable of the most demanding task. They are the tools given to me from God to carve out my place in life.