Hello all,
I'm sure you're surprised to be reading my letter to you
on the internet. This is how it happened: I was talking with your friends
Ralph and Justin, and they suggested that, since I write to you regularly
to keep you up to date on life here, I send the letter over the internet
using their new Clifden web site, so that your friends in America, and
anyone interested in life here, can stay up to date too. So from now on,
if you want to know how things are here at home, don't be waiting for the
post, just point your browser (do I sound like I know what I'm talking
about?) at this web site.
I suppose you've been wondering
to each other how your ma and I are getting on, now that we're retired.
Well, you needn't worry; a pensioner's life can be a happy one. I admit
that when the new term began this year I missed the excitement of that
first faculty meeting, but the fact is I've become busier than I ever was.
I have a lot more time to talk with people (how else would this letter
have ended up on the internet) and see with pleasure that our culture is
in younger, and very able, hands; and I'm free to enjoy the sea, shore,
bog, hill and mountain, and be in harmony with the world, as I did when
a boy. And I hope to keep our life here fresh in your minds, as I know
that you miss it, as the life here misses you. Do you remember, when I
was in America last year, how you had me watch that favorite programme
of yours, "Seinfeld"? Well, I heard that it will shown on Irish
television this year, so you'll be able to see it when you're here on holiday.
The Irish Countrywomens' Association have resumed their activities, now
that autumn is here and the women have more time; they have a Craft Night
on Wednesdays, at the town hall, that your ma has been going to, where
each person brings a project that they're working on and shares ideas,
gets and gives advice, and has a good chat over tea. John and Marcella
were married two weeks ago. The reception was as Smuggler's Lodge, where
the Saturday night disco is held that you used to go to. I'd say half of
Clifden was there, dancing to traditional music, country music, and rock
and roll, the latter music provided by the band that came down from Dublin
to play at Guy's early in the summer, and never wanted to go back. It's
been a bit wet and windy here the past few weeks, the weather coming up
from the southwest and so pretty mild, but we've wanted a fire some nights.
Joe Gorham, from the Connemara Pony Breeders' Society, is letting us use
one of the stables at the show grounds down the road to put our turf in
for the winter, and I just bring a bag up to the house every few days.
On Monday I went to Galway city
with Micky, my fishing partner. On our way back we stopped in Oughterard
to have a pint in Keogh's; there was a quiet early evening crowd at the
bar, locals and a few French visitors; Keogh with a piece of chalk inscribing
the evening's menu. At the far end of the room, and taking up nearly the
whole wall there, is a painting now. It seems all mountain and sky, but
in a moment you can place the scene: you are looking east, from a slight
elevation, at Maam Cross, with the Galway Road going up to Clifden from
right to left in the foreground, the road down the Maam Valley winding
away from you to the background. And centered in the foreground, but small
and precisely modeled as in an archetect's rendering, are the shop, pub
and petrol pumps at Maam Cross; they are a tidy, but almost fragile, aspect
of this landscape dominated by the shoulder of Lackavrea and the sky of
clouds around it. Going home thirty minutes later I passed the very spot,
but Lackavrea took no notice of me.
From Tullyvoheen, good night and
God bless you.
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