Forgetting to Remember

Story ID:	99
Written by:	Veronica Breen Hogle
Organization:	Irish Cultural Events
Story type:	Story
Location:	Dublin Ireland
Year:	2004
Person:	Tommy Bambrick and Mary Doyle

FORGETTING TO REMEMBER - By Veronica Breen Hogle

Flushed with excitement, I sit in row 30-A, the window seat at the edge of the wing. I've made good time getting in from Buffalo, New York to JFK Airport for the night flight to Dublin. The captain comes on and says we’re third in the Q for take off. I sit back and wait.

It’s the second week in September. Ireland is ablaze with color this time of the year. I’m going there to visit my mother. She lives in Bagenalstown, known as Muinebheag in Irish. It’s a picturesque little town on the Barrow River. When I lived there, it was a flour mill town. The Dublin to Waterford train still stops four times a day in the town that is so well planned out, there is no need for traffic lights. The doctor still makes house calls and stays for a chat as well. Our family has lived there for over 120 years. My mother is the last member of the Walshe family, formerly of The Old Barracks, Kilree Street, living in the little town of Bagenasltown. She’s the last one keeping the light on, and she does not spare the electricity.

I have a stash of crisp new Euros. My short blond hair has a snazzy spiked cut. I’m glad I got the manicure. The peach nail varnish is just right with my navy jacket and jeans. The captain with a Dublin accent gives greetings and announcements. He introduces the six flight attendants and asks for our attention as they explain the safety rules. Megan is the flight attendant in my area of the plane. I fasten my seat belt, listen and I'm sure by her accent, she's from Donegal. She is slendar with dark curly hair in a bun and velvet brown eyes, a look that is common to women from the west of Ireland. Patrick is our other flight attendant. He's lean with blond hair and dancing blue eyes, the look of a Viking which is common around Dublin.

I listen to the powerful noise of the jumbo-jet engines speeding along the runway. The captain’s voice comes back and says his co-pilot is Damien and we're ready for take off. The engines roar. I feel the surge. I’m propelled high into the night sky. I look down at the bright lights of New York City getting smaller and disappear as our big silver bird soars up, circles east, out over the Atlantic Ocean. Five hours from now, I’ll experience magic moments. Through the early morning mist, nestled in the Atlantic Ocean, I’ll see the rugged coastline of Ireland. I’ll feel weepy.

Megan and Patrick tell us they have chicken fiesta dinners for all 305 of us, that's if the junior soccor team settles down. They all shout Ole! The attendants give us earphones and come around with the bar on wheels. I'm so happy I don't mind paying seven euros for a small bottle of Spanish wine with a handsome matador dressed in red on the black label. The man in the seat beside me is engrossed in reading "Daddy's Little Girl."

I peek in my purse. Inside is the most perfect gift imaginable for family and friends. I picked them up this morning from the printer - truly hot off the press. Making sure not to be separated from them, I put them in my carry-on bag. I keep two in my purse. One is to gloat over and over to myself, and maybe -- maybe, I’ll give one to the stranger sitting beside me. I can tell from his accent when he offered to put up my carry-on bag that he's Irish too, but I can't make out the county.

As I wait to be served, the Spanish wine gives me a glow. My mind begins to wonder what the response to my present will be. My recollections of preparing for Christmas in Bagenalstown during my childhood are so vivid, I wrote five short stories about those experiences. I had them typeset and published into a little booklet. One for every friend and family member. There are stories of getting the house cleaned and making the fruitcake. Children whispering their wishes to the mechanical man in the toy window of Cleary’s shop. Another about my grandmother giving my mother the two live hens as a present. The last-minute shopping on Christmas Eve. The mill workers singing at Christmas Eve Mass, after practicing for hours in Dooley’s Pub, is the most popular one of all.

Our dinner tray comes with the chcken Fiesta and I order another small bottle of Spanish wine. The Toblerone Swiss Chocolate on the tray is a lovely surprise. It reminds me of dates I had in Dublin in the 1960s when we stood outside in all kinds of weather waiting to get in to the cinema, sit in the dark, hold hands and eat Toblerone.

After dinner, the man next to me puts his book down and asks me if I’m on a business trip or a holiday. He looks about 50. He tells me he is from Cavan, and is returning to Ireland after visiting his mother who has been living in Brooklyn for many years.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been back home,” I tell him. “In fact, I’ve been thinking of it so much that I’ve written little stories about it.”
“Oh, you’ll see massive changes now, since we joined the European Union.”
He tells me that he drives a delivery truck. I tell him that I’m a grant proposal writer.
“I’m having a bit of success getting my short stories published about my memories of growing up in Ireland. Americans are interested in nostalgia,” feeling a need to explain it.
“Well, in Ireland, some are, and some are not. Most of us now want ta forget how hard things used ta be,” the man answers. I reach in my purse.
“Here! This is what I wrote and designed. I have one for everyone in the family!” handling him the booklet. He stares at it for what seems like a long time and says,
“Ah, you’d be hard pressed now ta find a letter box like that in Ireland taday,” looking at the cover of the booklet featuring Tommy the Post, in his navy uniform, standing beside the round green letter box. The basket on the front of his bike is full of Christmas parcels, “Tommy Bambrick, the postman, and Mary Doyle, who took the photograph still live in Bagenasltown,” I tell him.
“Ah, yes, There might be a few left down in the country, that would be all. Ah, that green letter box is a goner now,” he went on.
“Really!” I said, taken aback. “My goodness how could the green letter box be gone?
The green icon! The look and shape that anyone who lived in Ireland or the British Isles, would recognize right away be gone?” I protested, feeling the wind go out of my sails.
“Ah, everything is more modern now - we’re all high tech. The post office is all about efficiency and speed,” he answers. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“We’re talking about the green letter box that used to be red before Ireland painted them green after independence The letter box every child recognizes from storybooks about the postman. To where children were taken to post the letters. The letter box where the old-age pensioners always stopped to catch up on the news. I can’t believe they are gone!” Again, the man from Cavan reminds me there are massive changes in Ireland. Lots of progress.

It’s now the middle of the night and we are half way across the Atlantic Ocean to Dublin. The movie is on, and people are settling down to have the best sleep they can have sitting up. I look down at the cover of the Christmas booklet and at the photo of Tommy the Post. This must be how established writers feel when a critic points out what does not appeal to them. I enjoy writing the stories, but the printing alone has cost a fortune. I eat the Toblerone. It does nothing to lighten my worry that I may have 25 gifts about times and activities that are goners, advertised by a large green icon that is now a goner as well.

I doze in and out. I watch the navy sky turn blood red. As the plane drones through the changing sky at high speed, I put my watch five hours ahead. Gently, lavish pearly curtains cascade in the sky. Morning has broken. The passengers become animated. Breakfast is served.

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! We’ll soon be able to see the Irish coastline. The temperature in Dublin is 54 degrees F. A light rain in falling . We’re five minutes ahead of schedule. We’ll land at five minutes to seven --Irish time --15 minutes from now,” says the captain.

I watch the marshmallow clouds floating outside the window. I wait for the magic moments. As I peer through the window, the jagged edges of the island inch into view. Shrouded in the early morning mist, square and oblong patches of green and gold fields appear, teasing the sun to come out and kiss them good morning. I see the Atlantic Ocean charging and frothing at the edges of the deserted beaches, home to thousands of seagulls circlng overhead or holding court in the sand. Warm tears roll down my cheeks as the plane decends in the city where I lived and that I loved. The city I left in search of more excitement when I was 23 years old. The city where I left a part of me behind.

The airport taxi speeds along the new M50 to the home of my long-time friend Ella, who lives in Walkinstown, a suburb on the south side of Dublin.
“God, will ya look at the owld letter box!” says Ella, laughing at her gift.
“Are they gone all together?’ I ask.
“Come ta think of it, I can’t remember when I last saw one! I don’t remember where one might be. I’d say that’s a goner now,” looking at me as if I’m a bit daft.
Friends come to visit and I ask each one if they know where a green letter box might be. Most of them look baffled and can’t remember when they last saw one either. Worst of all, they didn’t even notice that they were gone.

On a visit to my brother in Donegal, in the west of Ireland, I find them in souvenir shops. At least it’s a way to remember them, I thought, feeling a bit like Rip Van Winkle, and sad all over again.

We drive down to Bagenalstown. The booklet is poured over like an old family album. Of course, it would be. All the stories take place there. Right away, I notice the green letter box is gone from outside the post office. Mary Doyle says she isn’t sure if the one near the old convent is still there. That’s where she took the photo of Tommy the Post some years ago. I drive down to see it. It's still standing there! But its top is quite rusty. Anyone can see it has not been used in years.

Back in Dublin, I find that the man from Cavan is not correct. Sitting on a double-decker bus coming from the railway station, along the Liffey River, towards O’Connell Street, I spy a green letter box! My heart beats like a hammer. In Westmorland Street, outside Bewley’s Coffee House, there is another! It has a crown on the side, and the letters G. R., no less! This would be worth a photo, but the street is jammed with shoulder-to-shoulder people. My joy soars when I spot another green letter box near Trinity College! Feelings of delight wash over me. Dublin’s Fair City, still had some of the old green letter boxes.

But it’s clear the green icon is a goner, disappeared without notice in exchange for speed and efficiency, just as the man from Cavan said. Only gift shops around the country and the souvenir shops at the Irish airports keep the icon alive by selling the miniature green letter boxes, as money boxes. I even hear rumors that Bewley’s famous coffee shops are closing as well. No one wants the old-time elegance of being served by waitresses in black and white uniforms any more. No one has time. Even Tommy The Post can’t have his pipe in his mouth inside the pub now either.

On the plane back to Buffalo, I feel filled up and rejuvenated. I rehash all the conversations over in my mind. I can hear the gales of laughter when we remembered the Christmas my grandmother gave my mother two of her best live hens for her Christmas. present. At my farewell party in Bagenalstown, my brother handed me a souvenir double-decker bus and a green letter box to take back to Buffalo. He said,
“Your booklet is a grand little gift ta us. It reminds us of old times gone by. Days --- things -- places -- we were forgettin’ ta remember. The green letter box is a goner. But your little booklet with our own Tommy The Post on the front, is a keeper. Little keeper stories keep us rememberin’ the goners.”

- End -

Tommy Bambrick is now retired and still lives in Bagenalstown. Mary Doyle lives there too.