Sudden Memories

I find it amazing how life constantly evolves despite the burden of increasing age.

I have often described my youth in an Irish Catholic neighborhood as resplendent with one and all family members living on the same city street, West 58th Street, Hells Kitchen, NY.

To all outward appearances, that would seemingly bring back vivid and vocal tales of an exodus from the “Land of leprechauns, langers and eejits to boycotts, donnybrooks and Tories.”

However that was not the reality. The Irish immigrants I knew and loved chose to relinquish memories (both good and bad) of what they once knew and apparently, had once also embraced..

I never quite understood until I read Leon Uris’ words in TRINITY when the famed author so vividly described the Irishman who never looked back.

His words revived a dormant memory of the only time I came close to receiving an F for failure on an English assignment.

It happened the year I was 16 and a senior in NYC’s Cathedral High School, The assigned essay was to be biographical based on the memories of grandparents (if alive) and/or parents. It sounded simple.

I didn’t have to travel far but merely walk up the stairs to visit my Maternal Grandfather. John King was an only child who had traveled by sea with his Mother to the New Country where he sired 12 children of his own.

A quiet man, but meticulous in dress and courtesy, he looked at me quietly and said:

“I don’t remember anything at all.”

And with that short sentence our interview was terminated when Pop King left the room,

With sudden urgency I then walked several paces up the block closer to Ninth Avenue and saw my Paternal Grandfather, Matthew Donlon. The tall still handsome gentleman was standing with his perennial smile on the gray stone stoop of 438.

When I asked Pop Donlon the same question, the smile immediately disappeared, and he repeated the identical words I heard earlier.

“I don’t remember anything at all.”

Matt Donlon then retreated quickly into the first floor apartment where he lived with his teenaged grandchildren,

I had no other resources for any valid research. Both my parents were born in the USA. Consequently, I relied on my imagination which resulted in a vibrant C minus on my academic record

I think about their reaction now because for some incomprehensible reason I have returned to Irish authors (John Banville) and poets (W. H Auden) for my reading.

And nightly the magic of James Galway and Phil Coulter lulls me into the peaceful and untroubled land of dreams.

And like so many other things, I wonder why. Science despite its efficient mask of perfection does not have the agility of explaining everything,

I am fascinated by this unexpected return to the “old country” by an aging granddaughter, and ponder about the causes.

Is there something I should remember? Are some questions finally about to be answered?

To quote another, “It’s a puzzlement.”