I Need a Keeper

My sister and I left for the airport at 4:00 am. Our ultimate destination was Dublin, Ireland. I have been known to change my mind about going to many wonderful places when the time comes to get up out of bed in the pre-dawn hours. It is the cruelest time, if you ask me. Who can even see that early? It is the middle of the night.
So, I didn’t notice that I forgot the eye- glasses that I have become so dependant upon until we were dropped off at the terminal.

Since there was no way of getting them, I bought a pair of those magnifying readers from a vendor near our departing gate. They worked pretty well; unless I looked up from my book and turned my head too fast. That made me dizzy.

When we got to the hotel in Ireland, I draped my jet-lagged body over the nightstand to plug something in and smashed the frame of the stand-in pair of glasses and one lens fell out.

I found a new pair in the hotel gift shop; sort of a stand-in for the stand-in, if you will.

Later on a boat, that itty bitty screw that holds the ear piece on came out and was hopelessly lost.

My friend Kathy saved the day with an extra pair that she had brought. Thank you very much, Kathy.

While on a tour of a replica of the boat that the REAL discoverer of America had sailed, (Bet you didn’t know about this historical item!) the Stand-in –for-the-stand-in glasses, which were now perched on top of my head, fell into the water.

Do you think I need a “Keeper?” You know, someone who will follow me around and say,
“Don’t sit that down!”
and
“Don’t put those there!”
and
“Turn left! No! Your other left!”

The answer to that question is “Yes.” The husband usually takes this role, but since he wasn’t in Ireland yet, the job went to my sister, Barbie.

I have one more Pre-story to tell and then I shall tell the events of this latest great adventure.



Once upon a time, there was a young girl who lived in the lush green land of County Cork, Ireland. Her name was Mary, and at fifteen she considered
herself a completely grown-up woman. She was spunky, a bit sassy, and quite pretty to look at. She caught the eye of many handsome young men,
but wasn't much interested in any of them.
Her family, (so the story goes), was of the aristocratic sort and her parents wanted a marriage for Mary with a gentleman from a like family.
Mary considered all the boys from these families to be, well, boys.

One afternoon while strolling along the water's edge, she caught the eye of an unbelievably handsome man. He was working on the dock
and she noticed his well-formed shoulders and chest. She was smitten by this handsome rogue. She found herself walking by the same wharf the next day and the next one after that.
He told her his name was Andrew. She could tell when they talked that he was quite a bit older than she, and perhaps that is one of the reasons why she fell in love with him.
Andrew.
She loved the sound of his name.
It was not long before word got to her father. He became irate over his daughter's infatuation with this shanty boat riff raff, and forbade her to go near the wharf again. Of course, love always finds a way, and they found occasions to be together when no one was around.

Naturally, her father found out that she was seeing him and he took her to a convent and locked her away.

She, being the spunky thing that she was, would not be deterred. One moonless night, Mary climbed over the wall to be with her Andrew. They
climbed aboard a ship and sailed for America.

As they sailed across the ocean, her belly grew. In 1858, they landed in America at the mouth of the Mississippi and got on a riverboat. In a short while, they came to a Mississippi town called Yazoo. The boat came to a stop while Mary gave birth to Patrick.

Patrick was my grandfather’s father. This story explains a few things, doesn’t it!
Barb and I were going to find that convent.
But first we were to cruise down the Shannon River with the girlfriends. That episode coming up next…