Author is a retired attorney who started writing stories for something to do in his rusting years. He has had seventy some published in online magazines, including this one, and a half dozen or so in book anthologies. He may be reached at [email protected]. ​

   By God she was going to get him to marry her this time. So what if he had broken off their previous engagement and humiliated and embarrassed her in front of the whole town, she’d get him this time that’s for sure. Her mind was set on it and when her mind was set on something there was no stopping her. She’d get her hooks into him but good. Twenty three, almost twenty four, she had to act now or she’d end up an old maid spinster the rest of her life. She couldn’t let that happen. That would be even more embarrassing than him calling off their engagement. Her biological clock was ticking and her shelf life as a prospective wife was about to expire too.  Besides he was a good catch as they say, too good a man to pass up even if he had embarrassed her so. She’d just overlook all that and go on as if nothing had ever happened.
   So she had her friend Liza arrange for them to have secret trysts, rendezvous, or whatever romantic term one wants to put on them at Liza’s house. But they were really nothing more than unchaperoned meetings or encounters for her to get into his wiring and rewire him. To turn him on so to speak. Besides she’d be doing him a favor marrying him she rationalized. He was ten years older than her and it was about time he settled down and raised a family. After all he certainly certainly afford one.
   Oh, she knew he was quite smart, a self educated man. He made quite a good living and would be able to keep her accustomed to the lifestyle she was used to. Be able to support her and a couple of kids. She was the smart one though. She had a college degree. He didn’t. Degree or not it made no difference to her anyway when it came to do what she had to do. For once she got his hormones to kick in there would be no stopping him. Animal lust always trumped intelligent rational thinking every time. No sexually roused up man could stop on the spot and walk away for his animal urges once nature took its course. She was banking on that.
   Oh, she knew that he had been engaged to some other woman before he met her and that he had broken off that engagement too. Broke it off publicly just like he did to her, but so what. This time it was no more Miss Nice Prissy Girl. She’d  used sex. Guys like sex. Anyway that was a woman’s prerogative now wasn’t it? To use sex that is to trap a man. A lot of women nowadays were pregnant when they went down the aisle. And so what for all that would soon be forgotten when that cute little baby got here and everybody began oohing and aahing over it. Nobody would be doing the math then.
    So after they did it a couple of times, she told him that she might be pregnant. Being an honorable professional man her newly renewed fiance accepted his inevitable fate and like a lamb being led to the slaughter, gave up his bachelorhood and laid  down his head on the chopping block of marriage.
    And the day she announced to everyone that they were going to be married, they were, that very day.
    Nine months later from the date of their marriage, November 4th,  their son was born. Two more sons were born to them. The marriage was a success. Her husband was a success and she stayed with him right to the very end, the very ever so tragic end. The end coming on April 15, 1865. 

​

Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies.  Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian.

I turned a crank and rasping sounds started. My lead pencil’s wood shavings filled the gadget’s cylinder, and, when the writing point was correct, I pulled out the yellow writing piece. The sharpener’s metal frame was affixed to a wall for stability. I emptied a removable cylinder’s remnants by twisting, freed the chamber of splinters then emptied into a brown paper trash-bag. With another twist, I returned the cylinder to position. 

What I held to sketch artwork had black soft charcoal inside, and I could smudge it with my fingers to create shadows on white art paper. What I’d just sharpened didn’t smudge with use.

A tiny rectangle with a razor-type blade, and a hole just the correct size for a pencil, was my carry-to-school way to make a good point. I didn’t yet know that graphite, not lead, was the dark and erasable writing part.  Why wasn’t it called a graphite pencil! 
 
The common eraser stuck to the thin-wood-hexagon’s end was not even invented until the 19th century!  I looked that up in my heavy encyclopedia that the family got from the door-to-door salesman. I also read that cedar was replaced by other wood.

During World War II, my mother would write on jars of food she’d ‘canned’ and had special grease pencils in a kitchen drawer.  Special, made of wax, resistant to drops of water, I liked peeling a string that removed bits of paper exposing a writing surface. But they weren’t art ones, nor could take to school, so after ruining one by trying to make it something I could use, I kept my fingers out of her marking-drawer.  I picked vegetables from our Victory Garden; I didn’t want to can them, although I didn’t understand the term since jars were glass and not tin. Well, tin went to the war effort, so maybe that’s why canning was done in glass.

I learned that the rotary sharpener, like the one my mom put up, was banned in Britain during the very same war, and people had to make points using a knife.  Nothing was wasted during world fighting, but why couldn’t the contents of the cylinder be emptied and the stuff inside re-purposed? My parents certainly would never have let me use a knife!

My dad got me colored pencils!  I liked sharpening those as each color I put in made the procedure less boring.  Unlike my little-girl crayons, I could be precise with whatever I was drawing.

My mother said she’d learned stenography and those specific pencils had points on both ends, were round not hexagons, and the shape was more comfortable.  I couldn’t imagine two points and having to decide which end to use first!
When I got to high school, I got a fountain pen.  It was so amazing to suck South Sea Blue ink inside of it, wipe the 14k gold tip with a tissue to get off drippy ink, carry a red blotter to soak up extra wet before I smeared the ink after writing, and feeling very grown up.  I couldn’t figure out how many words penned before the ink ran out, so had to carry the bottle in my purse. Sometimes there were leaks from the cap. I tried wrapping the bottle in wax paper and securing a rubber band to hold that in place, but whatever seemed to want to stain the inside of my purse just continued.  The New York State Regents Exams were to be handwritten in black ink, or, maybe blue ink would be allowed; I didn’t want those dramatic colors and used my trademark shade. They were still graded, so why the fuss?

My mother continued to write letters, or everything, with a pencil.  I guess she felt she didn’t have to load it up with fluid, or have a blotter handy, or anything cumbersome. 

When I started undergraduate school, I learned that pencils had specific numbers since multiple choice exams required a #2 to circle in answers.  I’d never noticed what I’d carried.

Ballpoint pens!  Great idea but globs of goop erupted.  Since no on-campus store sold any ink but black, blue, or a mixture of the two, I carried my little glass bottles from home to school in a tiny cardboard box my mother lined with wax paper in case of spilling.  I got a new fountain pen where the tip was thinner; never before knew I could actually select the writing nib . To grad school, I carried several fountain pens so I didn’t have to commute by train/subway with my liquid ink.

Once my children were born, so was the Bic ballpoint pen made without problems of preceding tries. This modern object became successful enough that fountain pens could be choice and not necessity.  By then, of course, plastic was developed so even if anyone carried such it could be put in a plastic bag and, if leaking happened, wouldn’t drip into a purse contents or anything.  

A constant: my mother, alive until 1985, preferred to write with pencil.


​

​Vincent Vincenzo (aka Vinny Veloce) was a surreal South Side kid like ketchup on a Chicago hot dog.

Like, both his first and last names were derived from the Latin vincere (to conquer) as in Julius Caesar's veni, vidi, vici (“I came. I saw. I conquered.”) in his letter to the Roman Senate around 47 BC after a quick victory in his short war against Pharmaces II of Pontus at the Battle of Zelda.

And, his mellow nickname veloce (speedy) was also divine like the rhyme, Red sky in the morning, shepards’ warning; red sky at night, shepards’ delight.

And, it's rumored he could think faster than the Summit super computer and beat Ken Jennings at TV’s Jeopardy and fuck longer than a male anglerfish.

A speedy conquer, etymologically, Vinny soon overcame his parents untimely death in an avalanche, skiing at Italy's Cortina d'Ampizzo after innumeribilo grappas and before their scheduled flight to Paris for dinner in chef Quentin Giroud's cozy ASPIC Restaurant at 24 rue de la d'Auvergne. And, he easily conquered disambiguation (ssstttudderring) before his first orgasm and sucking his thumb before his first poop and speaking in tongues before he was condemned to burn at the stake to ignite Festa Italiano in front of Big Al's beef, a speakeasy during Prohibition, and across the street from Mario's lemonade stand, a converted outhouse on Manga Street in Chicago’s Little Italy.

Vinny's Mother and Father divorced in a forget-about-it minute, so he and she moved in with her parents in an UPscale Chicago neighborhood. His Gram dropped out of fourth grade to help her parents during the Depression, and his Gramp was booted out of high school during the first week of his first year for repeatedly smoking in school and repeatedly giving the school's principal a bunch of shit about it.

His Gram grew up in a two bedroom tenement near White Sox Park with four sisters and two brothers, who slept in shifts and did what they had to do to eat, live and survive. His Gramp's Father started a successful protection agency, so his Gramp felt he could do whatever he wanted to do, whenever he wanted to do it. Their oil and vinegar backgrounds confirmed the notion that opposites attract opposites, and grounded Vinny's Libra balance.

Fittingly, he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in Computer Science at MIT, and hooked up with Philosophy, his second academic love, at Columbia University during summers. He also studied Mixology at the prestigious Bartenders Institute in the East Village and Rapology at Jay-Z's Joint in Harlem and advanced Kama Sutra skills near the statue of Balto the dog in Central Park with an Indian princess, whose first language was Hindi and second was Python and third was O-O-Orgasm.

An only, sometimes lonely child, Veloce developed a psychedelic imagination to conquer his psycho-social nadir with emphasis on applying the nuts and bolts of Freud's 1899 classic, The Interpretation of Dreams, and he swiftly learned Deutsch to read Die Transmutung in its vernacular.

Dreams and dreaming about dreams and interpreting and reinterpreting them became his passion, obsession and - some would say - Waterloo, over-munch and Edsel. And, one R/esoundingly
R/ecurring D/ream deafened his ability to hear thunder clap and babies cry and dogs fart. And, that RRD also dulled his touching and tasting and smelling and seeing and hearing just like his healthy cuticle did before a manicure at Aphrodite's Spa on the SW corner of Lotts and O'Loving in Boystown.

And, he told that RRD to his acupuncturist, psycho-pharmacologist and goomba, Sammy (2-tone) Scaramucci, who earned her nickname cuz she drove a 1957 blackNpink Chevy and wore blackNwhite spectator loafers and dyed her graying hair redNwhite to honor her alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, she earned a Ph.D. in Psychology, and her award-winning dissertation questioned Joyce Crick's Deutsch to English translation of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. And, 2-tone offered to help Vinny make sense out of his RRD in return for lifetime subscriptions to Red Book and The Harvard Crimson plus a very
rare and very cute blackNtan French bulldog, hand stuffed by sultry Simone for FAO Schwartz's flagship store at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

Vinny invited Sammy to join him for dinner at Gene and Georgette's, an old-school Italian restaurant under the L-tracks on the corner of Franklin and Illinois. There, crooks and cops, who knew each other since they were snot-nosed kids and opened fire hydrants on hot summer days in the old neighborhood, would check their guns at the door, quietly swap confidential info and nod knowingly about the good, the bad and the ugly.

Dinner was set for 6 p.m. on a Monday, when the restaurant would be relatively empty, and the small table for two in the back of the room on the first floor would be ideal for close conversation. There were also tables on the second floor, but they were reserved for tourists, beauticians and everyone whose last name didn't end in a, e, i, o or u.

Vinny arrived at 5:30, checked his Glock G29, slipped a Jackson to the waiter, strolled 1, 2..8 steps to the table in the back of the room with a RESERVED sign and ordered his favorite drink, a bottle of Pellegrino with sliced cucumbers.

From his viewpoint, he could see only four people in the restaurant. To the left, Joe the bartender was adjusting the TV to watch the White Sox game, and an I-need-Jenny-Craig-kinda-guy was nursing shots and beers like he was nurse Ratched on break at the Salem State Hospital. To the right, a 60ish balding guy was schmoozing a Monroe-blond millennial, whom he nervously introduced to the waiter as his visiting niece from Iowa as the waiter frowned and shook his head as if watching a horny old lion stalk a helpless gazelle on the African savanna.

Sammy arrived promptly at 6, dressed in a no nonsense black custom suit and 4" Manolo Blahnik black heels with an over-sized black leather bag off her left shoulder. She wore little make up, but what she did wear made her look like the lead actor in the Broadway musical "Cats."

At first blush, she appeared to have come directly from her office on Astor Street, but history told him she probably left early to stop at the celebrity Spa in the Peninsula Hotel for a swim, steam and sauna.

Vinny greeted Sammy with L-R-L European smooches, seated her to his right and asked what she would like to drink. She asked to share his Pellegrino and ordered limes.

Following _____ chit chat, Vinny asked if she were still willing to help him understand his troubled and troubling RRD, and she agreed to listen as closely as Juliette to Romeo, 8 to √64 and Turing to Germany's Enigma machine.

And, so, Veloce began, uncharacteristically, to slowly and meekly unravel his 3-part dream
about a professor, a car and a race in that order.

************
 
"In the first part of my dream, I was an undergraduate during the mid-‘60s at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and I flew to the Bahamas for Spring break during my senior year. There, I met some guys, who said they went to NYU with my old flame Lizzy and claimed she was partying on the beach in Fort Lauderdale with a gaggle of Sigma Chi's from Cornell. Temporarily insane, I caught the first flight to Lauderdale and combed the beach for her, unsuccessfully."

"I didn't have enough $$$ to fly back to Madison, so I decided to bar hop, hoping to find someone to rescue me. From bar to bar for hours and hours, I saw no one I recognized, until a tall, thin older dude, who looked tightly wound like Johannes Kepler in online images of eccentric physicists and also reminded me of a greater flamingo with his pinkish-white skin, red t-shirt, black shorts and skinny legs, asked me where I went to school. When I told him I was a Theoretical Physics major in Madtown, he lit up like Madame Curie zapped him with radiation. Cuz, he said, he went to Princeton with good mates who were teaching Theoretical Physics in Madison, and he'd love to see them."

"Long story short, he said he taught theoretical physics at the University of Toronto and offered to drive me in his 1957 Volkswagen to Madison on his way home, if we could stop in New Orleans to eat crawfish at Arnaud's and listen to jazz at Preservation Hall and skinny-dip in the Mississippi.” All we did except the first two, cuz a craving crappie bit the Prof. in the but-tox during our Sippi-dip, so he couldn’t sit still for longer than 2:16 minutes of Antoine “Fats” Dominoe’s Ain’t That a Shame.
“Short story l-o-n-g-e-r, he detailed his doctoral dissertation about constructing an unbeatable horse ad nauseam during our 1800+ mile drive from Fort Lauderdale to New Orleans to Madison. Frankly, I thought his theory was total bullshit, especially because he claimed the horse was a virtual construct, which existed exclusively in the minds of designated horse owners, trainers, jockeys and wagers among other relevant and related fabrications. To my amazement, he offered to $take me LARGE, anytime and anywhere I wanted to test his virtual horse in real time and space."

"The first part of my three act dream ended abruptly, but immediately cut to part two as fast as most folks mispronounce Goethe."
************
“Part two of my dream began like the first hard day's night I, ah, in-pressed (sic) Lizzy.”

“With a BANG, then another and another, an alter kocker rocked into my auto repair shop in a vintage Ford 1937 2-door Deluxe Club Cabriolet, spuTTTering like a Tommy gun during the St. Valentine's Day massacre with CAPITAL T, T, Ts.”

“As the ownerNoperatorNgrease monkey of Chicago's Foreign Car Hospital during the late-‘60s, I was accustomed to servicing cars from Germany and Japan and Italian, not Detroit, unless you consider it a foreign country. But, before the old fart, what's an appropriate verb consistent with fart ?, ______ from his vintage, I estimated its auction value at about $65,000. So, I felt he had beaucoup buck$ I could, ah, wrench from his Hanks Bi-fold Wallet, made in the USA from smooth goatskin leather.”

“Long story short, I assessed his car's condition and estimated its repair at $6,500, assuming I could find replacement parts. If the parts couldn't be found, they'd have to be cu$tomized.”

“The alter kocker, who said his name was Henry, questioned my estimate as a convenient but arbitrary 10% of his car's auction value. Pro forma, I disputed Henry's  calculus, arguing that $6500 was an industry standard to repair his car and my degree in Medieval Bantu Metaphysics from the Himalayan Institute in Rhinoceros, Illinois, proved that my estimate was on the nose.”

“Short story l-o-n-g-e-r, I couldn't find all of the replacement parts, charged Henry $1750 for parts and labor to date and offered to call my cousin Shifty's towing service at no charge. Ranting, ‘I'll sue you for every penny you have,’ Henry paid my cousin $500 in advance to tow his vintage to a Ford dealership in Park Forest. There, my cousin Buck offered to trade a new Ford Fiesta for his vintage plus $1750.”

“Desperately discombobulated, Henry was last seen in my cousin Mark's private ambulance on route to the ER in my cousin Carmella's Paradiso Senior Community.”
*************
“Flashing back to part one with a curious twist, the last part of my dream was exceptionally hot like a Komodo dragon chili pepper.”

“So, FLASH, in part one, a UT theoretical physics Prof. offered to $take me LARGE, anytime and anywhere I wanted to test his virtual horse in real time and space.”

“In part three, I was a hot shit tout during the 1970s in Florida, handicapping winners, especially race horses, against the odds. And, I had an exceptional reputation for twisting and shouting on and off Miami's South Beach with HIGH rollers from business, politics, sports, entertainment and, ah, I'll stop here to protect myself and my family and proxies and Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Vito, from being tortured and killed and dismembered like the Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, during October of 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey.

“Ok, so, twisting parts one and two together, like one of Uncle Jerry's world-famous, Pennsylvania Dutch, hand-made pretzels, I was shocked to see and overhear the Prof. failing to score a Michael Moore look- a-like on a chilly day at the beach. The Prof's curious pick up pitch, ‘Are you into string theory?,’ dragged on and on and on from Miami to Quantum Gravity to Indonesia to look-a-like's, ‘Fuck off, jerk.’"

“Mercifully, I waved to him, and he seemed to recognize me, but continued to pepper MM with references to Einstein and Fermi and Bohr and -for reasons only he and perhaps Mel Brooks could explain - Woody Allen's 1973 movie, Sleeper. Then, amazingly, he howled like a werewolf and jumped like a kangaroo and grinned like a jack-o'-lantern, as if he had discovered that heat energy could leap across a few hundred nanometers of a complete vacuum, thanks to a quantum mechanical phenomenon known as Casimir, before prancing to me and repeating the offer he made at the end of my dream's first part.”
“Long story short, he offered to construct a virtual horse that would win a major race and to stake me LARGE. As an entrepreneurial tout, how could I refuse such an offer? You see, my plan was to sell my, hmm, special insight for BIG buck$, bet my own BIG buck$, ca$h out LARGER than LARGE, hitch a ride on Elon Musk 's Starship Mk 1 to the exoplanet Kepler-62e and live la dolce vita.”

“As usual, the devil was in the details. So, when and where the race would take place and what flu$h clients I would contact and blah-blah-blah were TBD.”

“My dream's details about those issues are kinda muddy. But, as I recall, I chose the Flamingo Stakes in February of 1976 at Florida's Hialeah Park Race Track. Named the Prof's virtual horse Honest Pleasure, and chose Bravlio Baeza as its jockey and LeRoy Jolley as its trainer and Bertram Firestone as its owner.”

“For purposes of personal safety and security, I'll not name flu$h customers I contacted, except to say they represented industry, politics, entertainment, sports and members of an honorable and honored organization, whose club house was located on Mulberry Street in NY's Lower East Side, and Martin Scorsese recognized in movies such as Goodfellas, Mean Streets and The Irishman.”

“Short story l-o-n-g-e-r, the Prof. delivered the goods as promised. Honest Pleasure dishonesty won the 1 1/8 mile race at Hialeah by 11 lengths in 1:47 minutes, setting a track record. But, there was an unpleasant twi$t.”

“So many people bet on the horse in the Flamingo Stakes that its odds to win the race dropped to 1 to 5. What that meant was, for every $2 wager, $2.40 was returned. Sadly, I bet the ranch, and won a ton of horse shit. Forget about it.”
 
“Oh, bringing new meaning to the word trumpery, the dark bay stallion went on to virtually win the Florida Derby and Blue Grass Stakes, retired to stud in 1977, sired several virtual stakes’ winners and was trashed in 1992 on an IBM ThinkPad in the Theoretical Physics’ Computer Lab at the University of Toronto.”

************

"So, what do you make of my dream, Sammy? Am I fucking nuts, or what?"

"I don't recall reading about walnuts or peanuts or hazelnuts in any of my Psych. courses at UW, Vinny, but I stuck quite a few nut cases in my acupuncture practice and regret that the fucking psycho-pharma’s overcharge Norman-Bates-types for their 5Ndime med's."

"Forget about it."

"Seriously, let's try to abstract from the particulars in your three-part dream to identify commonalities."

"Commonalities?"

"Yeah, like assumptions and perspectives and/or anxieties that are the same in all three parts of your dream. Then, try to match them with what's happening in your life "

"Are you making this up?"

"Come on, Vinny, you asked for my help, so don't play with me, ok?"
 
“’Fess UP, Sammy, do you put ketchup on a hot dog?”
“Nobody, I mean nobody puts ketchup on a hot dog.”
“Who said that?”
“Dirty Harry in the 1983 movie Sudden Impact.”
"Touché."

"Ok, so, in the first part of your dream, you couldn't find an old squeeze in Ft. Lauderdale, a quirky UT prof. made you a virtual offer you couldn't believe and you were left in Limbo at the end of the day."

"I wouldn't say I was left in Limbo."

"How would you put it?"

"I don't know. Maybe I just questioned his offer's speedy outcome."

"In part two, you offered to repair an old guy's car, quoted a price, didn't complete the repair, and the guy got ripped off at the end of the day."

"I wouldn't say he got ripped off."

"How would you put it?"

"I don't know. Maybe the alter kocker was too swift for his britches."

"In part three, you again hooked up with the Prof., who constructed the dishonestly unbeatable horse he promised, but with a glitch. So many people bought your tout the horse would win that its odds to win returned practically nothing to winning wagers."

"I wouldn't say the winning wagers got practically nothing."

"Ok, how would you put it?"

"I don't know. Maybe justice was served swiftly."

"For real?"

"Yeah, maybe the dishonest Prof. and tout got what they deserved."

"Vinny, do you sometimes feel you're too veloce for your britches, sometimes doubt the speedy outcome of promises, sometimes think you're getting what you deserve?"

"Are you talking to me?"

"Sometimes believe you can't conquer the unconquerable?"

"Hey, if you're talking about my inoperable, incurable, metastatic prostate cancer..."

"Forget about it?"
 
 
 
 

She called on Mother’s Day. A special day on everyone’s calendar to mark what I’m not. As a co-worker says about anything I lament, “It’s always about you, isn’t it?” Anyway, Deborah was coming to Seattle to do research for a story about a shock jock for a national women’s magazine and wanted to see me.
I first met her for brunch one Friday at the Intercontinental Hotel in Dubai, UAE. In Muslim countries the work week is usually six days a week, Saturday through Thursday, with Friday off as the day to spend at the mosque, or in our case, at a buffet.
Our husbands worked in the oil and gas industry and became friends. The guys had set up the date, which was pretty unusual. Normally, when social events were involved, other than going to the local pub, they were generally organized by the wives. “Must be something special,” I thought, and it was. I liked them right away.
First of all Deborah was smart. Scary smart. And she had a great sense of humor. I knew that because she laughed at my jokes. And her husband was also bright and generous. He had just bought her an elegant 18K gold necklace. He’d be a good influence on my husband I thought, who only bought me things he wanted. One birthday he bought me hockey tickets; another year it was an anti-gravity pen that worked in outer space. Did he have plans for me I wasn’t aware of? Finally, he bought me something he didn’t want, but that was a three-hole punch.
It was Deborah who first encouraged me to join her in a newly established writing group. I had never written anything “just for fun,” which of course, it isn’t. It’s painfully excruciating and revealing. One wise person wrote, “Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”* That just about sums it up.
The last time I saw her in Dubai was at our writing group meeting. We were both in my kitchen when, in hushed tones, she told me she thought she was pregnant and that, no, she did not want to be.  It turned out to be a false alarm, but it served its purpose anyway. Her close call galvanized her and she and her husband divorced when she left him to return to graduate school in the States. As nice as her husband was, each of them were on opposite ends of the goal continuum. “Plus,” she told me, “I can’t imagine a life sharing the same relatives.”
That was 10 years ago, but within moments on the telephone, we bridged the gap with a burst of chatter and a plan to get together. I couldn’t wait to see her. I wanted to hear about her remarriage, her two children, her new home, her life. We lived coasts apart and unfortunately our personal distance had also grown exponentially throughout the years. She excitedly told me she’d be in Seattle over Memorial Day and asked if I could I meet her at her hotel.  I definitely wanted to see her, except…I was scared. She worked for a well-known national magazine and I had a ho-hum job where the glamor quotient was pretty low on the Wow scale. I was starting to feel demoralized.
 I dressed in my best outfit and drove to the Four Seasons Hotel where the magazine had put her up. Running down the hall to meet her, we hugged and awkwardly sized each other up. She was, as always, beautiful. She still had thick, dark hair, blood-red nails, bright eyes and an intelligent smile. We definitely had not been on the same evolutionary path.
We left for dinner and somber conversation when Deborah’s tone shifted to her personal life. She seemed to yearn for something more. She never told me what she needed, or if she did, I missed it, too enthralled by her light to actually notice what she didn’t directly say.
As we left the dining room, our eyes glazed over from conversation and too much food, we surveyed the huge lobby. People were milling around the storefront windows.
“There’s Jerry Garcia,” Deborah whispered.
“The guy who organized the farm workers in California?” I asked.
“No, Garcia is the guy in the band, The Grateful Dead.”
He wrapped up his window shopping at a jewelry store and proceeded to a van positioned outside the hotel lobby side door. Deborah and I moved to the area of the waiting van and watched him climb aboard. Once situated in the van, a hotel employee handed him a guitar. As Garcia grabbed it, he glanced our way with a smile. We stood there reverently and returned his smile. The van door slid shut, and he was driven away. That was the first and last time I saw Jerry Garcia. Two months later, in 1995, he was dead of a drug overdose.
More importantly, it was the last time I saw Deborah.
-End-
 
*Attributed to Gene Fowler, American Journalist
 

I truly believe history repeats itself and when it does repeat itself it repeats itself in a cycle, not a circle. Therefore, when it does repeat itself, it repeats itself on a different level. Take the the “so-called” Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. African Americans were energized by the work of the civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Jessie Jackson. These leaders and their movement were working towards integration through a civil rights act. Personally, I was against integration and all for freedom. I’m an American, so why isn’t the Constitution and its Bill of Rights all that I need? The Civil Rights Act reminds me of the treaties signed into law between the Native Americans and the United States government. Just like the Native American treaties, the Civil Rights Act wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. I came to this conclusion by taking the following look back in time. 
The Civil Rights Act of 1866, was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended, in the wake of the American Civil War, to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent born in or brought to the United States. This legislation was passed by Congress in 1865 and vetoed by U.S. President Andrew Johnson. In April 1866 Congress again passed the bill to support the Thirteenth Amendment. Johnson again vetoed it, but a two-thirds majority in each chamber overrode the veto to allow it to become law without presidential signature.
The Civil Rights Act of 1875 sometimes called the Enforcement Act or the Force Act was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction era in response to civil rights violations against African Americans. The bill was passed by the 43rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1875. The act was designed to "protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights", providing for equal treatment in public accommodations and public transportation and prohibiting exclusion from jury service. It was originally drafted by Senator Charles Sumner in 1870 but was not passed until shortly after Sumner's death in 1875. The law was not effectively enforced, partly because President Grant had favored different measures to help him suppress election-related violence against blacks and Republicans in the South. In 1883, the Supreme Court ruled in the Civil Rights Cases that the public accommodation sections of the act were unconstitutional, saying Congress was not afforded control over private persons or corporations under the Equal Protection Clause. The
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The bill was passed by the 85th United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on September 9, 1957. The Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education brought the issue of school desegregation to the  public’s attention, as Southern leaders began a campaign of "massive resistance" against desegregation. In the midst of this campaign, President Eisenhower proposed a civil rights bill designed to provide federal protection for African-American voting rights; since most African Americans in the Southern United States had been effectively disenfranchised by various state and local laws. Though the civil rights bill passed Congress, opponents of the act were able to remove several provisions, limiting its immediate impact. During the debate over the law, Senator Strom Thurmond conducted the longest one-person filibuster in Senate history. Despite having a limited impact on African-American voter participation, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 did establish the United States Commission on Civil Rights and the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. Congress would later pass far more effective civil rights laws in the form of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The Civil Rights Act of 1960  is a United States federal law that established federal inspection of local voter registration polls and introduced penalties for anyone who obstructed someone's attempt to register to vote. It was designed to deal with discriminatory laws and practices in the segregated South, by which blacks and Mexican Texans had been effectively disfranchised since the late 19th and start of the 20th century. It extended the life of the Civil Rights Commission, previously limited to two years, to oversee registration and voting practices. The act was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and served to eliminate certain loopholes left by the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964  is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibits the unequal application of voter registration requirements, and racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations. Initially, powers given to enforce the act were weak, but these were supplemented during later years. Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United States Constitution, principally its power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment, and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment. The legislation had been proposed by President John F. Kennedy in June 1963, but opposed by filibuster in the Senate. After Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the bill forward, which in its final form was passed in the U.S. Congress by a Senate vote of 73–27 and House vote of 289–126. The Act was signed into law by President Johnson on July 2, 1964, at the White House.
The Civil Rights Act of 1968, enacted April 11, 1968), is a landmark law in the United States signed into law during the King assassination riots by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Titles II through VII comprise the Indian Civil Rights Act, which applies to the Native American tribes of the United States and makes many, but not all, of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights applicable within the tribes[1] (that Act appears today in Title 25, sections 1301 to 1303 of the United States Code).
Titles VIII through IX are commonly known as the Fair Housing Act and were meant as a follow‑up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibited discrimination in housing, there were no federal enforcement provisions.[2] The 1968 act expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and since 1974, gender; since 1988, the act protects people with disabilities and families with children. Victims of discrimination may use both the 1968 act and the 1866 act via section 1983 to seek redress. The 1968 act provides for federal solutions while the 1866 act provides for private solutions (i.e., civil suits). The act also made it a federal crime to "by force or by the threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone … by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin, handicap or familial status."
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 says “all citizens are equally protected by the law” so why do I need a Voting Rights Act and Tom Hanks doesn’t? Why does Serena Williams need a Fair Housing Act and my white neighbor doesn’t?
As I’ve said before, all these Civil Rights Acts aren’t worth the paper they were printed on.



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                                             Chapter I: Men of Respect
 
The Basques are a courageous people. Courage is neither a reaction, nor a conscious act among Basques. It is as common as two eyes, a nose and a mouth. It is expected.
When at a crossroads, a Basque will instinctively choose the more perilous or more unpredictable path. Probably there are exceptions. I cannot recall any.
Late one night in the Old Town of San Sebastian, Tom Flanagan, myself, and four of our close Basque friends decided to change bars. The streets were deserted as we walked a couple of blocks North on Nagusia, taking a right on Abutztuaren.
It was very dark. Shops had closed hours before. Most restaurants were closed or closing. Street lamps were spaced and rare in the Old Town. Lights, shining out of the windows of a few late-night bars, were our beacons as Javier and Eduardo led the way. A few steps behind, Tom, Jacinto and I followed, relaxed and talking.
Halfway down Abutztuaren, Javier and Eduardo casually crossed the street mid-block, bringing them directly to the entrance of our destination, The Goya Bar.
I was on the left, Jacinto in the middle,  Tom on the right, as we stepped out to cross Abutztuaren, following Eduardo and Javier. Suddenly I was aware of a lone black car traveling rapidly down Abutztuaren, less than a block away.  The driver must have seen us, but he neither slowed down nor sounded his horn. He also did not speed up.
Three against one are usually good odds. Not this time.
I yelled to Jacinto “Vamos a salir de aqui.” To Tom, a more emphatic: “Let’s get the hell out of here.” Tom and I broke immediately for the safety of the curb ahead.
Now alone, in the middle of the street, Jacinto neither quickened nor slowed his stride. Still walking, with the black car bearing down on him, he pulled a package of Ducados out of his back pocket. Calmly, Jacinto shook the package so that one cigarette protruded enough that he could capture it in his mouth. Jacinto immediately lit the cigarette, replaced the package in his back pocket and had a long draw, all while maintaining his same pace, crossing the street.
Meanwhile, the driver of the black car, also maintaining the same speed, slightly grazed Jacinto’s backside as he continued driving up the street.
When you have spent time among Basques, this small episode is understandable and rationale. It is predictable. Surely it would be unthinkable for a Man of Respect to conduct himself differently. Both the driver and Jacinto, the pedestrian, were Men of Respect.
As a Basque, Jacinto could not run to the safety of the curb, as Tom and I did. Running to safety from a potential collision with a speeding car, while OK for his American friends, would be cowardly for a Basque.
The driver could not slow down, because that would show that Jacinto had more courage than the driver…that the driver was bluffing. That, at some level, may the Holy Father perish the thought, the driver was afraid to hit Jacinto.
Jacinto’s lighting and taking a puff from the cigarette checkmates the driver’s grazing of Jacinto’s backside a nanosecond earlier. The driver can take no further action. If he stopped the car, either to apologize or in confrontation, that would acknowledge Jacinto’s being…an unacceptable loss of face for the driver.
In a week, at 8 A.M., in a town in Navarre named Pamplona, Tom Flanagan, Eduardo Satostegui Munduate, Jacinto Irice, Javier Pantoja and I would again be running down a street.  The sun would have risen. There would be no cars. There would be other Men of Respect.
 
Chapter II: Sanfermines
 
We had a fine table at Café Iruna in Pamplona’s main square, the Plaza del Castilo. Eduardo’s father, El Senor, had arranged for the table. It was the most difficult night of the year to obtain a table in Pamplona. Of all the tables in Pamplona, those at the Iruna were the most difficult to obtain.
The Iruna was packed that night. So was everywhere else in Pamplona…the bars, the cafes, the streets, the parks. It was the first night of Sanfermines, the annual celebration in honor of Saint Fermin, the co-patron of Navarre.
Perhaps our crew of a dozen got this table because El Senor was the head of the Basque Gastronomic Society.
Perhaps we got it because the proprietor was an old war comrade.
In an earlier time, as the Commander of a Basque regiment in the Spanish Civil War, El Senor and his men held the line at a at a bitterly cold place called Teruel.
History books call Teruel “The Icebox of Spain.” Poorly armed and provisioned, one man’s bullet would not fit the next man’s gun. They held off the Germans, Italians, Moors and Fascists for three months.
Perhaps we got it because El Senor was a fine man.
It doesn’t matter, except to know that El Senor was a man of respect, and that the twelve of us were at a good table, on a night when most people were not at good tables.
Even without a good table, one would surely have had a splendid time that night. But with a good table, a visible table, our group multiplied to include friends of our friends. Wine disappeared, reappeared, and then disappeared once more. Tapas vanished, were replaced, and then vanished again.
As the evening unfolded, The Iruna morphed into a being of its own, fueled by celebrants weaving through spaces between tables as blood courses through one’s veins, speaking the indecipherable language of a Babel of song, laughter and “holas.”
Tom became one with the Iruna, leading a Conga line, first around the perimeter of the restaurant, then weaving between tables, to the tune of “Camino como Chincha.” The refrain spread throughout the place. Soon all of the Iruna was singing “Camino como Chincha. People celebrating on the street outside picked up on what was now a chant.
Remarkably, “Camino como Chincha” is without meaning in Spanish, Basque, French, Catalan or any other modern or ancient language. The chorus is expressed in a non-lingual, communicating discipline named Flanaganish, after its creator and, at the time, its sole practitioner, Thomas Flanagan of South Chicago.
Flanaganish as developed by Tom is a euphonically based technique for a
non-Spanish-speaking individual to communicate with a fluent Spanish speaker. Often both the Flanaganish Master and the Spaniard are well fortified with Vino Tinto.
Although correctly spoken with a slight South Side Chicago accent, Flanaganish proves to be quite pleasing to the ear of the listening Spaniard. it requires, at the maximum, a twenty-five-word Spanish vocabulary to master. Essential Spanish words in replying to a Spaniard in Flanaganish include si, no, como, porque, gracias, muchas gracias, un million de gracias, salud, por supuesto, bueno, muy bueno, and juntos, buttressed by one or two traditional Spanish toasts.
In a one-on-one conversation with a Spaniard, who himself speaks no English, the fluent speaker of Flanaganish must be a master of eye contact, with the ability to judiciously nod agreement to extended verbiage of which he understands not a word.
Shortly after midnight, in a Petri Dish called Sanfermines, two normally unrelated phenomena, El Senor securing a fine table at the Iruna, and the presence, at this table, of a Master of Flanaganish, were to combine, producing the most perilous of possibilities.
It began with Eduardo quietly declaring to Javier and Tom: “I shall run in the morning.”
Javier, his wife at his side, had no choice but to immediately declare. He embraced Eduardo.
The Flanaganish Master, understanding not a word of Eduardo’s commitment, nor of Javier’s subsequent declaration, paused but a moment, raised his glass, with a well-spoken “Salud,” looked Eduardo in the eye, nodded slowly to Javier and gravely embraced each.  Tom’s reliance on Flanaganish had dealt us in. I now had no choice but to embrace Eduardo, Javier and Tom.
Our four commitments rapidly spread around El Senor’s table. El Senor walked with some difficulty. He had used a cane ever since recovering from injuries in the Civil War. He declared. Soon every male at the table had declared.
They had to. Except for an aged Catalan friend of El Senor, Tom, myself and two American girls we had met earlier, everybody else at El Senor’s table was a Basque with his associated wife, girlfriend or mistress. With two Americans and a Catalan committed, no Basque in the world could possibly pass. Doubling the stakes were the women. The slightest hesitation fulfilling an act of honor would greatly diminish a Basque’s manhood.
 “Bert, what the hell is going on?”
“No big deal Bro, you just committed us to run in front of six bulls about seven hours from now.”
“You’re kidding, I friggin did that? Whoa!”
“Tommy, you did, and you did right. It’s all about the good old US of A…we can’t let these guys think Yanks are cowards.”
“Yeah Bert, I guess if you are going to take a risk, you might as well take a big risk. Bring those babies on.”
“Tom, those “babies” weigh from 1100 to 1600 pounds and are bred to fight.”
“Anyway, the risk may just get a bit bigger. Our buddies are not going to leave this situation as it is. They are friends, but they are Basques, born with the certainty that it is not possible for anyone, anywhere, to have the courage of a Basque.”
“Right now the courage score is tied...Basques and North Americanos.
Eduardo, Jacinto, Javier -- none of them can allow this to long remain.
I do not know where and when the shoe will drop, but for sure it will.”
It did.
 
Chapter III: Not a Second Before
 
Three decisions must be made if one is to run with the bulls.
First is the decision to run.
The decision to run is often made in advance of traveling to Pamplona. The decision to run might also be made as a last-minute burst of bravado after a night of wine drinking.
Few had less reason to run than Tom and me. We were in this mess because Tom knew little Spanish and Eduardo did not know that Tom knew little Spanish. We were in this mess because once Eduardo and Tom had declared, there was not a Basque at our table with the courage "not to declare" in front of his girlfriend, wife or mistress.
We were in this mess because once we figured out what was going on, we could not let Basque friends believe Yanks were not courageous. Courage is important to Basques.
The second decision is as important to one’s future prospects as the first. It is the decision as to where, along the half mile passage of narrow “old town” streets, to begin one’s run and where to safely end it. Some stretches are safer, offering doorways to jump into, fences to vault, barricades to provide safety. The most dangerous stretch is the tunnel just outside the bull ring, the tunnel where the bulls enter the arena. There are no doorways, fences or barricades, just a mad pack of shouting humanity, running for their lives.
 
Having made decisions one and two, the third decision, "when to run," is of greatest importance. It becomes paramount because it is a judgment call made "in the heat of battle," possibly with earlier runners passing one's station, possibly with the roar of the crowd advancing ever closer, in lockstep with clattering hooves.
It is the classic fight or flight  decision, pitting one's instincts of self-preservation, running immediately to safety,  against the thought that: "if I may delay only one more second, and the runners next to me break, I will have been the braver."
El Senor, a wounded Basque hero of the Spanish Civil War, walking slowly with a cane, would be admired if he walked only 15 meters, from a relatively open, safe location to a shielded doorway. He would wear the white shirt and red neckerchief and spectators would cheer. They would cheer even though El Senor began his walk when the first rocket went off signaling that the first of the six bulls for that afternoon’s corrida had been released. The bulls, along with six steers that run in-herd with the bulls and three more steers that follow the herd would be a half mile away when El Senor, his friend from Catalonia and other deserving men, too old or too infirm to move quickly, made their “walk.” They had earned the respect they received.
Not as deserving were hordes of tourists, “running” far ahead of the bulls so they might go home with the red scarf of a runner and a completed pilgrimage. Their respect would come in tales told back home, of their “run with the bulls.”
I cannot condemn them. They had a choice from where to run. Tom and I did not have that choice.
Eduardo, Javier and Jacinto had earlier, with sincerity, bestowed upon us the honor of choosing the station from which we would all run. We expressed our gratitude, immediately deferring to their experience and judgement.
At 8:00 AM, when the first rocket was fired and the bulls began leaving the corral, Eduardo, Javier, Jacinto, Tom and I stood outside the tunnel. A tunnel is not the safest place to run from bulls. It is the least safe.
Soon we heard the first rocket. The gate had been opened, the bulls were leaving the corral. A trickle of early runners passed us.
A few moments later we heard the second rocket…all the bulls had left the corral. We had about two and a half minutes.
More early runners passed us, continuing through the fifty yards of tunnel into the bullring.
The noise of the crowd swept toward us, reverberating louder by the second. Soon we would not be able to hear each other speak.
With less than a minute left and none in our party stirring, I turned to Eduardo, looked him in the eye and said in my best Spanish:
“Eduardo, all in our group are brave men. None need show that he is braver than the other. Tom and I will begin our run exactly when you, Javier and Jacinto do. Not a second earlier, not a second later.”
“You mean that, do you not Bert...”
“As God is my judge dear friend.”
Eduardo nodded, tapped Tom on the shoulder, nodded to Javier and Jacinto. We began our run.
Already the tunnel was crowded. Already one could barely see the light from the opening ahead. Already it was too crowded to run as fast as one could. Already the air was close, with the smell of sweat and wine.
We were bumped, pushed and cursed. We bumped, pushed and swore.
Thank God nobody fell.
Fifty thousand spectators were cheering as we emerged into the bullring. The exhilaration of survival is a marvelous feeling. Tom and I drank it in.
Elated we both jumped into the stands.
“We did it partner!”
“Yeah Tom…one for the good old US of A!”
“Darn right, we did it right Bert. We’re done, retired bull runners, retired with honor.”
We soon learned we were both wrong…there was unfinished business ahead.
 
Chapter IV: Pase Natural
 
Tom and I had run close to the horns. We had not run en los cuernos, on the horns, like some of the crazies, but closer to the horns than many. Close enough for respect…as close as Eduardo, Javier and Jacinto.
We had made it through the madness of the tunnel from a difficult station. We had handled ourselves well enough.
 
Once through the tunnel into the bull ring, the bulls not far behind, we had jumped into the stands. By itself, jumping into the stands is not bad, but it is not as good as not jumping into the stands.
Few of the other runners had jumped into the stands. They had run to the side when the six fighting bulls, scheduled for the afternoon’s corrida, made a frenzied rush into the bull ring.
The bulls were herded into pens by steers and shepherds. The shepherds wore green shirts and held long poles.
Sitting in the stands, Tom and I relaxed.
“Hey amigo, do you have a green shirt and a pole?”
“Hell no Bert.”
“Then I guess it’s best that we sit this one out and have a pull on this wine skin. We’ll leave the rest up to the boys with the green shirts.”
“Madre de los dios! Look Tom…”
Javier, Jacinto and Eduardo had not jumped into the stands. They were in the center of the bull ring as young cows were being released into the arena.
Celebrants were engaging these young cows. That the cows’ horns were wrapped was little comfort as “would be Matadors” got tossed, while attempting passes using a variety of real and improvised capes, shirts and beach towels.
“Tom, damn it, we have no choice.”
“Let’s go Manolete.”
We jumped back into the bull ring, making our way to Eduardo and our crew.
Eduardo embraced us both.
“Bert, Tom, you have done well this morning. Do not do anything too adventurous now. A simple pass, then into the stands with our group. “
Tom and I took off our shirts and with the others, moved toward the cows.
“Bert, you’ve been to bull fights before, what the hell do we do.”
“Tom, I figure one pass, a natural, then maybe de pecho and then we’re out of here.”
“What the heck are you talking about?”
"This is the one we should both do…it's called Pase natural.” I figured that a natural would give us a decent chance of getting the hell out of trouble. The heck with de pecho.”
De Pecho is the stylish finish at the end of the natural in which the bull, having turned at the end of the natural, recharges and the matador brings him out by his chest with a sweep of the cape.…Tom and I did not need style points.
Putting my right foot toward an imaginary bull charging, grasping my yellow T-shirt in my left hand, arm extended, I swung slowly counterclockwise.
Matadors study and practice passes for years as aspirants, then as novileros. Tom had less than a minute's instruction from me. My expertise was about as much as any other Gringo that had seen a couple of fights in Nogales and TJ.
Well the Pase natural, or our version of it, worked. We both completed a couple of naturales that would have gotten a matador whistled out of every bull ring in the world…but it enabled Tom and me to end our time in the arena forever.
 
We and our comrades returned to the stands in glory, joined by El Senor, his Catalan friend and the girls.
We left together for a fine breakfast and then to get some sleep.
Over breakfast Tom and I learned that the natural, the fundamental pass of bullfighting, when done correctly, is indeed the simplest pass of bullfighting. I also learned that it is the most dangerous to make.
Later that day, at 6:30 PM, when half the arena would be in shade, we would see how very dangerous a natural could be…
 
Chapter V: Paquirri
 
It was late afternoon, cooler now, with just the hint of lengthening shadows. We were back in the arena. All of us were back. We who had run were back; those who had watched us run were back.
El Senor had secured fine seats. This is not easy to do in Pamplona on short notice. On short notice, it is difficult to get any seats of quality. Our seats were in the shade (sombra) about a fourth of the way up from the arena. They were of good quality.
Seats in the shade are more desirable than seats in the sun (sol). Some seats are designated as sun and shade (sol y sombra.). They begin in the sun, but as the sun sets in the West, they end up in the shade.
Seats located close to the ringside barrier, which are also in the shade, are the most expensive. Seats in the sun (sol) are the least expensive. The sun section is where the social clubs (Penas) sit. They party the entire time. Bands, shouting and food fights rule.
Comfortable in our seats, we suddenly became aware of the great crowd.  Roars of enthusiasm spread like circles from a stone thrown into a pond. It was exhilarating. Gone were the stomach butterflies of our entrance this morning.
We who had run were now in a safe place. Soon we would be watching three men, far more skilled, far more experienced, far more courageous than ourselves, entice bulls to charge at them. They would handle these charges with art and grace, while maintaining a two and a half century ritual. They would not run from bulls as we had, twelve hours earlier. Their craft would be judged by the manner in which they imposed mastery over a 1200 lb. bull, descended from an ancient strain of wild bull that roamed Spain in prehistoric times. A strain bred for generations, for beauty, size, strength, speed and ferocity. Bred to fight and, perhaps, to kill.
The three men would not enter the ring as part of a wild, drunken, disheveled mob, running from the bulls as we had earlier. They would enter in a paseillo, a parade with Jose Fuentes, the oldest matador, on the left, Francisco Rivera, the youngest matador, in the middle and Miquel Marques on the right. They would be announced first by trumpet, then accompanied by band music as they saluted the presidente and other dignitaries of the arena. Francisco Rivera, known in bullfighting by his nickname “Paquirri,” being new to the Plaza, would do the paseíllo without his hat on. They would be dressed in the traditional trae de luces, “suit of lights,” that bullfighters, toreros and picadors wear in the bullring. The sequins and reflective threads of gold or silver would glimmer in the late afternoon light.
El Senor had a long, slow drink from his wineskin, then passed it to me. I also had a drink, longer and slower than I normally would. I deliberately did not, however, hold the wineskin as long as El Senor, nor did I drink quite as much as El Senor.
To drink from the wineskin longer than El Senor would be an act of disrespect.    I then passed El Senor’s wineskin to Eduardo. He handed it to Tom. It traveled among our group. At the end of the line, Jacinto refilled it.
I turned to El Senor.
“These are fine matadors, Senor?”
“Yes, my friend. They are fine matadors and, also, important matadors. It is good that you and Tom will see these three. Each has their own manner in working with the bulls.”
“You also will see courage. Perhaps, you may see even more courage than any of the fighters would have if he were alone. You know, it is the aficionados that kill the matadors, not the bulls.”
“Senor, we should be most grateful if you might possibly tell us more of these men we shall see today.”
“Of course Bert.”
“Jose Fuentes of Linares, is exceptionally skilled with the cape. He is known for his classical style. Many value Fuentes’ movement of the cape. He has the reputation of drawing the charge of the bull’s horns very close to his body.”
Demonstrating, El Senor rose, propped his cane against the back of his seat and performed a Naturale, using the day’s program as his muleta.
“How about Marquez?”
“He is a Malagaueno. Miguel has a style not as classical with the cape as Fuentes, but exciting to watch. It is a style of drama, blending strength and courage with good technique.  Marquez never backs off from the hardest bulls.”
“…and Pacquirri. I am not familiar with that name.”
“His real name, Francisco, is, I believe, “Frank,” in English. Paco is a nickname for Frank, so “Pacquirri” would be “Little Frank.” At 20, he is the youngest of the three.  Paquirri has great promise.
“Where is Pacquirri from?”
“He was born in a poor town in Southern Spain. He has risen quickly, sponsored in his alternativa – the ceremony that elevates an apprentice to full rank, by the great Antonio Ordonez. In this program, it states that Pacquirri has bled, worked and studied in learning his calling.”
“Do you know of today’s bulls?”
“They are from Ganaderia Muria, in the province of Sevile. The ranch originally belonged to Don Eduardo Miura Fernandez and is known for producing large and difficult fighting bulls.”
“It is said that Miura bulls have the ability to learn from what goes on in the arena, faster than the actual fight progresses. This makes it more difficult from one minute to the next to control them. They have a reputation for being large, fierce and cunning. It is said to be especially dangerous for a matador to turn his back on a miura. They have been described as individualists, each bull seemingly possessing a strong personal character.”
“Islero, a Miura bull, killed the great Manolete at Linares on April 28, 1947.”
“Bert, you and Tom have been to bullfights before?”
“We have been to a few in Spain, more in Mexico, Senor, but never with a good friend, such as you, who is a true and knowledgeable aficionado. I do have one further question.”
“Certainly.”
“How important is the cuadrilla?” Are all the people with the Matador part of his cuadrilla?”
“Each matador has six assistants...two picadors (lancers) mounted on horseback, three banderilleros (flagmen) and a mozo de espada (“sword servant). Collectively they compose a cuadrilla or team of bullfighters. Each has an important, prescribed role in the corrida.
If their matador goes down, there is no longer any ritual. All ritual, all tradition is meaningless. Seconds may determine the matador’s life. Each member of the cuadrilla has practiced for this critical moment to save his life.
Many a bullfighter’s life has been saved by an alert, well trained cuadrilla.”
Amigos, the paseíllo begins!”
We got as comfortable as one could in our seats. “Comfort” in a bullring is a relative state. Most bullrings are very old, built when people were smaller.
The three matadors and their cuadrillas were presented. Each was announced by trumpet music and Pasodobles. Music and ritual are a deeply penetrating preamble to Spanish bullfights. “The Notre Dame Fight Song, Fight on for USC, On Wisconsin…any of those, are “Jack and Jill” by comparison.
Finally, the presentations over, the arena cleared, the matadors’ time had come.
Jose Fuentes had drawn a fine bull. It was a courageous, aggressive bull. It was a bull that permitted Fuentes to display his great skill with the cape. Graceful veronicas, naturales, de pecho; Jose would be awarded an ear on this, his first bull of the afternoon. The crowd gave Fuentes a huge ovation as he took a victory lap with his oreja. Wineskins were thrown from the stands. Jose drank from a few.
 
Bad luck for Marquez. Miguel drew a near-sighted bull on his first. Near-sighted bulls can be dangerous. A near-sighted bull may not follow the cape. He may, instead, go straight for the matador. The bull did, pursuing the former path of the cape straight into Marquez’ right thigh. Miguel was badly gored. Someone in the audience shrieked. Somehow Marquez managed to extricate himself from the horn. Blood showed through his suit of lights.
Fuentes stepped into the sand. By tradition it was now his responsibility to kill Marquez’ bull. This was not to be. Somehow, Marquez struggled to his feet. He dispatched the bull, then collapsed. Marquez cuadrilla reacted instantly, carrying Miguel from the ring to the infirmary.
Silence enveloped the arena. It was abrupt and resonated on its own. The band stopped playing mid-note. The roar of the crowd muted. Individual conversations, a distance away, became decipherable.
We too sat quietly. As if in salute, El Senor lifted his wineskin toward the door to the infirmary where Miguel Marquez lie. He passed his wineskin. We all did the same.
Minutes went by, ten, perhaps more. The bull was not removed. Other than a few subalternos (subordinates) sweeping the surface, no activity had taken place since Marquez’ goring.
Like a jury delaying before a verdict, Tom and I tried to fathom if the delay portended “good or bad.”
I turned to El Senor.
“Senor, this quiet, this delay, it is good?”
“After what we have seen, it is not easy to be optimistic. However, Bert, if Marquez were either mortally wounded or on the way to the hospital, the corrida would resume with Fuentes and Pacquirri. That it has not yet carried on gives all of us a measure of hope.”
El Senor’s hopes were confirmed a few moments later. A huge roar from the crowd announced the return of Miguel Marquez. Miguel’s cuadrilla returned behind him, stationing themselves along the perimeter.
Marquez, with a bandaged thigh and a decided limp, took a lap around the arena. Wineskins and hats rained down as Miguel raised his arms and drank of the wine and the ovations.  The governors awarded him an ear and a tail.
Pacqiurri entered the arena to a hugely energized ovation. Fuentes classical mastery and Marquez’ deep courage had set expectations high.
Sadly, Pacquirri’s bull proved difficult to work with. It charged not true and in response to the cape. It charged randomly and perilously close. Perhaps it was Francisco’s youth and inexperience, combined with a fierce desire to compete with the two previous outstanding performances, but he fought clumsily and with uncertainty.
Finally, it was time for the kill, the estocada. Pacquirri’s estocada was unacceptable. It failed to give a “quick and clean death.” He left the arena to a cacophony of whistles and jeers.
Fuentes returned for his second bull. Jose’s second performance again displayed complete mastery…this time over an exceptionally large, aggressive Miura. Even Tom and I, so lacking in our knowledge of the bulls, were caught in the enthusiasm. Fuentes was awarded two ears.
The crowd was shocked when Miguel Marquez, blood staining his suit of lights, limped out to fight his second bull. After his goring on the first, it was certain that his day had ended. It had not. The cheering was deafening as he dedicated his bull to the whole audience. He received a second ear.
As Yanks, Tom and I were, and still are, instinctively for underdogs. Never was there a bigger underdog than Francisco Rivera, on his second bull, on the first day of Sanfermines in 1968. Never has an underdog done better than Francisco Rivera, on his second bull, on the first day of Sanfermines in 1968.
Entering to a torrent of whistles and jeers, Pacquirri quickly waved away his Picador. He similarly waved away his banderilleros, setting the banderillas himself in the bull’s shoulders. He fought magnificently, performing several tandas, including three to five basic passes, with finishing touches as pase de pecho and pase de desprecio.
In the final stage, the tercio de muerte, the “part of death,” rather than kill the bull near the fence, close, if necessary, to the assistance of his cuadrilla, Francisco elected to kill the bull in the most dangerous place, the center of the ring. The kill was quick and clean.
He was awarded an ear. The same crowd that had whistled and jeered Pacquirri gave him ovations, threw their hats and wineskins into the arena. As he was awarded a victory lap around the ring, women threw him kisses.
Salida a hombros, exit on shoulders of admirers, is the highest recognition a torero can have. It is not often given by the president of the bullring and the governors. That July afternoon in 1968, in Pamplona, the honor was given to all three matadors.
Following Eduardo, we joined the group carrying Pacquirri through the Puerta Grande, the main gate into town, back to Café Iruna… Café Iruna, where all had begun.
We toasted Pacquirri. We drank with Pacquirri.  Every woman in the Iruna was attracted to him. Dark with ice-blue eyes, high cheekbones and dimples, a combination of the classic tough guy, he was, none the less, friendly, modest and engaging.
 
Our paths would cross ten years later In Seville, then, for the last time, five years after that, in a bookstore in San Francisco.
 
 
Chapter VI: The Bookstore in Union Square
 
Life had changed for the “Two Yanks” by the Spring of 1985.
Returning from Spain, Tom went to work as a prosecutor in Chicago, sending bad guys on vacations. From there Tom founded the first national firm handling real estate tax abatements. He made enough money to buy Pamplona.
With the help of Tom and his brother Jim, I bought a small cheese company with headquarters in Boston and a factory in Wisconsin. I didn’t know much about cheese. I knew less about the cheese business but had to learn fast. It was as much about survival as running through the tunnel into the Plaza de Torros. Having my last few dollars and the hard-earned money of my best friends backing our venture was the best of motivators.
In April of ’85 I took a trip to Northern California to call on Safeway in Pleasanton, Raley’s and Tony’s in Sacramento, Savemart in Modesto and some other smaller but worthwhile potential customers.
The Hyatt Regency in Union Square became my San Francisco command post. The staff was accommodating, the workout facilities acceptable, transportation easily arranged and there were a few good restaurants within walking distance. Best of all, if one had time to burn on a nice day, there might be an art exhibit in the Square or, at the very least, there were a few bookstores and some kiosks with various crafts.
On this day, after driving back and forth to meetings in Pleasanton, I had a couple of hours before dining with an old friend, Howard Gotelli.
Howard, ran an outfit in the Bay Area called Monterey Cheese. Monterey was a perishable distributing and importing company that controlled much of the specialty cheese distribution in Northern California.
Howard had been good to me in business, helping our fledgling cheese company become established in Northern California. Business aside, he was the most loyal of friends. If you were a close friend of Howard, he would go to hell and back for you…on his own, you didn’t have to ask.
Howard, raised in the Italian section of North Beach, knew lots of good guys and a few not-so-good guys. The not-so-good guys were often good guys to have a drink or two with, or even dinner.
Howard knew them all because he grew up with them, played center for Galileo High’s basketball team and his dad, “Minimum Wage Gotelli,” employed them at his North Beach gas station.
I never went to San Francisco without getting together with Howard Gotelli. Howard was every bit as much San Francisco as the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower or Fisherman’s Wharf.
Dinner with Howard was always a fine time. Depending on Howard’s entourage for the evening, a night beginning at Flor d’ Italia for dinner could spin off into various directions or lack of them. One night we aimlessly sailed Howard’s boat to Tiburon, got ourselves becalmed and did not return until morning. Another time we all wound up wine drinking and philosophizing in the Prosciutto curing cellar at Italian Cantina, long after closing…long enough after closing to see the sun rise.
 
The business part of my trip now over, I looked forward to the evening with my old friend. Prepping for dinner with the son of “Minimum Wage Gotelli” by sitting in a minimum, “commercial rate,” hotel room made no sense. I headed for the Square.
A few blocks down from the hotel, I came across a bookshop. Looking through the display window, I noted with interest that there were neither best sellers nor books by formula authors on display. Refreshingly, the offerings seemed to reflect the taste of the proprietor...not the “cookie cutter” display of a corporate chain.
On entering I was delighted to note the proprietor casually mingling with several browsers, encouraging them with an occasional reference.
I soon became immersed in the scene, briefly perusing books on The Russian Civil War, World War I Battles in Flanders and then became “locked in” on a Spanish section, thumbing through They Shall Not Pass: The autobiography of La Pasionara, The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and Fascism in Spain. Continuing in this section I picked up Bullfighter from Brooklyn, the autobiography of Sydney Franklin, the great Jewish American Matador and a contemporary of Earnest Hemingway.
Finding a book listing the careers of Spain’s greatest bullfighters, I turned to the index and found our old friend Francisco Rivera.
Opening the page, my heart sank, my eyes misted. On September 26, 1984, Pacquirri had been gored by a bull named Avispado during a bullfight in Pozoblanco. He never made it to the hospital in Cordoba.
 
I needed this dinner with Howard tonight, I needed the wine. Wherever Howard and his entourage wound up would be fine.
Better call Tom in the morning.
 
For all my Days…
 
I’ll always remember El Senor, The Catalan, Eduardo, Javier, Jacinto at Pamplona. I’ll always remember Javier’s wife Charro, Eduardo’s girlfriend Rosa. I don’t remember the names of the two blondes from Washington that Tom and I hooked up with, but I remember what they looked like and that they were nice and shared a special time with us.
 
Bullfighting can be fun and memorable. Until it isn’t.
 
 

                  LICENCE to KILL?
The Troubles in Northern Ireland: a topic that has captured the attention of the entire European continent. Blood curdling events, senseless bombings, tit-for-tat shootings & atrocities that sounded the death knell for 3,700 innocent people; but also information about British Intelligence Services colluding with Loyalist {Unionist} Death Squads -as revealed in  "LICENCE TO MURDER"  documentary- are a drop in the ocean compared to what witnesses of that bleak era could narrate. Not until the reader has delved deep into the deep resentment of Catholics, who felt the were systematically discriminated against & the apprehension of Unionists, worried about Protestant dominance being touch-and-go can the Troubles be brought to light. With Unionists accepting partition of Ireland so that Northern Ireland would remain part of the UK & Nationalists quashing it so that it would be united to the Irish Republic (Eire), the next blast seemed to be around the corner. Reprisals & counter-reprisals were on the daily agenda -and the world recoiled in horror... 
 
         FREEDOM FIGHTERS or RUTHLESS TERRORISTS?
Were the IRA shoring up the nationalist community & waging war against injustice or merely leaving behind then a trail of devastation in their wake? On Bloody Sunday (1972), which spurred the British Army to enter the no-go areas of Belfast & Londonderry, one wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. "Crime is Crime is Crime" Thatcher wouldn't even dream of granting prisoner-of-war status to those jailed in Maize prison for paramilitary-related crimes. Were really those Catholics (Nationalists) who belligerently fought for Northern Ireland to be united to the Irish Republic (Eire), freedom fighters or ruthless terrorists? And were really those Protestants (Unionists) who wished it to remain part of the UK, British or Irish? 
 
 
 
 
              TO BE (British) OR NOT TO BE (British) ?
A graffiti artist unwittingly replied through a scribbling on a derelict wall:
"You Brits! Out of Ireland!"
"But I was born here!"
"Then you are Irish; not British!"
By all accounts, the English of English birth felt superior to the English of Irish birth; such a stick-in-the mud attitude was what former Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid tried to dismiss as out of place in today's multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan Britain. He wholeheartedly promised to ascertain that both those of an Irish background or an Irish consciousness would have their rights protected -irrespective of background; although this "Under Siege" mentality had been the name of the game for nearly half a century & applied to both nations -as the Republicans also felt outgunned and outpowered by the British. 
Is the conflict in Northern Ireland {only the most tempestuous years -from 1970 to 2010- are described in this booklet} between two nationalities so close to each other both in terms of geography & genetic make-up ever justified?
 
                    HOW REAL is the 'REAL IRA' ?
After marathon negotiations & a series of false starts, the Hillsborough Castle agreement (an improvement on the Good Friday agreement) was signed by the two former foes on 6th Feb. 2010, ending the stalemate. The Real Ira's chilling admission that it was behind the sinister bomb attack outside M15's headquarters on 12th April 2010 sowed dissension on Devolution Day. Staged an hour after policing & justice powers were transferred from Westminster to Stormont {in accordance with the Hillsborough Castle agreement}, it made Devolution Day go down in Irish history as D-Day.

 
QUICK GUIDE
 
 
With the Easter Uprising of 1916 in Dublin being the climax, revolts of the mainly Catholic Nationalist Community against the mainly Protestant Unionist Community and the UK about the status of Northern Ireland date back to the 12​th​century.
 
Civil war and partition (i.e. twenty-six counties forming a separate state in the north whereas 6 counties remaining within the UK) were landmarks of the turbulent period. Sadly, the Catholic minority in the north were treated as second class citizens when it came to daily concerns such as housing and employment.
 
Violent unrest did not break out until 1969 when Catholic civil rights demonstrations and counter protests by Protestant loyalists (loyal to the British Crown) were a frequent sighting.
 
Determined not to relinquish power, the British abandoned their usual nonchalance and sent troops which clashed with the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Loyalist Paramilitary groups were quick to join the armed conflict that left a trail of destruction in both Ireland and the UK. As military operations escalated, N. Ireland's Parliament (Stormont) was suspended and direct rule was imposed by London (Westminster).
 
Throughout the shaky period of the troubles [1970's – 1980's – 1990's] paramilitary units, dissident groups and fringe movements pursued their goals stockpiling weapons; assaulting politicians, police, soldiers and non-combatants alike. Terror was unleashed with tit-for-tat killings being the order of the day.
 
British security forces tried to keep the volatile situation in hand amid controversial episodes of collusive practices and undercover groups.
 
 

 
In 1998 the Irish government, the British government and political parties signed the Good Friday Agreement; establishing a power-sharing Executive, Ministerial posts in accordance with party strength and an elected Assembly. Referendums validated the deal in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (Eire), which grudgingly wrote off its claims to the North.
 
In 2005 the arms decommissioning body announced that the Provisional IRA (an offshoot of IRA and a thorn in the side of the governments) had put all arms beyond use. Unionists asked for photographic proof but received none.
 
Devolution of policing and justice had been suspended more often than not; most notably in 2002 on charges of spying at Stormont – dropped when one of the defendants turned out to be a British agent!!! rather than a Republican. It eventually came into effect (after endless long-running Anglo-Irish intergovernmental conferences) at Hillsborough Castle in February 2010 – a date which will go down in history.
 
 
 
 
The Conflict in Northern Ireland: Can Violence between the Irish and the British ever be Justified?
 
Formerly known as the Provisional IRA, later just the IRA was the main republican paramilitary organisation that resisted the British in Northern Ireland.
 
The “Official” IRA only asked for recognition of parliamentary politics and the Dail – that is, the Dublin government. Abstaining from politics was deemed to be an article of faith by hardliners, who feared that recognising the Dublin parliament would be an entrenchment of partition.
 
Why did hardliners split to form the “Provisional” IRA? Was action on the streets an instrument of faith and patriotism or an instrument of war and terrorism?
 
Did the Unionist-dominated state misjudge the situation be resisting demands for civil rights and equality for Catholics?
 
Did this misjudgement result in near anarchy and riots forcing even the Irish government to intervene?
 
The ensuing violence and large-scale disturbances stemming from an organisation who had once been accused of failing to defend the Catholics and ridiculed by graffiti-style reading “IRA → I Ran Away” was to last nearly forty years.
 
During these years atrocities shook the world; ceasefires started and paused; secret negotiations between the Irish and the British governments came and went – the death toll rising to approximately 3,700.
 
 
 
The REAL IRA's chilling admission that it was behind the sinister bomb attack outside the Army base which houses MI5's Northern Ireland headquarters on Monday 12 April 2010, is a stark reminded of a deteriorating security situation that maximises uncertainty twelve years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
 
Although the British Army base is in Palace Barracks (Hollywood), it is no over-dramatisation to say that the potentially lethal attempt sowed dissension on Devolution Day. With the sole purpose of creating the most eye-catching international headlines alongside the deepest political impact, it was staged less than an hour after policing and justice powers were transferred from London to Belfast. Will Devolution Day go down in history as the second D-Day for Northern Ireland?
 
 
 
 
 
“I swear that for the remainder of my life, I will not join or assist any illegal organisation or engage in any violence or counsel or encourage others to do so”. Such was the oath required of internees – a necessary condition on their release. A far cry from the lives they chose to lead.
 
Interment (without trial) was a step introduced in a flimsy effort to reduce violence among republicans. However, 100 internees that had been arrested in a raid were released shortly due to poor intelligence; some – among whom young Mc Guinness – even made their getaway within days.
 
Martin Mc Guinness not only occupied a leading position in the Provisional IRA in 1971 but also came to be known as an IRA Godfather, who engineered a political strategy.
 
The number of internees increased at staggering rates reaching over 900. Collateral damage (23 deaths) was a direct result of this heavy-handed policy implemented by security forces, as Catholics were incensed at the pointless criminalisation of their “heroes” - who were romanticised rather than frowned upon. This support led to easy recruitment from the Catholics.
 
Working behind the scenes, retired British MI6 agent Frank Steele rose to prominence in 1973 when he set up a secret communications channel to the IRA council. Through this he helped London and the IRA occasionally exchange opinions for 30 years despite the absence of actual negotiations.
 
 
The most acrimonious fights of the period of conflict known as “the troubles” took place in 1972: To start with, 13 civilians were shot in Derry (in the province of Ulster) by the British Army on Bloody Sunday.
 
Surprisingly, the “Official” IRA called a ceasefire and so did the “Provisional” IRA in an attempt to test the waters. IRA leaders met with British officials behind closed doors in the home of a government minister in London.
 
Peace talks failed miserably: Not only did William Whitelaw (Northern Ireland Secretary) turn down requests for withdrawal of troops, but also dismissed them as naïve and infeasible. Although Gerry Adams (member of the IRA delegation) firmly believed that a political strategy was indispensable in the long campaign, 20 bombs detonated in Belfast killing nine and wounding 130 two weeks later.
 
Were the IRA defending the nationalist community or leaving devastation in their wake? On Bloody Friday one would not touch them with a barge pole. “The notion that the IRA was going to rise up and free Ireland was a ridiculous pipe-dream, for the simple reason that we never had the support of the people north and south to do it” IRA leader Cathal Goulding, said.
 
What was the cause of the bitter fight? Religious and cultural traditions came into play: Protestants (Unionists) want N. Ireland to remain united with the UK whereas Catholics (Nationalists) want it to be united with the Irish Republic.
 
 
Did this divergence of opinion justify blood-curdling events, bombings, shootings and atrocities that led to the death of 3,700 people – most of whom civilians?
 
Not until the reader goes over the deep resentment of the Catholics, who felt they were systematically discriminated against and the apprehension of the Unionists about Protestant dominance hanging in the balance, can “The Troubles” be brought to light.
 
Disenchantment with both the 1920 Government of Ireland Act (that had granted home rule for all affairs – including education and abortion – leaving only six counties in the north as part of the UK) and the British government (that had ordered troops onto the streets in 1969 as well as imposing direct rule in 1972) Unionists and Nationalists alike were tipped over the edge. Paramilitary groups became active and the world recoiled in horror.
 
 
 
What was it that led the IRA to reorganise its guerrillas into underground cells in 1976? Did it aim at eliminating the visible presence of the paramilitaries? Could it be that the 1975 ceasefire had knocked their confidence?
 
Was it that London stalled negotiations? Or was it that security forces decisively clamped down the Irish guerrillas?
 
Hadn't the IRA flexed its muscles through the 1978 firebombing that decimated soldiers at Warrenpoint and the one at La MonHouse Hotel that targeted civilians? What about the bloodbath at the Queen's cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten's yacht off the coast of Ireland?
 
“Sinn Fein should agitate about social and economic issues. It should have a big role in publicity and propaganda. It gains the respect of the people which in turn leads to increased support for the cell”
 
IRA strategy document, 1977
 
 
How long has the Sinn Fein been “agitating about social and economic issues”? A flashback in the 1920's – when a group of nationalists won the election against the Official Irish Parliamentary Party – will help us to gain insight in its long and tumultuous workings.
 
A former prisoner of the Easter rising, named de Valera rose to prominence in October 1917 raising his hopes high for an independent Republic.
 
 
With Unionists accepting partition and Nationalists quashing it, the next blast seemed to be round the corner.
 
Against the backdrop of the war, when the Germans started their great offensive in 1918, conscription in Ireland was regarded as necessary by the British government. Sinn Fein, the Catholic Church and Official nationalists opposed the idea and the British scrapped the plan.
 
Having achieved a breakthrough in the Post War election, Sinn Fein were bent on boycotting the Westminster meeting at Dublin's Mansion House in 1919 and on unilaterally declaring Ireland an Independent Republic over which de Valera would preside.
 
A new phase of upheavals had just started with 36 policemen being the casualties and Irish volunteers – who now called themselves the Irish Republican Army – being the snipers. The British retaliated by declaring the Dail (Irish Parliament) illegal and by recruiting reinforcements that formed a special Auxiliary Force consisting of former WW1 officers, who orchestrated lethal reprisals: These culminated in a series of raids in Dublin. Counter reprisals sounded the death knell for 14 British undercover intelligence officers on the first “Bloody Friday” in November 1921.
 
Undaunted, the Irish went on with their local elections amid hunger strikes and riots: Sinn Fein dominated in172 out of 206 districts. The Government of Ireland Act having come into Force a year earlier, a Parliament in Belfast served the six northern counties and the one in Dublin served the twenty-six southern counties.
 
 
 
Ever since, the Sinn Fein has been committed to establishing a United Ireland. After being at loggerheads for half a century, the party split off in provisional and official Sinn Fein (the latter representing the workers). Does the current form of the party reflect the split in provisional and official IRA? Are Unionists trying to tarnish the party's reputation by claiming that Sinn Fein and the IRA are closely linked? The party vehemently denies this.
 
When First Minister David Trimble banned Sinn Fein from taking up seats in the Northern Ireland Executive Body – unless the IRA disarmed, the party was within its rights to get infuriated as it had backed the Good Friday Agreement on condition cross-border bodies and the Republic's territorial claims were sanctioned.
 
Attendance at the Cabinet is in keeping with the Agreement; regardless of the IRA's chequered history. Despite having 18 seats at the Assembly, its two MP's: Gerry Adams and Martin Mc Guinness could not sit in Parliament as they would not go out of their way to take an oath of allegiance to the Queen.
 
 
 
What was the role of hunger strikes in the Troubles? Was Bobby Sands one of republicanism's most celebrated martyrs using the “Armalite and ballot box” strategy to bolster Ireland's position or was he slitting his own throat? In fact, he put himself on an equal footing with the leaders of the 1916 uprising and is still hailed as a hero.
 
In addition, he persuaded the younger IRA leaders that military tactics had to be used hand in hand with political action. Did he achieve this through his 14-year jail sentence in 1977, or through the public outcry on a global scale against the UK's malicious strategy of defeating the IRA through criminal courts and incarcerating them in Maze Prison without prisoner-of-war status? Could it be through British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's heavy-handed tactics that incited more membership for IRA or simply through his funeral (attended by 70,000 embittered people)?
 
Whatever the answer, this stance will always be echoed in his proclamation:
 
“Who here believes that we can win the war through the ballot box? But will anyone object it if, with a ballot paper in one hand and the Armalite in the other we take power in Ireland?”
 
Danny Morrison,
 
Sinn Fein Conference, 1981
 
 
In 1980 Gerry Adams was at the forefront of attention as a Sinn Fein strategist – right after doing time in the 70s under suspicion of inciting republicanism and nationalism. He single-handedly primed the party to drop its abstentionist policy from the Irish Parliament: this way Republicans would show recognition for the Irish state and political solutions would be their overriding considerations rather than military ones.
 
It was his conviction that the British wanted to disengage from a military campaign – a view that was reiterated 30 years later by Gordon Brown: “Democracy is not achieved through the barrel of a gun”.
 
This landmark move helped him win the 1983 election, thereby becoming president of Sinn Fein at the West Belfast Constituency. The same controversial issue split the IRA into Official and Provisional in 1969.
 
In the meantime, Denis Bradley acted as a go-between senior IRA figures and MI6; more specifically his contribution towards a ceasefire and his enticing the rivals to the negotiating table was major.
 
Both peaceful campaigns backfired when veteran southern leaders demonstrated their downright inflexibility by walking out and setting up the breakaway Sinn Fein that was allegedly linked to the dissident CONTINUITY IRA. On top of that, loyalist paramilitaries engineered a 1984 attack against Adams holding him responsible for hamstringing their operations; he narrowly escaped.
 
 
 
 
So did Margaret Thatcher in room 629, in Brighton Grand Hotel on 12 October 1984 when IRA's chief Explosives Officer Patrick Magee – nicknamed the 'Chancer” – carried out the most audacious plan in the name of politics: the attempted assassination of the entire British Cabinet.
 
Magee was single-minded: all he could think of was how to “get the Brits out of Ireland”. His English upbringing made him the ideal undercover agent – relying on his specialisation in bombings he thoroughly pursued his goal to get revenge for Thatcher's hard-line stance over the death of hunger strikers. The latter were freedom fighters for the Irish but unscrupulous terrorists for the British.
 
Miraculously, Thatcher got off unscathed, so his plan did not come to fruition. “Today we were unlucky, but remember we have only to be lucky once; you will have to be lucky always” – a warning that the IRA were hell-bent on squandering the peace process.
 
'The Chancer' was brought back to reality with a bang when Scotland Yard traced him through a fingerprint extracted from the registration card for Room 629: he received eight life sentences. However, he was released under the terms of the Good Friday Peace Accord – remorseful over the five deaths and the thirty-four injuries in Brighton.
 
At a subsequent interview he wondered, in retrospect, if the Tory ruling class – walking on a political tightrope on the Northern Ireland issue at the time – had expected to remain immune from what their front-line troops were doing to the Irish. He was quick to point out that the IRA had been given more leverage than if they had actually killed Mrs Thatcher, which would have made it impossible for at least a generation in the British establishment to get the peace process back on the rails.
 
 
 
A glimmer of hope in the crisis rumbling on appeared in 1987 when Sinn Fein put forward the suggestion of written guarantees for unionists upon accepting a united Ireland. British officials lost no time in shelving the proposal.
 
Therefore, Republican strategists missed out on the chance to engage their rivals politically. The same year, the deleterious effect of IRA's Enniskillen bomb causing a dozen civilian casualties on Remembrance Sunday led to security forces retaliating by killing a dozen IRA members on Gibraltar and elsewhere.
 
The tit for tat practices only triggered more violent attacks. Nevertheless, – to give death squads credit when it is due – both SDLP leader John Hume and Jerry Adams were spurred to resume negotiations that would sway Republican thinking; eventually politicising the opponents.
 
Along with Oxford-educated Martin Mansergh (adviser to three Irish prime ministers) who helped form the foundations towards a ceasefire, the two leaders talked Republicans into re-considering Dublin's relation with London and Belfast.
 
How long have these two ethnic groups (Irish versus Anglo-Irish) been struggling to “re-consider”? Wasn't it nearly a century ago when De Valera's government dropped the oath of loyalty to the British monarch – agreed under the 1921 Treaty – adamantly refusing to pay land annuities to Britain?
 
 
 

 
Wasn't the trade war with exorbitant tariffs on merchandise a corollary of this disobedience? Admittedly, rebellion had already come in waves from 1916 to 1921 forcing the British to grant Eire (the country's Gaelic name) the “Status of Dominion”. Through unwavering efforts Ireland severed all ties with the Commonwealth in 1949 and declared itself an independent Republic – a major blow to all-mighty Britain.
 
After half a century of pondering, thinking and re-thinking the Republicans had Gerry Adams re-invigorate relationships with SDLP leader John Hume in the make-or-break year of 1993.
 
Chastised by N. Ireland Secretary Sir Patrick Mayhew: “It is not sensible to suppose that any British government will yield to an agenda prosecuted by violent means” and encouraged by a Downing Street Declaration that promised: “doors would open” the IRA moved towards a cessation of violence. UK Prime Minister John Major and Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds worked hand in glove for 2 years to prepare the Anglo-Irish peace pact that aimed at politicising Republicans and re-assuring Unionists.
 
The Anglo-Irish peace pact was a joint declaration that clearly stated: “the British Government accepts … they have no selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland” as well as “the Irish Government accepts … it would be wrong to impose a united Ireland”.
 
 

 
The declaration certainly went down well with the public – a response summed up eloquently by a BBC journalist: “Whether a historic opportunity becomes a historic event depends on whether the IRA stops; the loyalist paramilitaries stop; the non-political talks not just taking place, but succeeding”
 
BBC news / 15 Dec. 1993
 
 
Albert Reynolds went on to develop a good working relationship with Gerry Adams and nudged Unionists to change direction “away from the cul-de-sac of violence” by “looking back at the failure of the armed conflict where there'll be no military victory of either side”
ON THE RECORD – Interview with Albert Reynolds.
 
 
Actions speak louder than words, according to an English adage: ten people blown up on Shankill Road in a merciless attack against loyalist paramilitary leaders, eight bombs detonated in England by the IRA. Loyalists did not try to mend fences: seven people shot in Greysteel, several SDLP members assaulted.
 
After the fury had subsided, the Republicans brushed aside their initial reservations about the Downing Street Declaration and re-affirmed their continuing quest for peace through never-ending, tortuous debates.
 
It turned out that John Major had a point when he described the Pact as a “gauntlet for peace” seeing it as a stepping stone that went a long way removing some of the fears.
 
Like a bolt from the blue, President Bill Clinton granted Gerry Adams a US Visa –
 
 
which the British resented but the Irish-Americans celebrated [emigration to the United States from 1845-1849 had built strong ties between the two countries].
 
Were the Declaration and the ensuing talks a quick fix? Whatever happened to the old American adage: “If you want peace, get ready for war”? To everyone's astonishment the IRA called 'a complete cessation of military operations' in August 1994; the loyalists followed suit in October.
 
How deep did the Americans delve into the conflict that had afflicted Ireland and Britain all this time (“this was a journey that had taken Irish Republicans 75 years to make” – Gerry Adams, 1997) and whose role was paramount in re-energising the talks which led to the ceasefire and – in the long run – to the Good Friday Agreement? Former US Senator George Mitchell's report on arms engineered a policy dealing with weapons separately; thus allowing room for talks before decommissioning – much to the dismay of Unionists who “feared that they would be coerced in some way or bombed into a United Ireland against their will” (Albert Reynolds, 1993).
 
If the Unionists' fears were unfounded and the re-assurances they sought about a permanent ceasefire an over-reaction, would the London Docklands bomb in 1996 be described as a twist of fate?
 
Republicans pointed the finger at John Major for the wasted opportunity. But why should they? Wasn't it thanks to top-level negotiations between the Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and the British Prime Minister Tony Blair – who arrived in N. Ireland to give their approval and total support to the deal – that headway was made?
 
Wasn't it Blair who was committed to resolving the issue? Wasn't it Blair who appealed to: “republican and unionist … nationalist and loyalist … to collectively build a new future based on justice and peace”? Apparently, his pleas fell on deaf ears.
 
Sinn Fein relied on its electoral gains – the best results so far – to highlight its mandate. By 1997 the leadership of the party was in Downing Street, unequivocally supporting the Good Friday Agreement: a fact which heralded a turnaround in republican thinking. A) Legitimate power sharing B) the tenet of consent C) the question of arms – had all gained due recognition.
 
So, what drove a wedge among IRA members? What urged them to utter the inflammatory statement: “those who demand the decommissioning of IRA weapons lend themselves inadvertently or otherwise to the failed agenda which seeks the defeat of the IRA”. Did they all wish to continue along the road of the arms conflict (hurt by partition having been cemented) or had some members on the margins made up their minds to remain deeply hostile?
 
Could it be just to see their gestures matched by scaling down and eventually withdrawing the British military presence in N. Ireland? Only the REAL IRA, which was formed after the confrontation and assumed responsibility for the Omagh bomb (29 deaths in the immediate blast) could fell the tale.
 
 
 
As long as the IRA believed itself to be an undefeated and legitimate army waging war against injustice, the peace process was on a wing and a prayer. Therefore, the Unionists reacted with scepticism to the IRA's commitment to abandoning “the bullet and the bomb” and “assisting the search for justice and peace”.
 
What exactly did the “bullet and the bomb” comprise? Light, medium and heavy ordinance like automatic weapons, ammunition, explosives material in quantities considerably larger than what had been previously put beyond use.
 
Munitions that could have caused death and devastation on a huge scale, according to Andrew Sens (member of the international decommissioning body). An ominous sign was that they exercised their option not to disclose details on the consignment of weapons that took place on a retired Canadian general's guard in keeping with the government scheme.
 
The Canadian, General John de Chastelain, head of the Independent International Commission oversaw the decommissioning and described it as a key issue that marked an essential development. Was the deadlock broken?
 
The release of paramilitary prisoners – a radical move – was welcomed by all sides who held their breath expecting these transformations would be stepping stones to implementing the Good Friday Agreement whose role was in setting up a Northern Ireland Assembly was crucial. A power-sharing Executive that would reform the policing and criminal justice issues would be next.
 
 
 

 
Why did Bill Clinton put himself in the line of fire? Needless to say, Washington's unflinching support to London was undermined by Clinton's three official visits to Northern Ireland; on top of granting a visa to Gerry Adams – moves that infuriated John Major, who (at the time) was striving to ride the storm on thorny issues such as Panorama Documentary's investigation into collusion between the British Intelligence Services in Northern Ireland and loyalist death squads being held accountable for murders.
 
More specifically, the MI5 was also accused of repeated attempts to recruit informers and harassment – in a way that was reminiscent of the CIA – of Republicans. The “Licence to Murder” Documentary of the Panorama Series received comments ranging from “I do not condone members of military intelligence acting outside their chain of command”; to “the notion that the British Army/Government could have orchestrated these murders and then brushed them under the carpet is easy to believe in this cynical age”; to “I am English but I could not watch these programmes without crying from pity and shame”.
 
So, was Clinton a tireless campaigner for peace – mercifully pursuing demilitarisation for the zone, ready to come to the rescue of the aggrieved or was he trying to manipulate Sinn Fein in the future? The jury was out on the question; still, Clinton revelled in his foreign policy breakthrough.
 
 
 
Would-be president Clinton's first encounter with an Irish audience was at the Northern Irish Forum, in Sheraton Hotel, New York, back in 1992 when he was sneered at having offered only spin and hype by “just another promise” mistrustful faces.
 
The key elements to his strategy being:
 
A)  Granting a visa for Adams that guaranteed Sinn Fein a position in the political arena;
 
B)  Masterminding the “Mitchell Commission”; to oversee the Good Friday Agreement;
 
C)  Officially visiting Northern Ireland himself
 
Clinton moved on – unfazed – to use the Good Friday Agreement as an example of how to resolve conflict in world trouble spots.
 
With the benefit of hindsight, it can be pointed out that by sitting on the fence; by emphasising how much the conflicting populations have in common; by taking advantage of a creatively and brilliantly ambiguous document which guaranteed both sides a victorious spirit-confirming that neither side had yielded, he reminded Northern Ireland leaders that they had come a long way.
 
The contradictory notions in the Agreement were so dexterously used that a senior IRA leader – previously overly defensive – hailed it as a document “our dead can live with”.
 
Martin Mc Guinness radiant smile, Peter Robinson's out-of-character light-hearted mood, as well as six hundred Irish-Americans beaming in the audience at the Clinton Global Initiative session at the same hotel in 2009 showed that Clinton had achieved the unfeasible – as he had dreamt the undreamt of.
 
 
 
The pathway to peace in a divided society put the Northern Ireland conflict in an international context, as all congratulated Clinton on exercising political magic on Northern Ireland leaders in the world stage.
 
7,000 miles away: this ambiguity that served Clinton's purposes well threw a spanner in the works for republicans who insisted that if the “causes of conflict” were removed, guns would be removed {counting Crown Force guns in} and unionists, who were not satisfied with either policing or security reforms. Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble's statement at the party conference that a “phantom” IRA disbandment did not meet their requirements and the subsequent Assembly suspension prompted the IRA to withdraw the offer. Back to square one?
 
In the sour atmosphere of 2001, a watershed in the development of the conflict occurred: the September 11 strikes of the Twin Towers in the United States led to public condemnation of terrorists who would go to any lengths to demonstrate clout.
 
Painfully aware of the consequences of tenacity of purpose, Adams called on to the IRA to make a groundbreaking move and prove genuine intentions to follow the road of peace – a tactical masterstroke? Or was he pacified himself by a prior invitation to Downing Street by Tone Blair (UK Prime Minister in 1997) being the first Republican leader since Michael Collins back in 1921)? The IRA acquiesced in consigning
 
 
 
weapons under the watchful eye of the population who had been witnessing the makeover of Republican strategy from a guerrilla army to an astute political machine – all the time wondering “is the war over”?
 
“Is the war over” a wistful phrase repeated a million times during the cataclysmic events of World War II, when hapless Churchill made plans to invade Ireland at the insistence of Northern Ireland Prime Minister Lord Craigavon (a staunch unionist) on the pretext that Irish leader Eamon de Valera had been irrevocably influenced by the Nazis.
 
In 1940, a Sunday Times report read that Scottish and Welsh troops were highly recommended for the invasion – aiming at ousting Eamon de Valera, securing the naval bases Cork and Queen on the Irish Coastline, and installing a military governor head-quartered in Dublin but in charge of the entire Ireland.
 
The memorandum brashly went on to suggest handing out leaflets in Gaelic and English re-assuring the population that they were deployed merely for their protection. According to Dr Eamon Phoenix (historian at Queen's University, Belfast) this 'camouflage' attempt to subvert the Irish state would be a gift to the IRA, who “would have launched waves after wave of guerrilla attacks”.
 
The plan was not high on Churchill's agenda; but as soon as Field Marshall Montgomery was commanded to prepare his regiments for the occupation of Ireland (whose defeat was a foregone conclusion) it was estimated that it would be one of the costliest and messiest ventures.
 
 
It goes without saying that history buffs rejoiced when the war archives were declassified; prompting the publication of several books: “Britain, Ireland and the Second World War” by Ian Wood being head and shoulders above the rest.
 
WWII: a tragic war fraught with dreams broken; hopes dashed; unimaginable pain inflicted on an entire continent; ultimatums scaring the living daylights out of commanders, troops and civilians alike. “Disband or the peace process cannot continue” was Tony Blair's petrifying ultimatum in 2002.
 
The IRA adamantly refused: “we will not accept the imposition of unrealisable demands”. They withdrew from the decommissioning body venting their pent-up frustration at others breaking commitments. Unionists' grievances were: A) street violence continued unabated, B) a police raid in Sinn Fein's Stormont office insinuated dealings were not above board C) a break-in at the Castlereach base looked an ominous sign.
 
The ensuing crisis in a peace process dogged by mistrust led to devolution being once more suspended as unionists walked out. To everyone's bewilderment, at a Republican gathering, Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey – first mayor of Belfast – paid tribute to the British war dead, as well. An action without precedent, the wreath came to symbolise harmony and peace for years to come.
 
The IRA, in turn, made an apology: “the future will not be found in denying collective failures and mistakes or closing minds and hearts to the plight of those who have been hurt – that includes all the victims of the conflict combatants and non-combatants.”
 
 
 
“Acts of completion”, a misnomer for plans of disbandment, failed to materialise in 2003: described as a stalemate year. In October – out of the blue – the IRA announced the “final closure of this conflict”; a setback for the deals being that John de Chastelain could not divulge details of the third step of consigning weapons on the grounds of confidentiality.
 
Mitchell Mc Laughlin (who had long been considered a political pundit ushering in strategies that addressed issues through debate) could not come up with any kind of compromise. Similarly, the Sinn Fein chairman had failed to provide answers at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry concerning Martin Mac Guinness' role in the events – the issue has remained a question mark to this day.
 
Increasingly disillusioned, hard-liner David Trimble complained that the Republicans were not ready to bury the hatchet yet; adding that they had blown their cover and revealed their true intentions. George Mitchell commended that they were not out of the woods yet, as signing the Agreement and putting it in practice were poles apart.
 
London offered the tantalising option of November elections but to no avail: the Assembly would not sit. In all fairness, Chief Constable Hugh Orde (in 2004) reported on the increase in paramilitary punishments committed under the guise of community policing – which he attributed to lack of elections.
 
This increase in violence culminated in a year of lawlessness: 2005 has been called the year of a “highly imperfect ceasefire”. Why did the peace deal collapse at the eleventh hour?
 
 
For a start, the British government used corroborative evidence in a £26,5 million robbery at the Northern Bank to maintain that the IRA and criminality were intertwined. Next, a spate of horrendous murders put the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) on high alert. Catholic civilian Robert Mc Cartney was stabbed and Catholic ex-REAL IRA member Martin Conlon was shot; the perpetrators being dissident Republicans – who stepped over the line by killing their own countrymen.
 
The ruthless streak of Unionist groups was evident in the brutal murders of four Protestant civilians – part and parcel of a feud between the LOYALIST VOLUNTEER FORCE and the ULSTER VOLUNTEER FORCE. In all, twelve conflict-related casualties (most of which in Belfast) shook the region while officials were striving to keep violence at bay in the final countdown to the general election.
 
When the election was held, Sinn Fein supporters were cheered by the strengthening of its position and Democratic Unionist Party members celebrated its victory over the Ulster Unionist Party. The DUP's promise was to countenance paramilitary activism in order to free officers from desks to carry out operational duties.
 
Another issue close to the top of its political agenda was transferring justice powers to Stormont on DUP terms and ensuring that the Northern Ireland Justice Minister would require cross-community support thereby affording a veto to the DUP over who is appointed. Last, it showed great resolve to tackle the devolved institutions head on and to pursue its “Driving Forward Reform Agenda”.
 
 
 
Joe Cahill's date of birth coincided with Ireland's wish to become a Dominion – fruitfully pursued in 1920; eventually granted a year later following the first Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921).
 
When Cahill was still in his childhood, Ireland was struggling to lessen its ties to the British: firstly, at the statute of Westminster outlining the new formula governing the British Commonwealth of Nations.
 
This formula stipulated that member states recognised each other's autonomy and were “in no way subordinate to one another”. Under no circumstances would the British have their political and diplomatic interests on a wider stage compromised. As their original splendid plans had been thwarted, they watered down the Agreement by deciding that Commonwealth nations would remain “united by a common allegiance to the Crown.”
 
There should be no need to remind ourselves that de Valera would not succumb to unpalatable demands and had dropped the oath of loyalty to the British Monarch.
 
This tradition has been upheld throughout Republican history – even in the current Parliament there are five Sinn Fein members who are not entitled to vote due to their refusal to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen; this may entail complications if a hung parliament is formed in the 2010 election.
 
In his youth, belligerent Cahill was sentenced to death for killing a policeman; but was given a reprieve (1942) early enough to celebrate Ireland's withdrawal from the Commonwealth (1949).
 
Throughout his adulthood, he bore witness to the Eclipse of the British Empire – spurring him on to found the modern IRA. Down on his luck, in 1970 he was jailed once more for organising IRA's first shipment of Libyan Arms.
 
 
 
Intriguingly, in his late years he swore by a political strategy that symbolised the old
 
guard's blessing for politics.
 
 
 

 
The phrase “Siege Mentality” was frequently used by Republican politicians to denote the mindset of the loyalist community in Northern Ireland. As a minority they pictured themselves “under siege”.
 
Paradoxically, the Nationalist community, in turn, had felt beleaguered – being outnumbered and out-gunned by the Brits (=derogatory if used in the contexts of the Troubles) since the year dot. The ideal of Armed insurrection against their “captors” was part of their identity every step of the way. When they were given half a chance to smuggle guns on the luxury British liner, the QE2, to use against those who were holding “Ireland hostage” they did not miss it.
 
Rifles and hand grenades would be stashed on board by IRA members and their sympathisers, according to former IRA commander Brendan Hughes. Hughes would assiduously work on the logistics himself; then, seamen would go ashore in New York; hide the innocuous-looking stuff in their lockers and attend it to Northern Ireland.
 
Belfast men practically controlled docks at the time – thus, whistle-blowing was not a concern. Fuelled by memories of internees; hunger strikes; downtrodden citizens; victimised comrades-in-arms; super-grass trials they waded in their battle. In 1971, British authorities – on the trail of suspects from a Scottish port to Southampton – were aghast to discover 874 sticks of gelignite transported on a single shipment.
 
The Cunard Cruise Line (whose flagship was the QE2) remained unapologetic claiming to be totally unaware of the connivance; later on, some crew members were accused of aiding and abetting the conspirators.
 
 
 
 
Former IRA prisoner Seanna Walsh (cell-mate of Bobby Sands: the first hunger striker to die) articulately read the IRA statement of 28​th​July 2005, which navigated sea changes.
 
He kept it deliberately short and sweet: “the leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann has formally agreed an end to the armed campaign. All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms. All volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means. Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever”.
 
Unionists' preposterous demands for snapshots of Oglaigh na hEireann (=soldiers of Ireland) dumping arms were not met. Revd. Harold Good – a member of the arms decommissioning body – who had gained expertise in crowd control during priesthood, said with his quintessentially Anglo-Saxon composure that arms had been consigned “beyond the shadow of a doubt”.
 
Notwithstanding his re-assurances, disarmament of loyalist paramilitary organisations was the next stumbling block. However, the British Administration's giving a clean sheet to the IRA for a “step of unparalleled magnitude” (Tony Blair, 2005) in sync with the conciliatory approach of the Irish government normalised politics.
 
Unionists' voices tailed off. Why were Unionists so vociferous in the first place? Despite (former Northern Ireland Secretary) John Reid's assurances that people in Northern Ireland are valued equally to those in Scotland and Wales – thus, should be offered equal opportunities provided they remain part of the UK, there seem to be some misgivings and inexplicable worries among Unionists.
 
 
 

 
“Just as we are English to the Irish, so we are Irish to the English” is a fear that has yet to be dispelled. By all accounts, in the good old days the English of English birth felt superior to the English of Irish birth. John Reid went on undeterred in his vocation to dismiss such a stick-in-the-mud attitude as out of place in today's multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan Britain. He wholeheartedly promised to do everything in his power to ascertain that both those of an Irish background or an Irish consciousness and those who felt more British would have their rights protected – irrespective of background.
 
A graffiti-artist unwittingly replied through a scribbling on a university wall:
 
−      Brits out of Ireland!
 
−      But I was born here!
 
−      Then you are Irish; not British!
 
 
 
 
“Voices from the Grave” compiled by Ed Moloney: the story of Sean Mc Conville [mother of ten, abducted, interrogated and shot by the IRA as a British Army informer] may be a drop in the ocean compared to thousands of senseless deaths connected to the Troubles, but it sheds light on the issue of the “Disappeared” – which has been described as the most vicious legacy of the conflict.
 
Was Sean a compassionate woman who went to the aid of a British soldier wounded outside her porch in 1974, or a 'snitch' who was caught hiding a British Army transmitter in her home on two occasions? Does the public outcry: “those who would forever stand in judgement on the shame and guilt of the murderers” give a clue? Hardly …
 
Whatever the answer, president Jerry Adams is incriminated as this chance discovery after 3 decades will culminate in a lawsuit by Mc Conville's daughter. A late former IRA commander and close confidante of Adams, Brendan Hughes accused him of “sitting in his plush office in Westminster or Stormont or elsewhere and deny it {that murders were committed under his watch} it's like Hitler denying the Holocaust”.
 
Did Mc Conville collude with the security forces or was Brendan Hughes (who made tapes for the Boston College Archives accompanied by instructions for disclosure after his death
 
– which occurred in 2008) indirectly attacking the strategy of the Republicans – being himself strongly against the peace process and the highly controversial issue of decommissioning? Or, as a commentator put it bluntly: “it was the word of a confessed murderer accusing another”. [New Informer Evidence in Infamous IRA Execution Case – IRISH CENTRAL – published Monday, March 29, 2010, 6:57AM]
 
 

 
Adams has always been rumoured to have been a former IRA commander in the 1970's and to have orchestrated not only the Good Friday bombing but several other gruesome attacks and murders of informers as well.
 
However, this time the rumours turned into unholy accusations coming from people from all walks of life and – amazingly enough – from former internees in the Maze Prison (amongst whom Hughes was imprisoned in tandem with Adams).
 
Adams dismisses the accusations as blatant lies told with a view to ruining his chances on the upcoming Westminster election and demonising him so that he will relinquish power. He refutes the arguments by asking his rivals to account for the fact that he encouraged republicans to co-operate with the authorities to find the remains of the ‘Missing’ (informers and objectors).
 
In fact, the Irish Government has announced plans to grant immunity to those whose evidence helps spot the Disappeared. This policy of granting immunity goes back to the 1980's when suspects who would testify in court against their ex-comrades were promised either immunity from prosecution or lenient sentences or new identities.
 
The infamous ‘Supergrass’ terrorist trials – some of the cruellest ever conducted in the UK
 
– could result in rough and ready justice based on evidence upon which a single witness was enough to convict dozens.
 
In one such hair-rising trial (1983) twenty-two IRA members were sentenced to 4,000 years altogether. In the eye of the storm was also the case of ex-paramilitaries Christopher Black and Joseph Benett, whose testimony resulted on the conviction of no less than 300 defendants; some of whom were given the life sentence.

 
The same old story with one hundred republicans arrested on Raymond Gilmour's evidence (member of the INLA – turned informant). Next, an Ulster Volunteer Force trial – rife with speculation – left opponents embroiled in a diplomatic row.
 
When eighteen convictions on Black's evidence were overturned 3 years later, doubt was cast on the reliability of witnesses. The intervention of the then Chief Justice – who remained sceptical of the practice deciding that the evidence was inconclusive in most ‘Supergrass’ trials – was crucial. The last nail in the coffin was suspicions of jury tampering: the policy was phased out.
 
 
 
 
The name ULSTER VOLUNTEER FORCE dates back to Protestants opposing home rule in 1912 but later remaining in obscurity. Half a century later the party bounced back; unashamedly aired its views against liberal unionism and swore to crush IRA members. It reportedly killed dozens including Catholic civilians – the audience of a football match. It has links with the Progressive Unionist Party.
 
The splinter loyalist group RED HAT DEFENDERS was added to the proscribed list after detonating bombs that killed a policeman and the celebrated human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson. The threat level fluctuated from substantial to critical when it committed several crude acts of violence flaring up during the Drumcree crisis in 1998.
 
The LOYALIST VOLUNTEER FORCE formerly led by Billy Wright is a hard core group that did not hesitate to threaten Protestants themselves in case of collusion in the peace process. Moreover, it ignited citizens to vote NO in the Good Friday Agreement referendum.
 
Everyone was astonished when both the RED HAT DEFENDERS and the ORANGE VOLUNTEERS owned up to the same grenade assault in County Antrim. Even more so, when eight heavily armed hooded members of the group brandished their weapons on television and – without watering down their speech – threatened to attack Catholic businesses as well as murder IRA prisoners on their release. How fair was to outlaw the group?
 
 
 
 
 
Are political groups connected to paramilitary ones?
 
 
Though Sinn Fein point-blank denies having a military wing, CONTINUITY IRA – a hard-line group defiantly opposing any deal not based on a united Ireland and having admitted responsibility for 96 bombings in Portdown/Moira/Killyhelvin Hotel – is thought to be linked to the party by security forces.
 
Are all groups out in the open? Not so. DIRECT ACTION AGAINST DRUGS – related to several killings dating to 1995 and seven murders disgracefully committed during the first ceasefire – is a cover name for IRA.
 
Are politicians among the casualties? IRISH NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY weapons have killed more than 120 people including a conservative MP and one of Margaret Thatcher's senior advisers whose car was blown up at the House of Commons in 1979. INLA gunmen also shot dead Billy Right inside Maze Prison in 1997, an incident that sparked off a cycle of violence but also led to secret talks between the INLA and intermediaries of the British Government.
 
Has the so-called OFFICIAL IRA been overshadowed? This is the more socialist line of the group historically linked to Sinn Fein; it still exists but when people refer to the IRA nowadays they mean the PROVISIONAL IRA: this is the group that (after the cut-off date of 1969) rather than falling into line with the socialists became more militant; first standing up for the Catholics – later going on the offensive.
 
 

How real is the REAL IRA?
 
 
A disaffected former IRA general led the splinter group to show indignation at talks shoring up the peace process. Having owned up to attacks including a 500lb car bomb that wiped out the market town of Banbridge, as well as having carried out two murders during the ceasefire, the group was kind enough to apologise for civilian deaths in the aftermath of the Omagh bombing in 1998.
 
“A war machine is once again being directed at the British Cabinet” was the REAL IRA's explanation for a mortar attack on a police station thereby earning its reputation as the most dangerous group – defying even the Good Friday Agreement which could safeguard that IRA prisoners are eligible for early release.
 
Weren't there any Unionist groups sinning in good company?
 
 
Despite counting thousands of supporters at its peak, claiming to be pro-talks and pro-Agreement – in addition to having the Ulster Defence Party as its political wing, the ULSTER DEFENCE ASSOCIATION was proscribed for being single-mindedly engaged in terrorism.
 
The ULSTER FREEDOM FIGHTERS group – primarily known as self-styled vigilantes avenging the murder of loyalist leader Billy Wright in the Maze Prison – is linked to the Ulster Democratic Party, which was suspended from the peace process temporarily as a safety valve.
 
 

 
In 2006 for nationalists and unionists working together in a coalition government in tandem with an assembly legislating was a tall order. Still, they were given a deadline to be met on 27 March 2007, by which date they needed to have resolved conflict.
 
The Assembly having been designed to lay down the rules of the Good Friday Agreement, it had to work on two essential changes:
 
1)    Administration should be devolved from London to Belfast.
 
2)    The two political leaders on Unionists and Republicans should peacefully share power without infringing on each other's rights.
 
The sum of fears being IRA bombings, the Democratic Unionist Party had consistently opposed power sharing with Sinn Fein claiming that it was “indistinguishable” from the IRA, a charge that had led to an impasse.
 
To add insult to injury, the Republicans were accused of spying at Stormont. The knock-on effect of all allegations and recriminations was a police raid at Sinn Fein offices; a flat refusal by Ulster Unionists to sit in government with Sinn Fein and a suspension of the Assembly and Executive by the Northern Ireland Secretary, who – unsurprisingly – returned rule to London.
 
The hopes of both the British and the Irish governments to make headway through the 2003 Assembly Elections were dashed: positions hardened and negotiations became more uncompromising despite the IRA's pledge to put their weapons beyond use – and the Independent Commission Monitoring Disarmament verifying this.
 
 
 
Both governments' endeavours to broker a deal were hindered, not least by a Unionist outcry over the robbery of £26m from the Northern Bank in Belfast – which was allegedly committed by the IRA (the evidence was unsubstantiated, though).
 
Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern tried to kick-start the negotiations in 2006 following the revelation that the spy at Stormont was a British agent – later avenged by Republicans. The effort paid off: the St. Andrews Agreement – which paved the way to a power-sharing government – was signed.
 
According to the Agreement:
 
−      Sinn Fein would call a halt to opposing the police
 
−      Power would be shared between Republicans and Unionists
 
−      An election would precede the formation of a coalition government
 
 
If the proposals of the Agreement were rebuffed:
 
−      The Stormont Assembly would be closed
 
−      Politicians' salaries would be stopped
 
−      Allowances would be done away with
 
 
Did the ramifications in case of non-compliance galvanise the parties? Firstly, the Sinn Fein took a step in the right direction concerning the police – without actual commitment. Secondly, the Democratic Unionist Party consented to sitting at the negotiating table on condition Republicans made a move beyond decades of unabated violence and terrorism.
 
Brushing aside dissenters' objections and confirming an election, a transitional Assembly was installed in 2006.
 
 
 
After a series of false starts (that lasted over a decade) on the devolution of policing and justice power from London to Belfast, the people of Northern Ireland will have the chance to begin afresh in Castle Buildings, in Stormont where the headquarters of the New Department of justice will be located.
 
Deputy First Minister Martin Mc Guinness notified the Assembly on March 9​th​, 2010 that a decision had been reached on what has been called the “final piece of the devolution jigsaw” after prolonged negotiations between the DUP and Sinn Fein. In the face of fierce opposition by the Ulster Unionist Party – that wished to address issues like unemployment, the economy and the way forward – Martin Mc Guinness along with First Prime Minister Peter Robinson brought a motion, which was eventually passed on a consent vote.
 
 
Mr Mc Guinness admitted that they would have to go through unchartered waters; so he could not dismiss the opposition's fears about the venture as unfounded. Nevertheless, he was confident the Hillsborough Agreement was to the benefit of the community, who were ready to follow this course of action by taking on the transfer of policing and justice matters – as stipulated by the Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998.
 
 
He did not conceal his disenchantment with the UUP's lack of support on such a long-awaited resolution, which he attributed to cynicism and intransigence; adding that it was high time all parties brushed aside political aspirations and expedience for the sake of unity.
 
UUP's deputy leader Danny Kennedy bitterly complained that “key decisions took place elsewhere … they ought to have been dealt with at Stormont but they were dealt with at Hillsborough” and did not hesitate to verbally attack “this coalition of loathing … this political carve-up”.
 
He pointed out threateningly that “it wasn't a member of the UUP who said policing would never happen in a political lifetime … it wasn't a member of the UUP who said it wouldn't even happen in the lifetime of this assembly” – thus reminding the coalition that other parties' expectations had been exceedingly low.
 
 
 
 
 
In conclusion, Assembly and Executive Review Committee chairman Jimmy Spratt emphasised the role of the attorney general and matters that were still under consideration, such as: the creation of a Justice Sector for the North-South Ministerial Council as well as the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
 
*  *  *  *  *
 
Could that be the end of the Game?
 
Or will Policing and Justice be the Bone of Contention for the next decade or so?
 
 
When Jeffrey Donaldson (DUP – Lagan valley) asked: “what message does the member think the IRA dissidents who exploded a bomb outside Newry Courthouse would have for this House today? Would they be opposing Devolution?”
 
Ian Paisley Jnr. (DUP – North Antrim) responded belligerently: “I sit beside a man who was shot by the IRA … I don't like outside interference … but it does not take away from our duty as members of this House … it is exactly the taking on of these tough decisions that will make this House noble instead of a House of ridicule … we should not rise to the scare tactics that Sinn Fein will not support operational decisions. On issues raised about national security opponents said publicly that N. Ireland is not like any part of the UK - the fact of the matter is: it is the same as the rest of the UK … National Security is embedded because it is a national security issue … Why? Because we are not a place apart, but we are a place within … A place within the Union.”
 
Policing and Justice Debate, 9 March 2010
 
 
What conclusions can be drawn from this debate? That the St Andrews Agreement is running out of steam? Or that the Map of Europe should be redrawn?
 
 
 
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics”, Mark Twain is quoted as saying. What exactly did he find so unnerving about statistics?
 
Here is a recent example: 75% of the people in Northern Ireland strongly support the proposed changes in policing agreed by the coalition government former foes Sinn Fein and pro-British Democratic Unionist Party have stitched up; after clocking up 100 hrs of painstaking negotiations at Hillsborough.
 
Still, Raymond Mc Cartney of Sinn Fein cried out that discontented Republican supporters have been rightly staging pickets to eliminate incidents of stop and search tactics – neither needed nor sought in the current political climate.
 
Especially when they are conducted at schools where children of Republicans are regularly frisked, these stealth policies rekindle simmering Anglo-phobic feelings as the police are viewed as the embodiment of their Protestant Unionist enemies and British rule.
 
This deep-seated resentment against the police as their prime target stands in sharp contrast to the earnest plea toward the 32-County-Sovereignty-Movement to retract its threat to picket schools as well as shops. “No dealings whatsoever with the police!”: the political wing of the REAL IRA has menacingly said.
 
Unless the threat is withdrawn, this zero-tolerance toward the PSNI (Police Service Northern Ireland) will be a disincentive for the normal co-operation between young citizens and security forces whose centrepiece is to fight criminality of any kind. {“Crime is Crime is Crime”, 1981 Thatcher's response to a special category status for those imprisoned on paramilitary-related charges}
 
 
 
 
The symbiotic relationship is further complicated by regular disruptions of hoax and genuine bomb alerts – like the deeply demoralising attack in Newry in Feb. 2010: marking the 25​th​anniversary of a mortar attack killing nine officers in Newry Square.
 
Standing in the wreckage, officials did not mince their words: they lamented the reluctance of disenchanted young people to walk the much-awaited “path of peace”. By unreservedly condemning the disingenuous plan that left political structures hanging in the balance, they set the tone for the debate. Politics professor John Tonge claims that “dissident violence never quite goes away. It ebbs and flows”.
 
John Mooney (author) maintains the IRA has not been deglamourised by Irish people –driven to despair living through a slump often regarded as the fallout of “the Troubles”. To make matters worse, British Intelligence Services working behind the scenes have been described as 'marauding soldiers'.
 
The last straw – analysts say – is the faction “SOLDIERS OF IRELAND”: a rising force shrouded in mystery and getting on with the business of terrorism.
 
Things came to a head when another harrowing murder case unravelled in Londonderry. Forensic experts meticulously searched for clues leading to the identity of the perpetrators; they needn't have. The REAL IRA admitted to the border killing – showing blithe disrespect for justice and casting doubt on Hume's trailblazing speech. “For the first time the people of both sides of the border have been speaking as one”.
 
John Hume (leader of Social Democratic and Labour Party)
 

 
All things considered, the Hillsborough Castle Agreement may have averted Belfast's fragile coalition from crumbling but it failed to win over all groups due to political disaffection.
 
In Northern Ireland the Easter Lily (symbol associated with the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin) is still worn as a flower of remembrance for those who sacrificed their lives to the cause of independence; and unrest is rumbling on …
 
 
 
 
References
 
 
●      Eclipse of Empire D. A. Low – Cambridge University Press
 
 
●      The Oxford Companion to 20​th​Century British Politics – Oxford University Press
 
●      Mister, Are you a Priest? D. Edward – Four Courts Press
 
 
●      A Farewell to Arms? From Long War to Long Peace in Northern Ireland M. Cox – Manchester University Press
 
●      CAIN Web Service Conflict and Politics in Northern Ireland (1968 to Present)
 
 
●      Atlas of the World – University of London
 
 
●      Irish Central – home to Irish Voice and Irish America magazine
 
 
●      The Life and Times of Winston Churchill – Items of Interest: Google
 
 
●      War, Ceasefire, Endgame – BBC N. Ireland
 
 
●      Albert Reynolds, ON RECORD – Google
 
 
●      Tony Blair, Take Guns out of Politics – BBC N. Ireland
 
 
●      Devolution Unlikely to Tame N. Irish Rebels – Reuters
 
 
 

 
 

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
 
 
1.

​    “Gram, this is Kara. There’s something I need to tell you. Remember that time you asked me if I would ever write a story about your life?  It was a long time ago, but I heard you, I heard you loud and clear, and I never stopped thinking about it. I just wanted to tell you that I have been writing a book about you and how you molded all of us into the women we have become. It is all because of you and the love you established within us. I love and appreciate who you are and I am writing your story, the one you always wanted.” I leaned my head against the plane’s bathroom door and wept, cradling the phone to my ear, unable to formulate any other clear words.
 
                                                                     *****
 
     The reality that I was not going to make it home in time to see my grandmother alive stung like a thousand bees trying to escape the cavity of my chest. My fear was that I was disappointing her, once again, and this was my last chance… there wouldn’t be another opportunity to make it up to her. I had done all that I could, but there was just not enough time. I swallowed hard, feeling the lump growing in my throat as my lower eyelids held back the dam of regret. I felt the pool rising, higher and higher as I fought to keep the tears back. You are missing her… she’s going… she’s going… the voice in my head was screaming at me. It was like having a nightmare, one where she’s floating away down the river and I’m so close, right behind her, I can almost touch her, but I am not close enough to catch her. Suddenly she slips away, with that exuberant smile as she waves goodbye, and then she’s gone forever.
     My body vibrated as the jet engines started. Suddenly the noise in the cabin was so obnoxiously loud, roaring thunder ringing through my ears. I felt like my brain was going to explode as I tried not to become completely hysterical in front of a plane full of strangers.
     “Gram,” I yelled into the phone, “I love you and I’m on my way. I am trying to get to you as fast as I can.”  My shallow panting was about to turn into hyperventilating. Tears flowed readily now, the dam had crumbled and there was no stopping them. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve as I looked up and saw the handwritten sign taped on the door that said this lavatory was out of order. My face was all puffy, red, and swollen. I couldn’t even get a tissue to blow my nose. Feeling the hysteria rising in me, I took a deep breath before my own bottom fell out. 
     My mother came back on the line. “Do you need any more time?” she asked.
     “No,” I said, “Just make sure that Gram knows that I am writing the book about her like she always wanted. She has to know that.” 
     I could hear the tears as my mother broke down on the other end of the line and we cried together for a moment, there was little left to say. It was not if Gram was going to die, but when, and we both knew it.
     The intercom announced that all passengers must be in their seats with their seat belts securely fastened. Noticing all of the eyes that had been watching me speak my last words to my grandmother, I forced my way through the packed aisle of butts and bags looking for my seat. It was like a dramatic scene from a movie, except that it was really happening to me. I had hoped that I would make it in time to see her but knew that she wouldn’t be able to hold on that long. At least she got my message. I knew she could hear me; I could feel it.
     In my mind I made myself out to be somewhere else, on a sunny beach somewhere drinking a minty mojito on ice, instead of trudging back to my seat on that stifling plane with a nose full of snot and a pounding headache. Just as I was imagining my first refreshing sip, a woman on the left touched my arm and stopped me. She was broad-shouldered with smooth, dark skin, probably in her mid-sixties. Her hair was picked out into a short, beautiful Afro.
     “I heard you crying and wanted to let you know that I understand how you feel.” Her face was soft and compassionate, the tone of her voice cradling, like she was scooping me up and rocking me in her arms. “I felt that way about my own grandmother; we were very close, like yours.” I stood frozen in the aisle, stunned and thankful, gazing through my own tears at this big-hearted woman. “Even after she is gone she will always be with you, child, because she lives in your heart. You remember that when you feel sad.”
     “Yes’m,” was all I could get out of my mouth, staring in amazement as I touched her on the shoulder, nodding my head in gratitude, thankful for her. She then said that she would keep me in her prayers.    
     Back in my seat, the feeling of heavy weights on my lids drove my eyes closed and it felt good to just sit still and rest. Visions of my life with Gram circled around in my head, like the Carousel of Progress ride at Disney World. I remembered riding the school bus home from kindergarten as it swayed along the narrow curves of Brown Street. The afternoon sun felt warm on my face as I daydreamed with my forehead pressed against the paned glass window. I suddenly noticed someone running through the woods wearing ankle high brown boots and a knee length, dark green wool cape. 
     “Stop the bus! Stop the bus!” I shouted as I stood up in my seat and hurried towards the bus driver. “My grandmother is running through the woods!” I said as I stood firmly with my legs in a V, my finger pointing at the folding glass door. He stopped the bus and gave Gram a lift, dropping us both off a mile down the street at the end of California Road. “Why were you running through the woods?” I asked, proudly escorting my grandmother off the bus, like it was my own personal show and tell.
     “I went shopping at Stuarts and lost track of time. I thought if I took a shortcut through the woods I could beat your bus and be there waiting when you got home,” Gram said with a shrug and a smile. Her cheeks were still rosy from running and she put her arm around my shoulders as we walked home together.
     I remembered the time our peculiar neighbor, Mary, wanted us neighborhood kids to stop playing soccer on the perfectly flat, rectangular field that happened to be her yard. Gram knew we loved playing there but at the same time was not going to allow us to be disobedient. Instead of having to remind us over and over again “don’t play in Ms. Mary’s yard,” she came up with a reward system, a bribe of five cents a day to stay out of the neighbor’s yard. After a few days we were so excited about our collections that we forgot how fun it was to play in Ms. Mary’s yard. At the end of the week we all walked down to Stuarts to spend our earnings.     
     I pictured Gram’s ill-fated fall off of Aunt Betty’s front steps blurred together with our four hour drive home from Charlotte last October, when I found out that her cousin Nancy had starred in the original Broadway production of “Showboat.” When Gram went to visit her in New York City, she thought the fame had made her cousin a little “loose” and a tad pretentious. Gram never visited again.
     Mini clips of the last thirty years came flooding to me, bringing a certain amount of joy as some lost memories began to resurface. It was the first time all day that I had actually been able to gather my thoughts. I opened up my backpack and pulled out my journal.
     Although I could have written for hours, something diverted my attention and my eyes became fixated on the sign at the front of the plane that read “EXIT” with a green illuminated arrow to the left. I could not stop staring at it. I could not blink and for a moment could not breathe. A question appeared in my mind: “What do you want me to do?” I was unsure if I was asking or being asked the question; the lines were very unclear, but the message itself was intact. Someone was trying to get my attention, either Gram or God, or both.
     Closing my eyes and bowing my head, I brought my hands together like all of those times in catechism and prayed that if she was suffering and waiting on my arrival, to just let her go. This was her time, not mine. I did not want to hold her back from that place she so deserved to be.
     “Go in peace and love, you’ll be with me forever. We are twin souls and I will never forget you.” I said the words and made the sign of the cross with my first two fingers: forehead, chest, shoulders left to right. An immediate sense of calm overcame my body, like the feeling of warm water being poured down your back as you are being bathed. I had let her go. At that moment I knew she had passed on, I could feel it.
     As soon as we were able to use our portable electronic devices I phoned my mother. She informed me that at 6:55, almost the exact time as my fixation on the exit sign, Gram had taken her last breath. Her passing had been peaceful and easy, completely surrounded by people she loved, without fear. Hearing those words made my heart happy.
    “But you know,” my mother said, “when you spoke to her, her heart rate jumped from sixty four to seventy eight. She heard you.” And with that I smiled for the first time since I got the call. What I had said to Gram really mattered. In that one moment it was well with my soul.

2.
  Earlier that day

​Local Heroes by Penn Kemp is an “eclectic collection” (from the introduction) of pieces celebrating a range of fascinating people from London, Ontario, and the wider Southwestern Ontario region (or Souwesto, a term popularized by James Reaney, one of those honoured in the Tributes section).  A key common thread, in addition to their connection to the region, is their shared “sense of adventure and exploration” (from the introduction).  And through them the work explores London’s evolution “from colonial outpost to vibrant cultural centre” (from the Acknowledgements).  The two longest sections, as noted below, intersect poetry with other forms “the way two branches of the Thames meet at the Forks” in downtown London (from the Acknowledgements).
 
Local Heroes is divided into six sections:  On Celebrating Several Local Heroes…, Teresa Harris Rides Again, When the Heart Parts, Tributes, Dream Sequins for Alice Munro, and London Local Heroes.  On Celebrating Several Local Heroes… is comprised of Kemp’s short introduction to the work, and one poem, The Sesquicentennial As Celebrated in Souwesto, which is a tribute to the indigenous peoples of Souwesto, the original cultural heroes of this land.  It also provides the foundation on which the rest of the work stands, with its establishment of the primacy of “this beloved place.” 
 
Teresa Harris Rides Again is a most enjoyable, and illuminating, cycle of eleven poems of varying length honouring the youngest child of the well-known Harris family of nineteenth-century London, Ontario.  Teresa Harris, born in 1839, lived a most adventurous life, among other things participating in arduous journeys to regions, such as Tibet, very rarely seen by western women in that era.   This was partly an attempt to escape convention (The Dream Life of Teresa Harris, b. 1839 d. 1928), although she was not entirely successful (What the Ram Said; On What Is Perceived; the latter is a wonderful exploration of the cover photograph). This section is a meeting of poetry and drama, with play-style expression coupled to poetry and narration.  Various voices are represented, including Kemp herself, Teresa, Teresa’s mother Amelia, and St. George Littledale (Teresa’s second husband), whose eulogy for Teresa retrospectively ties together much of the preceding material (St. George’s Eulogy).  Harris was a remarkable woman eminently worthy of celebration, a cause Kemp has undertaken in two plays, although, as Kemp notes in her introduction, poetry is her “first and most beloved medium of expression.”
 
When the Heart Parts, the longest section, originated as a performance piece concerning the last week in the life of Kemp’s father Jim Kemp (“London artist and mentor of artists in the fifties”; from the Acknowledgements) and lies at the intersection of poetry and sound opera.  Combining stream of consciousness sound poetry, narrative, transcriptions of dialogue, a dream journal, and more conventional poems, this is a very intense and very personal work, simultaneously the core of the book and a bit of an outlier.  The mixture of techniques is quite effective, although hearing the sound poetry in your head may be challenging.  This is not easy reading, but extremely rewarding, the author’s vulnerability serving to irresistibly carry one along through a collage of event chronicle, memories, and overwhelming emotion as Jim, with his family alongside, embarks on the final adventure of this life.
 
The Tributes section features four major London, Ontario and area arts figures.  The first is visual artist Greg Curnoe (Travelling Lights), tragically killed in 1992 when a pickup truck hit his group of cyclists.  Also celebrated is the Reaney family, the late poet and playwright James Reaney (Drawing in Miniatures); the late poet and short story-writer Colleen Thibaudeau Reaney (Recounted, ReStored, ReStoried); and their son, journalist James Stewart Reaney.
 
Dream Sequins for Alice Munro is comprised of three poems honouring the Nobel Prize-winning short story-writer from Huron County north of London (Goldilocks Meets Alice in Huron County; Nettle; and Alice(s) on Wonderland).
 
The final section, London Local Heroes, celebrates pioneering London poetry publisher Brick Books and its principal Kitty Lewis (Follow the Yellow Brick Road); Giller Price-winning short story-writer, novelist and teacher Bonnie Burnard (The Circle Completes, the Net Connects); and the multiple gold medal-winning ice dance team of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir (Mirror Neurons).
 
Topically, Local Heroes presents a layered structure.  This is most obvious in the Teresa Harris Rides Again cycle, with indigenous peoples and the original land composing the deepest stratum (per The Sesquicentennial As Celebrated in Souwesto from the first section; and Teresa’s memories of her indigenous Cook in Choose but Choose Wisely).  The Harris family’s transplanted Victorian England is the next layer:  “A palimpsest is imposed on old-growth//forest as if summoning the Old World to replace place names with their own, erasing other pasts for this newly named road…” (Street Tales, Street Tells); and “a palimpsest of green shire//the Harris family had to transplant here” (Solastalgia).  Finally, covering all, is the modern London, Ontario of the author:  “When jackhammers ring through the layers down, we glimpse//peripheral reminiscence part dreamt, part recollected in shards.” (Street Tales, Street Tells).  In a larger sense, this is also true of the entire work, progressing from the native peoples through Teresa’s Victorian adventures to the sections in honour of twentieth century Souwesto cultural heroes (When the Heart Parts, Tributes, Dream Sequins for Alice Munro, the first two poems from Local London Heroes) and ending with the twenty-first century triumphs of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir (Mirror Neurons).
 
As mentioned, all of the honourees are united by ties to Souwesto and a common adventurousness and urge to explore in one fashion or another.  In addition, weaving through and further knitting together the different sections are a number of other themes, three of which are home, death and transition, and memory.  Starting with the home thread, all of the honoured figures are from Southwestern Ontario, with the Harris family and their peers grafting on not just English traditions (“patterned upon London, England//like a pale shadow of the mother country.”, Why Teresa Harris) but trees, gardens and place names (Street Tales, Street Tells; Solastalgia; Telling Tales) to try and mould their adopted land into their idea of home.  Teresa herself went to the other side of the world to “escape//the confines of colonial London” (Why Teresa Harris?) only to find, in the end, “familiar voices are calling me//back, calling me home.” (Choose but Choose Wisely).  Of note as well is that the author, following Teresa’s pattern, returned to her London, Ontario, roots in 2001 after being away for thirty-five years, as is pointed out in the introduction.
 
Winding through When the Heart Parts is the voyage home of Jim Kemp’s spirit, a journey prefigured in a poem the author was working on the day the call came that her father was in hospital.  This poem concerned the Ka (the part of the soul in ancient Egyptian mythology representing the life force) and featured the lines “ ‘Ka, call of the dead//on their sail home.’ ” (February 25.).  As Jim lies dying, the author reads to him from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is intended in part to guide the consciousness from death through to the next rebirth (March 1.; March 3.).
 
In another instance of this theme James Reaney “returned here to//beloved Souwesto, to the field//and his Perth County farmhouse.” (Drawing in Miniatures).  Finally, the author meets Alice Munro in her home town (Goldilocks Meets Alice in Huron County) and her city apartment (Nettle), and Munro’s own celebrated works focus on “the upright citizens of a small Souwesto town//whose truths Alice has been dealing for decades” (Goldilocks Meets Alice in Huron County).
 
Death and transition also figure prominently throughout the work.  Most notably of course When the Heart Parts is an in-depth exploration of Jim Kemp’s passing and his family’s journey with him in his final days.  In addition, as Kemp notes in her introduction, many of the pieces are eulogies.  But this stream also manifests in a number of other ways:  the death of William John Scott, Teresa Harris’ first husband (The Dream Life of Teresa Harris, b. 1839 d. 1928); her second husband, St. George Littledale’s, transformative experience with a ram he was unable to shoot (What the Ram Said); Harris’ overall arc from Victorian Ontario to the wilds of Tibet and back; the exploration of Teresa’s passing (Choose But Choose Wisely; St. George’s Eulogy); Jim Kemp’s spiritual explorations (February 25.; March 5.); the explicit portrayal of Greg Curnoe’s tragic death (Travelling Lights); and James Stewart Reaney’s retirement (On His Retirement).
 
Memory is another important theme.  The allure and challenges are explicitly discussed in Solastalgia:  “Old lays, old lies surround and comfort,//surround and drown the sound of voices I wish I could hear,//voices now dissolved to ether, to the vagaries of memory//recalling memory, lost in translation.”  It is, naturally, central to all of the work’s tributes, but is also critical to St. George’s memories of Teresa (St. George’s Eulogy); Jim Kemp’s own memories (Knock, Knock); the memories of Jim’s father (March 2.); the recollections of Jim’s wife of dealing with the initial stage of his final health crisis (February 25., March 2.); “trolling//the midden of memory” with Colleen Thibaudeau Reaney (Recounted, ReStored, ReStoried); and the call to James Stewart Reaney to write his memoirs (On His Retirement).
 
The set of poems in Local Heroes, is, Kemp says in her introduction “dear to my heart”, a sentiment that is most evident as we make acquaintance with an intriguing cast of characters from Southwestern Ontario’s cultural history.  The two longest features are the trek of the remarkable Teresa Harris to Tibet and back, and Jim Kemp’s agonizing final journey. This a work of intersectionality and varied technique, with a range of emotion from affection and humour to deep sorrow, its eclecticism bound together by overarching themes including home, death and transition, and memory.
 
 

​1. Declarative Sentences
My cat carries an unknown blue rag around in her mouth and throws it into a bowl of fresh milk.  She likes taking and flaunting objects on walks around the house and yard. She eats her food by taking it out of the bowl with her paw, and putting it either on my unimpressed foot or on the innocent carpet. The good thing perhaps is that she gifts me an assortment of things, including live locusts, praying mantises and wriggling worms. She does not chew them. She wraps her paws around my wondering leg too.              
  
2. Interrogative Sentences  
How does it feel, after carrying unknown rags into the house, and flinging them into bowls of milk? What type of cat would take and flaunt objects in front of its owner, the TV, the mirror, the sofa and literally everything else in the house? Would that cat sleep soundly and blissfully after committing such crimes?  Where`s decency there? Who does she think she is---a boss of sorts? Why doesn’t she eat her food from the bowl? Is that too much to ask? When does she clean the carpet?  Why does her friend seem to be impressed with and enamored of all these antics? 

3. Imperative Sentences 
Little cat, your cat friend marveled at you when you carried a blue rag, as if saying, have fun dear friend! Well, well-wishing you! Come to my place and take some more rags! What an invitation! My instruction is: refrain from bringing foreign objects into my house, including your friend! I command you not to ever again gift me scary live locusts, praying mantis and worms! Stop forthwith! Ok, maybe I`ve sounded too harsh—please don’t give me such scary gifts. My request is: please don’t chase away your friend! He seems to adore you from heaven to earth and back. You`re fortunate. He probably gives you gifts of cloths and all.  That`s my humble and harmless observation. 

4. Exclamatory Sentences
What do you think you`re doing?! Taking me on a tour of the house, carrying strange rags?  Goodness Gracious, you`re sneaky and accumulative! Hey there`s no more space for your objects in my house! I can`t believe that your friend thinks you`re the smartest and cutest cat around!  No wonder he likes purring, chewing his tongue and sucking his nipples! I bet my last dollar, no hair will grow there! Let me park it here! Oh, already you`re walking away with your friend, paw-in paw! The cozy twosome, have a good hangout! I`ll miss you! Actually, already missing you! After eating out, you`re free to come back and burp in my face as usual!!