Chapter 7: Getting Stoned

Sunday, July 28, 1985

Traveling to Northern Ireland in 1985 was a risk. Not a huge risk, but a risk. The Troubles were still very much a thing, and we had at least a nominal risk of being killed or injured in some sort of attack.

That said, the risk was very low, and we agreed it was worth it. Tourists went there on a regular basis, after all, not just us.

We took a bus to Stranraer, Scotland, then crossed by ferry to Larne, Northern Ireland. From there, we took a train down to Belfast. There were no signs of the Troubles that we could see, unless perhaps a few extra security guards at the rail stations.

Heck, by post-2001 airport standards, security was still very lax.

We had a hotel reservation near central Belfast, only ten minutes by taxi from the rail station. It wasn’t the nicest hotel we’d stayed at, but clean and economical. We would only be there for two nights, anyway.

Since this was our first night in any part of Ireland (even if it was the wrong part of Ireland), we went to a nearby pub and (after hearing several others with local-sounding accents do the same) ordered Guinness. No one even batted an eyelash at that. Hardly surprising, but we didn’t want to step on any toes unwittingly.

This wasn’t the first time any of us had had Guinness. I’d long since introduced the girls to it, and Angie had had it in her first life.

Still, there was something different — even magical — about having it in Belfast. That would be doubled when we got to Dublin, and we were already thinking of taking the brewery tour.

Since the parents wouldn’t be working on a Sunday, we called home a bit earlier than usual, and let them know we were in Belfast. All of them were slightly concerned, but we said (truthfully) that all seemed well.

As with Scotland, this would be a bit of a whirlwind tour. Much of it would be a driving tour centered on Dublin. We would eventually travel back to Britain via the Dublin to Holyhead ferry. We had a few more days to decide if we were going back to London (and thence to Houston), or if we would instead perhaps head to Liverpool, Manchester, or the like and tour more of Britain for perhaps a week.

Decisions, decisions!

Monday, July 29, 1985

Today’s outing was a brief and maybe silly one. We took a morning train out to Londonderry (or Derry — which name one used had political significance, so we tried to avoid actually using either of them), had lunch there, walked around town a bit, and then took a train back to Belfast. We had dinner and drinks at a pub, then settled into the hotel.

Angie and I snuggled up tonight. Both of us enjoyed making more of a habit of that, and we would have to continue when we got home.

As I drifted off, I wondered what Candice might think about our sleeping arrangements, especially since she was the reason we’d started sleeping together at all. She would probably be amused, and likely pleased as well, but chances were she would never know.

Tuesday, July 30, 1985

We skipped breakfast, checked out of the hotel, went to the train station, grabbed a bite to go, and then boarded our Dublin-bound train. We were pretty much glued to the train windows, just as we had been yesterday. Dad would have been very jealous of all of the train travel on this trip!

Along the way, we saw a few signs of the Troubles: graffiti, some checkpoints, traffic barriers, and the like. It still felt muted, but it made the unease more obvious. The odds were high that we wouldn’t return to Northern Ireland until much later, enough so that the Troubles were (largely) in the rear view mirror.

Along the way, we hashed out the rest of our plans. Everyone agreed: we would extend our trip by a week and fly back on August 11th. We would stay in Houston until the 19th (barring anything pressing), then go back to College Station and get settled in. With that, we wouldn’t go right back to London, but would instead tour the middle of England first.

Candice and Sherry wouldn’t arrive until the 24th, so we would have plenty of time with just the six of us. Things would change after that. We all hoped and believed the changes would be good ones, but there would be no way to know until we saw what happened.

We picked up our rental car at Dublin’s train station, then headed to our hotel. We had two nights here, after which we would do some driving.

After dinner and some relaxing, we made some late phone calls to Houston and College Station, making sure everyone knew our plans. The parents all seemed reasonably happy with our schedule, and Cammie and Mel were, too. They were looking forward to having us home, but not in desperate need of us.

Cammie was now a fully accredited real estate broker and was helping Maxine with some of her clients. Profitably, too! She was a commissioned employee and entitled to a share of anything she worked on. Only half of a percent for anything Maxine pointed her to (which was everything thus far), and she hadn’t closed anything yet, but it could be a start. Even one transaction might mean Cammie’s finances would be more stable for the coming year.

She was still waiting for her hearing nervously. Her lawyer said he was confident, though. That was helping her, I was pretty sure.

One of those calls was to Jane. We made an appointment for August 15th. She had an opening from three to five, which worked perfectly for us. Nothing had really come up, but it was always good to check in.

I called Sue Ann, too, and finalized our return tickets. We could still change them, but it would no longer be easy. On the other hand, we had four good seats (two by two, as on the other flight) on a set flight, which was pretty good for open tickets.

Wednesday, July 31, 1985

Today’s highlight was the Guinness brewery tour. We all had a lot of fun, and that was totally aside from the tasting. It wasn’t necessarily better than the distillery tours — those had been great, too! — but it was fascinating.

Dublin itself was lovely, and we could easily have spent days touring it, but we didn’t have days. Or, perhaps, we did, but we were still of the opinion that breadth was preferable to depth. We would have many, many years to return to places we particularly wanted to take a deeper look at, and I was certain we would do so. Perhaps these wouldn’t be the places, but we would have favorites to return to.

Friday, August 2, 1985

Yesterday and today were ‘the journey is the destination’ days. We meandered our way up to Ballyshannon, then to Limerick, and finally to Cork. The roads were hardly that direct, and we often passed up the major roads in favor of seeing more small towns and villages.

Paige summed up the impact of it as we were approaching Cork.

“It’s ... the most amazing part, to me, is just ... these are places people have lived for hundreds of years. Thousands, some of them! We just don’t have that. It feels different. It’s like ... well, most likely Ang, Steve, and I have relatives who came to the US from Ireland or Britain or Scotland or all of the above, and I just ... I imagine someone growing up in one of these little villages, where their family lived for generations, and there’s a famine or a war or something and they just throw up their hands and figure out how to get on a ship to America. That’s some huge leap of faith!”

Angie nodded, and said, “Yeah. I see that. I’ve been kinda more looking at the buildings and all that. Wondering how long some of them have been there, doing the same job they’re doing now. Like, in Houston, there’s almost nothing that’s been whatever it is for as long as a human lifetime. Some old buildings, sure, but it’s nearly all new. Plus, stuff keeps getting torn down when it gets ‘old.’ Whereas here, these little towns have pubs that were probably frequented by people’s great-great-great-grandfathers.”

Jas giggled a bit.

“I don’t really have a dog in this fight,” she said, “But I get it. From what I understand, some villages in Vietnam have been there for over a thousand years. Saigon is about that old. Parts of France are just plain ancient, too. I haven’t lived in any of those places, though, and it’s been a long time since I was in France. It just felt ‘old’ to me back then. I’m sure I’d get it a lot better now.”

“Maybe next summer,” I said, smiling.

Jas gave me a big smile. We both knew ‘maybe next summer’ implied an engagement before then. It’s not as if we hadn’t hinted about when. We’d basically agreed, though, that she wouldn’t ask, even indirectly, and I wouldn’t hint. Keeping the proposal a surprise was a goal for both of us.

The whole thing was slightly unnerving. It added pressure. Still, Jas was entirely worth the pressure, and it would be a terrific memory for both of us if I did it right. Heck, even if I did it ‘wrong,’ most likely that would be a terrific memory, too. It would take a lot to really wreck the moment, after all.

Well, that wasn’t true. It would be terribly easy to wreck it, but I wasn’t going to make any really dumb mistakes.

Probably.

As Angie put it: “One does not journey to Cork and not kiss the Blarney Stone!”

I was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but it was close enough to true. We made time for a trip to Blarney Castle, ascended to the castle’s peak, and then each leaned backward, kissing the stone upside-down. That’s the only way to do it. We each helped the others with their endeavors, of course. It would have been much, much more difficult without friends.

On the way back down, Paige said, “So...”

“Yes?” Angie said, after a few seconds.

“Kissing the stone is supposed to give us the gift of gab, right? Eloquence, flattery, smooth talk, all of that. Cleverness and wit.”

“Uh-huh,” Angie said.

“So ... how exactly is it that we’re supposed to know if it worked?” Paige said, giggling.

Jas grinned.

“You have a point there!” she said.

“She does!” I said.

Angie giggled, too.

“If we’d done this years ago, we could have attributed all those wins to the stone!” she said.

“We could!” Paige said.

Jas shrugged, and said, “I don’t feel any more eloquent. But how would we know?”

“We could make Cammie and Mel judge,” I said. “If they think we’ve got more gab, blame the stone. If they think we’re just BSing...”

“Blame the stone!” Paige and Angie said, together.

“Right!” Jas said.

We tried to call Cammie, but only got the machine. So, we told the machine we hoped Cammie (and/or her lawyer) had kicked ass in the hearing and they were out celebrating. Since we’d be traveling, we told her we’d just call her back tomorrow in the afternoon her time.

After we went to bed, Jas argued we should see if the Blarney stone had given us any extra skills with our mouths. After fairly extensive research, we decided it was too soon to tell and we would need to continue our research.

Many times.

Many, many times.