The Queen and The Silver Fox

While I don't nearly have the tales to tell of new ally and walk ways explored, I do have a few experiences of walking an old one again for the first time in a long time.

As you know, since getting home I've been on the farm. Life has been quiet, a few chores here and there. While we haven't any free range pigs or chickens, and we don't have an old apple tree in the middle of the pasture that I can lay under with my blue jean overalls, no shirt and a bit of wheat grass to chew on and nap beneath my wicker hat, it does, in a more contemporary sense, remain relaxed.

Today I have the house to myself. I've set myself up with a pot of coffee, my guitar to my right, an address book and pad of paper.

I've been seated for three hours and thus far: no letters. Well, none hand written.

But that's beside the point.

I've got back into a bar I worked at six years ago. Working a few shifts on the weekend, making more cocktails than I can remember and at the same time
remembering how different, wonderfully different, it was to work in Cork.

But that's beside the beside the point.

The new bar is the same, essentially. Everything is in the same place it was, the equipment and tables and doors and windows. Even some of the semipermanent furniture, that is to say the regulars, hasn't changed. Just outside my peripherals the other day, well yesterday in fact, I heard two familiar voices ask each other if what they saw was a familiar face.

This familiar face, so they said, had changed a bit, but not overly. beard was grown, new glasses worn and hair cut shorter, but besides all that, the Queen said, I was still the same Bird.

With his english accent, he agreed and we dove into some old memories and quick recap of the missing six years. His grey hair, if he didn't die it, would be
red, or so he claimed. She didn't want to just up and move to Panama because she wasn't sure if she'd like it. I was behind the bar again. It seemed that in
six years nothing had changed at all.

It is a very odd feeling, following the footsteps of a me from before, and I have yet to figure out what it is I am learning about him.

If I figure it out, I'll let you know.

For now, I am awaiting winter to allow for Prince Tourism to ride through town and awaken Sleeping Stratford. I miss the transients, the movers, the
nomads and the travelers. They will come, and when they do I will welcome them with open arms.

So many signs

There were so many signs. I should have picked up on all of them. However hindsight is twenty-twenty and knowing now isn't knowing then.

He approached the bar, ordering a round of drinks. Jagerbombs all around. When just as he was about to order his pint of Guinness, he recognized me.

As he approached the bar I thought to myself how familiar he looked. Just a fleeting moment, a flicker of something, someone I used to know. Perhaps not well, but knew none the less. He ordered his Jagers and then, just as it hit him it hit me.

Craig Kelly I thought. At that same moment he shouted my name.

We shook hands and laughed. Nothing specific, simply thoughts of things.

you were in Ireland, weren't you?
sure, sure I was.
How's Nolan? Did you ever meet up with her
craig kelly doesn't know Nolan i thought. How do you know Nolan? asked I.
St. Columban Soccer stupid. Are you ever going to 'coach' us again?
craig kelly doesn't play st. columban soccer.

Things were making less and less sense, and yet at the same time it was making more and more sense. This old friend, whom I had worked with over the stretch of a few summers between semesters at his father's construction company, was confusing me, though only slightly mind you, more and more.

We'll have to catch up again later, I said. I've got to get back to serving up drinks. Let me buy you a pint though.

I poured off his Guinness, my fourth to be poured in Canada, and shook his hand again.

Good to see you again, Bird.
Good to see you too. I'll be damned if Craig Kelly hasn't changed a lot since I saw him last.

I was cut early that night, only half an hour since my old friend had come up to the bar. I poured myself a cola and joined him and his buddies at their booth in the bar.

These are the guys, my old friend said as I vigorously shook hands with one whom I had never met but was pretending to be old friends with.

We small talked again, for a little while, but it was when I asked about his sister, whom I had gone to elementary school with and whom had just had a child, that my embarrassment, which I had no idea was growing, peaked.

You think I'm a Kelly, don't you, said my friend formally known as Craig Kelly.
Not anymore, thought I.

I took a sip of my cola.

It doesn't bother me, said old friend. But I am not a Kelly, I'm a Culligan.
This is bad, thought I.

I took a sip of my cola.

You didn't know who I was when you bought me that beer, did you.
Well, that's not entirely true, thought I. I thought I knew you.

With an awkward smile I finished my cola.

Well Culligan, (because at that time I did not remember his first name to be Ben) I can't say that I have been more embarrassed. Ever.
It doesn't bother me, really Bird. It doesn't bother me at all. It still was great to see you.
It was great to see you too, Culligan, and I hope to see you again.

Though next time as Ben and not as Craig Kelly.

I left through the back door.

2009, Day 3

So here's the deal.

The holidays have come and gone, and I've survived them both. We got snowed in a bit too, and, again, we survived them too. New Years came and went, and, as you might have noticed the trend, i survived.

It seems that with all the planning and stressing and thinking and shopping and walking and drinking and watching of movies that no matter how much you plan to start earlier and earlier each year with everything that needs to go on to make a successful holiday season that it still only ever lasts fifteen minutes.

I am tired. I need a vacation, though from what I don't quite now.

I have started working a bit. It's for a neighbour just up the road who has a job in Toronto building a house. He called me up to give him a hand on a weekend job, a Saturday to be exact which I would have complained, what working on a Saturday and all, except that Saturdays only count for people who work. After he called me up for the weekend job he asked that I help out a bit more, and after I helped out a bit more I ended up more or less semi permanent.

These things just seem to happen that way, and it made for a nice end to the holidays to be back on a job site, with a bit of purpose in mind and some cash coming in to pay off what I have left to pay off.

There are a few more tales to tell about my western adventure, which I hope to get to at some point. Thank you very much for tuning in over the past few weeks even though there has been nothing to tune in to. There have been a few photo's posted up on my flickr, which you may not have seen since I made no mention of them here.

With that in mind I will leave you with one of my favourites from that collection.

Happy New Years All!