A Monk Swimming [antikvár]

There was always the story in any gathering in Lim-erick. Be it boys, girls, the men, the women, bald facts were considered cold and inhuman; therefore all storied events had to be wrapped in words. Warm words, serried words, glittering, poetic, harsh, and even blasphemous words. So the cold evenings were made warm with myths and tales of dirty doings and derring-do, and horrific yarns of the tortures of hell awaiting the evildoer. We the children sat in darkness, shivering in horrored delight, having been told we had two ears and unready tongue. My father, Malachy, and his chums, Mr. Meehan, Mr. Looney, and Mr. Moran, spun out the silver-gold yarns and, by sheer eloquence, made our miserable surroundings disappear. And my father would sing his patriotic odes to Ireland, like the one about Roddy McCorley going to die on the bridge of Toome. My mother sang droopy love songs like, "We Are in Love with You, My Heart and I." Death brought a silence to our house. First Baby Margaret Mary