On our last full day in County Kerry's town of Tralee, we are taking care of odds and ends. We walked a couple blocks from the hotel to a laundromat to have our laundry done and noticed a poor car that must have been driving down one of the narrow streets.
Thank goodness that isn't our rental car---but we've come close to that kind of accident.
You may not be interested in the photo, but we will be looking at it before each of our drives to remember to pull in our side mirrors when we get into any town's narrow streets.
It also reminded us of what the repairman at the auto shop was telling a car owner: "Well look, if I can't fix your brakes, I'll at the least make your horn louder." ;-)
We then drove over to the County Kerry Library where our friend from Knocknagoshel, Luke Keane, mentioned that the "O'Kief" books had a wealth of information, although it would be "a needle in the hay stack search" since the books had only a limited index system.
We did a lot of searching, but didn't find any specific links on our Great-grandfather Mathew to the Kerry area.
Working up an appetite from all that research, we headed to Johnny Frank's Pub and Restaurant for some "pub grub" and noticed the sign over the bar that said: "Those Who Drink To Forget, Please Pay In Advance." ;-)
More good food as Sue had the roast pork and I had the Guinness beef stew.
The TV's in the pub had live coverage of golf's "Ryder Cup" which started today. And all the TV sports news this week has been talking mostly about this Sunday's All-Ireland Football Championship.
I had things mixed up in an earlier posting. County Kerry already played County Cork during the week. Kerry won that regional game and will play in the final against County Tyrone in Croke Park in Dublin this Sunday. And "Gaelic Football" isn't like our football, nor like soccer---it's sort of a mixture of both with a little rugby too that uses a different ball and has a different set of rules.
As long as we were in the area, we did a little walking around the town centre of Tralee and did a little window shopping, but still no sweater for Sue.
Before our evening swim at the hotel, we had time to drive back to Castleisland to look at the records of Sts. Stephen and John Cathedral, but the sacristant had just left for the day, as we were told by one of the parishioners who saw us knocking on the church office door.
We were hoping to check on a little parish that had recently merged with this church. That little parish of Scartiglin/Gortgloss had a "Mathew Keane" listed on its rolls, so we were hoping to find more specific information.
So, we only lit a candle and headed back to Tralee.
Another large and beautiful church with a steeple reaching right up to heaven.
Which reminds us of an old man named Tom Keating from a little village nearby who died and went to heaven only to find that their was now a test to get into heaven.
St. Peter explained that it was God's new policy, but was really based on all that a person had learned in one's life experiences on earth. That was little consolation for Tom who wasn't the brightest bulb in any of his church or school classes.
"You'll do just fine if you take your time and think long and hard on your answers," said a very positive St. Peter.
"The first question is an easy one to get you warmed up, but don't make a foolish mistake because God doesn't want anyone to be foolish," said St. Peter.
"Now," said St. Peter, "question one is: 'What are two days of the week that start with the letter "T" ?' "
"Oh, I know that one, sure," said Tom.
"Now, now, take your time and don't make a foolish mistake," urged St. Peter.
Tom went right ahead and said, "The two days of the week that start with "T" are "today" and "tomorrow."
"Well, I can't exactly say you're wrong," said St. Peter, "but that's not what we had in mind, but we'll give you that one. And please slow down with your answers so you don't go wrong."
"Question two," continued St. Peter, "is how many seconds are there in a year?" God wants to know if you put your mind to good use, so if you take your time and use the pencil and paper over there, you should be able to come up with the right answer with careful work."
"Oh, sure, that's an easy one," said Tom, "I can give you that answer straight away."
"Wouldn't you like to be safe and use the pencil and paper to figure it out exactly?" asked St. Peter, trying to get Tom to slow down.
"No, that's okay," said Tom, "the number of seconds in a year are '12'. That would be 'the second of January,' 'the second of February,' 'the second of March,' and so on."
"Oh my," said St. Peter, "I guess you're right in a sense, so I can't say you're wrong, but please slow down and think things through because the third question is the toughest."
"I will be careful," said Tom as he began to feel rather proud of his efforts thus far.
"Question three," said St. Peter, "is what is God's first name? You should know this because, if you were a good person, you're guardian angel would have whispered His first name in your ear while you were sleeping." St. Peter went on to say, "So,
p-l-e-a-s-e stop and think about your answer to see if it's up there in your memory banks."
"Oh, I don't think that will be hard to answer," said Tom, "I may have had lots of reminders by listening to the choir while I prayed."
Without much thought, Tom said, "God's first name is 'Andrew,' or 'Andy,' for short. I've heard our choir sing it out many times."
"It goes like this," Tom said as he proceeded to sing out,
"And he walks with me,
And he talks with me,
And he tells me I am his own...'."
"Oh, go ahead, you're in," said St. Peter. ;-)
No comments:
Post a Comment