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Aug. 20, 2005 My mother and her relatives were Cherokee, but my father and his relatives were Irish. My father and his brother were born in Chicago, but their father and his brother, Nick Keyes, came from the old country. Uncle Nick and Aunt Kathleen were from County Kilkenny in Ireland. Both had ruddy complexions and spoke with a soft Irish accent. I don’t know exactly when or why they came to the US, but their five children, Kevin, Pat, Patsy, Dolly and Betty were born in Chicago. Though they all looked just as Irish as their parents, they spoke American English. I haven’t seen any of these people since I was a teen-ager, which would have been in the 50’s. The three girls had American non-Irish husbands. Kevin died young of cancer and Pat was just getting married last time I saw him. During most of my childhood, my parents, brother and I lived in Arizona and New Mexico, but there were some years when we were in Chicago, and this is when I got to know these people. Naturally, they were all Catholic. A question of the possibility that there was any other way to be never even arose. Weddings, funerals and baptisms were always performed by American Irish priests in parish churches. The family would get dressed up and betake themselves to the church with the most serious mien and decorum imaginable. Yet at home, in their middle-middle-class house on Chicago’s far south side, during dinners and get-togethers, there was a seldom a word about religion. They always said grace perfunctorily at meals though. For the most part, the extended family did not consist of professional people. Mostly the men were tradesmen, some of whom had graduated to being contractors or retail supply-house-owners, earning handsome money. To me, in my late teens, their family reunions were boring and banal. Typically, in Nick and Kathleen’s living room, when everyone had gathered round, they might sing some songs. But generally these were the most inane songs, whose lyrics they didn’t even know. Dolly’s husband, Bill, would get out his ukulele, and we’d all sing some Irish or American Irish songs at first, but usually within minutes we would be down to “Old McDonald Has a Farm”, “That Wide River is Jordan” or “Jingle Bells”. Every time somebody made a mistake, there’d be jokes and hoorays and hoots. Or they’d start talking about football and baseball, and for half an hour, all you would hear was “Packers!”, “Bears!”, “Cubs!”, etc. Sometimes they even drove as far as Green Bay, Wisconsin to see a game. They also rehashed television shows and movies they had seen. There would always be someone who asked, “Has anyone heard any good jokes lately?” Then they’d take turns telling the most useless jokes imaginable, most of which were either slightly off-color, but not really dirty, or racial. They usually had some good jokes about blacks, rarely about other ethnic groups. And they often complained about black encroachments on their neigborhood. To their credit, they never resorted to organized games, like playing pinochle, Scrabble or Monopoly, which to me, even at that young age, were the height of tedium. It was always conversation that dominated the meetings. But the conversation was mere chit-chat. Basically, by the time I was eighteen or so, I had begun to retire from that milieu. They could sense I was a maverick, and may have disliked me or disapproved of me faintly, but they didn’t make a big issue of it at these reunions. These people had no interest in higher things. They knew something of Irish history and traditions, and hated people of English descent, but otherwise knew nothing about history. They couldn’t have cared less about world geography, science, mathematics, classical music or literature. If I had said, “I’m reading Shakespeare”, someone would have said, “Well, get me, I’m reading Shakespeare. Whoopee!” If any one them had been reading anything at all, it would have been Earl Stanley Gardner, Erskine Caldwell or Mickey Spillane. If I had said, "I like Bach," they would start talking about Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra. Not one of them spoke a word of any foreign language, and if any of them had done any travelling, it was during military service or vacation, though they probably all would have preferred Las Vegas to any foreign city. However, they were all hardworking, loyal people, dependable, thrifty and industrious. They raised families and bought houses, saved their money and gave to the church. They didn’t understand that they were ignorant people, and would defend their viewpoints very stubbornly. Perhaps that’s what I should have been like, but I just couldn’t stand the stultifying atmosphere. I wanted to see the world, go places and do things. To blazes with Aunt Kathleen's baked ham and Uncle Bill’s ukulele every Sunday! ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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