Barry Clifford: Tales from New York- Mad Bob (Part 4)

Bob’s habit now and again was to ask me to go for a drink every Friday the day after we got paid. After I gave him one too many excuses before to avoid that day I sensed Bob was getting pissed off today, so for self – preservations sake only, I finally agreed. It went well, sort of.

The key to Bob was to be agreeable in nature and not to disagree at all on the many subjects that he considered himself the final word for that could well be the case. Even as the cold beer buzz of a Heinekan loosened my tongue and gave me dutch courage to tease Bob a bit, it was gentle as to be unnoticed. So, the night dragged on slowly and I was happy to eventually get the taxi home to bed. Where Bob normally went in the early hours on a Saturday was to some drug fuelled party and where he went this night. It did not go well.

In the haze of opium, cocaine and crack, others at the party perhaps did not know Bob as well as I did, or at least the rules that applied in dealing with him, and an argument ensued. A man in a drug fuelled rage there told Bob he was going to shoot him if Bobby did not shut his mouth. Bob replied: “Not if I don’t shoot you first.” Bob then pulled out his 34 revolver and shot the man in the stomach. The man, held alive by the drugs that stopped him going into shock, fell to the floor. The ambulance was called as Bob left the building.

Bob was at work that Monday and very nervous. He knew he was in trouble for he was still out on parole. The following week he brightened when he was told that the man refused to press charges such was his fear of Bob. His stomach pains made sure he kept that point of view. The week after that Bob was back to his old self at work or at the least the one that was easier to deal showed up most of the time. But it was not to last.

To be continued.

By Barry Clifford 

        

   

Barry Clifford: Tales From New York- Mad Bob (Part 3)

In prison Bobby was king of his castle which was his 6’x 10’ cell. He was left alone in there for the safety of other prisoners for Bobby only worked best in the company of women and the wardens wanted a quiet life for the pay was not that good to have it any other way. Bob mingled well in the mess hall and recreation area and was no trouble if you did not cause him any.

One of the prisoners he met there was sent down for life because he came home to his shared apartment one night and killed the other two that shared it with him because they were having sexual relations as he walked in. The canine was the first to die and the man quickly followed. Bob laughed hard telling this story and laughed even harder at what he was about to tell me.

There was this other inmate. He played Bobby’s only best friend for a while until he met his own ethnic group every time and then changed roles rather quickly, and too quickly, acting as if he did not know Bob. After Bobby checked himself for fleas in case that was the reason he was being ignored, he decided he was going to get Mexican Pete for this insult when he could not find any on him. He had a rather cunning plan.

Bob and Mexican Pete with another group got drunk one night on prison moonshine on a weekend when the rules were relaxed a bit and the cell doors were not on lock-down. Mexican Pete soon passed out. When he did, Bob and the others pulled his pants down and smeared Vaseline where the sun did not shine on him and did nothing else but wait, and wait until Mexican Pete woke up in the morning. His outraged screams woke the rest of them who had fallen asleep for he was convinced he had been raped while he had been asleep, and no one ever did tell that he was still a virgin before and afterwards. In between Bob’s lecherous laugh he told me that Mexican Pete never got uppity or strange with him or anyone else again.

As Bob was telling me these stories of happier times, I knew his love of cocaine was not in control and his paranoia was getting worse for he was armed like never before. He still carried a serrated blade strapped to his leg but now a Dillinger pistol in a cigarette box that held one bullet was carried with it. Added to this  growing arsenal was a snubbed nose. 34 revolver and a magnum 45 that was always carried in his lunch bag. My nervousness grew with his paranoia. 

To be continued........

By Barry Clifford        

Photos: Thoughtful Images

Photos: Ireland; Where Else?

By Barry

Article: Letters from the New World

A sense of isolation was felt keenly by the Irish diaspora in the USA in the late 1800s whose sole means of communication was the letter home. Dan Buckley dips in to some of them

TO preserve from desecration the remains of 6,000 immigrants who died of Ship Fever,” reads the commemoration, chiselled out of bedrock to mark the place where, in 1847, thousands of Irish immigrants drew their last breath while fleeing the ravages of famine at home.

The words are inscribed on The Black Rock, a large, granite boulder perched on a hillock near Goose Village in Montreal, Canada. It was placed there in 1859 as a salute to Irish immigrants whose remains were found during the construction of the city’s Victoria Bridge. The immigrants, quarantined with typhus, known as ship fever, had died in the fever sheds built there to prevent the spread of disease.

Like the hundreds of thousands who sought to escape hunger, they had pinned their hopes on the ships, seeing in Canada, as in Australia, Britain and the US a place of rebirth. For many, the new terra firma became a final resting place.

Now a new wave of emigration is in full flight, as tens of thousands again choose a ticket-of-leave as their only way out of penury and an uncertain future. Though better fed, educated and blessed with instant communication, leaving for work abroad is an emotional experience for those who go as well as those they leave behind.

The 21st-century emigrant has much in common with those who fled Ireland in the 19th and early 20th century. Facebook is no substitute for flesh-and-blood friends, while watching the All-Ireland or Heineken Cup matches on a TV in Boston will evoke a wistful longing for home.

That sense of isolation was felt by the Irish diaspora which had grown hugely in the late 1800s and whose sole means of communication was the letter home.

Writing from America in 1889 to her parents-in-law in Mitchelstown, Co Cork, Bridget Chamberlain reflected on her and her husband’s longing for home.

“James is often wishing to be back in Mitchelstown + I wish to be back in Limerick... we are tired of Boston especially holidays it is so lonely.”

She and her husband were well off compared to many Irish people who settled overseas at the time, as Bridget explains.

“As for happiness + comfort we could not wish for any more. James holds a good job + makes good pay + I work all the time at my own business so I think we have no reason to complain.”

Included in the letter was a postal order for £2. Being the dutiful daughter-in-law, Bridget was anxious not to offend.

“Dear Mrs Chamberlain enclosed you will find a post office order for £2 which you will please accept + get yourself a Xmas present for it as I thought you could suit yourself better than I could send. Please don’t feel angry with me for sending it as I only want you to get a present to suit yourself.”

The letter is among the Chamberlain collection of hundreds of letters and notes sent home to Mitchelstown. They form part of research being undertaken by historian Alan Noonan, who struck a rich vein of immigrant letters while working on a dissertation on Irish miners in the US from 1845-1920.

Bridget’s husband, James, was a prolific letter writer. In August 1891, he wrote: “Dear Mother, I enclosed for you in this letter an order for the small sum of £1.0.0. It is the best I could do at present perhaps after a little time I hope to be able to send you Some more) these months ar our dull season & when trade open again I will send you a little more Please God.

I expect please God an increase in the family next month... which I hope will turn out all right to such cases in America cost at least from £8 to £10.0.0 Wm. is getting Board wages At present & I leave him keep 12 shillings per week for him self So as that he might send you some little or much next month and have a little pocket money for him self.

“I remain your ever fond son in Christ Our Lord J.C.”

In another, James bemoans Irish employers’ greed.

“Better than I can now the menast part of an Irish Boss is when a person have a holiday out of the week or half day... if you work by the week each ½ hour you give the sucker it means 25 or 30 cents to him nothing for you... that is the Irish every time.

“I felt sore when the Yankee Bosses I had went into other business. It is the Jews & the cheap Irish that hold the trade now... they landed in the country when any kind of thing could get work & they hold it through cheap labour & gall.

“I am sending some papers read of the strikes I remain your ever loving Son in Christ our Lord With best love from wife & children Please God we all live until Saint Ptk Day. Send Shamrocks in Envelope they hold fresher & greener they go in to dust in a Box & it cost you more to sent them. Send me Cork Examiner.”

A particularly moving letter was sent by James Chamberlain to his parents, dated September 20, 1881:

“My Dear father and mother

“I received your papers on the 19 and your letters on the 20 which I can’t express in words how thankful I am to you for your generosity and goodness to me... No-one can tell the love that I have for you, my dear father and mother, brothers and sister, and I would never leave home were it not for you...

“I remain Yours Ever Fond Son in Christ Our Lord J.C.”

Later letters reveal that the family prospered in America. A letter dated January 2, 1889 reads:

“Dear Mother & Brother in Christ our Lord,

“I write this letter to you hoping with the Blessing of God we will Enjoy the new year in the fear & love of God & thank God for his goodness to us all I never had better health in my life than I have had since I came to america as regards beings thin I got a little thin in July & August When Every person get a little thin but if there be any good in fat the clothes that I Bought in August the [they] are so small for me that I did not ware them since October & I have now bought another suit. It is a dress suit £8.10.0 worth and I have money enough if I wanted to go home and what would bring me to America again, thank God..”

Although historically significant, the letters are not kept in a museum. They were gathered by generations of Chamberlains and shoved into a biscuit tin, then placed in the attic of the Mitchelstown family home.

That’s where Sean Chamberlain, 72, found them.

“I was about nine or 10 back in the 1940s... I found a load of old letters stuck in a Jacob’s biscuit tin. There were a few photos there as well.

“The letters were vaguely exciting for me because they came from America. My father knew nothing about relatives in America.

“Most of the letters were from my two great-granduncles. There were three brothers in all who went to America. Two of them got on well but one, John, who used to be a monk in Listowel, was a right tearaway. He went to America and spent most of the time there on the piss. He was finally deported from there in 1920.”

Although Sean’s father ran a family bakery on Main Street in Mitchelstown, his son’s passion was music and he too took the emigrant boat.

“When I did my Leaving Cert in 1957 I went straight to England to make sure I would never be a baker. We had a little showband and I played the accordion and saxophone.”

However, he was persuaded to return home and he and brother Paddy continue the bakery business.

Twenty years ago, a bus of US tourists passed the bakery when the name attracted their attention.

“One of them decided to take a chance on writing, because it was an unusual surname.

“One woman, a Mrs Norton, made initial contact and my brother, Paddy, wrote back. Mrs Norton has died since, but her brother, Robert, came to visit us and we have been out him. Bob lives in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Paddy and I have been out there a couple of times.”

ANOTHER batch of letters unearthed by Alan Noonan includes the Hurley collection. This involves the brothers Michael and Denis Hurley, from Clonakilty, Co Cork, who emigrated to the US in the 1870s.

Michael sailed to America around 1871 and settled in Carson City, Nevada, and then moved around working for railroad companies. He first worked for Oregan Railway and Navigation Co but lost his job for taking part in the Pullman Strike, a national conflict between unions and railroads.

Denis landed in Boston in 1873 and teamed up with his brother, working on the railroads between San Francisco and Carson City. While Michael lost all his savings on bad investments, Denis was luckier and ran for the Nevada legislature in 1905. Although defeated in that contest, he was later made chairman of the City Council and died in 1938, leaving $10,000.

Denis had a quirky sense of humour, as a letter dated May 25, 1873 to his cousin Denis Ryan in Clonakilty attests.

“This climate is fatal to the longevity of shoes on account of its extreme drought. Before a month’s wear, the soles and uppers of store boots apply for a divorce — whether at the instance of the sole or the upper I cannot tell, and the divorce is readily granted. Why not in a country in which the marriage tie between man and woman is so easily severed? Why not the shoes in a like manner when they become tired of so close a relationship between them, wish for a separation, each desiring to go its own way...”

He was also a fine observer of people in the melting pot of America.

“Men from every nation under heaven may be found in Carson. The long-tailed, sombre-looking Chinaman; the black-haired red skinned Indian, with chalk lines drawn across their face on each side of the nose, with their women called Mahalies, having their infants called Papooses wrapped on their backs. The swarthy, copper-coloured Mexican; the slow thoughtful-looking German; the more lively Frenchman, with Swedes, Swiss, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese etc..”

It was a spirit of adventure and seeking their fortune that drove Michael and Denis Hurley to emigrate, rather than penury. Their father was a landowner and their parents well-off, so much so that the brothers, exhibiting shades of the future Celtic Tiger, wrote home looking for a loan of £100 (then worth $500) to invest in gold and silver mines in Nevada.

Like many an emigrant since, the brothers had notions of making a quick buck to fund their early retirement from the tedium of daily manual work. In May, 1877, Denis wrote:

“Working all a man’s life is played out. Big men have made work scarce and money tight in order to be master of everything. We know half a dozen mines that are known to have large ore-bodies whose stock is selling today for $10. That will undoubtedly go up in the hundreds before next November.”

He urged his father to send the money at once in case the opportunity passed them by.

“If you intend to send, lose not a day, no excuse is worth a cent. We are neither drinking nor rawdying nor squandering but a rare chance has presented itself, and we want to avail of it.”

Like the so-called “Aer Lingus carpenters” over 100 hundred years later, they dreamed of returning home.

“We have several thousand dollars at stake, and with your loan we are almost morally certain that next Fall would render us independent of works and Christmas find us home together with a handsome fortune.”

There is no account in later letters of whether that particular investment succeeded or not, but the likelihood is that it didn’t as Denis and Michael Hurley never saw their homeland again and ended their days 5,000 miles from home.

Dan Buckly

Article: Rejected !!!!

Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen, Jr., and Adam Clayton were just teenagers when they formed U2 in 1976. (Though they were originally known as The Larry Mullen Band, then Feedback, then The Hype.) By the fall of 1979, they had released their first single in Dublin, though it was with no thanks to London-based RSO Records, who had rejected the band’s submission in May of the same year. The reason, as briefly explained in a letter to the man sometimes known as Paul Hewson, was that it was “not suitable for us at present.” Within a year, U2 had signed with Island Records and released their first international single, “11 O’Clock Tick Tock.” Hmmm… wonder if they would be suitable for RSO now?

 There’s no date on this rejection letter to Madonna’s team. But it must have been before she signed with Sire Records in 1982, a year before she released her first, self-titled album (which has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide).

Though author Stieg Larsson didn’t live long enough to witness his own greatest success with the Millennium series, he did know the sting of rejection, beginning with his application to journalism school in Stockholm at the Joint Committee of Colleges of Journalism. In case you don’t speak Swedish, “This is a letter saying ‘you are not good enough to be a journalist’ to a man who went on to create a supremely creative, crusading magazine which fought against the worsening tide of extreme right thinking and activity in Sweden,” publisher Christopher MacLehose told The Guardian in 2011, right before the letter was auctioned off in London.

Sourced

Video: One Guy knocks three out for messing with his wife