Being Irish

March, 1986


It was our first road trip together.  Spring break, freshman year of college. We drove my car from Fort Worth, Texas, to Detroit, Michigan. Straight through. I borrowed sweaters from my roommate. Good thing, since it was cold in the Midwest that March. Snow, even. Ice on the Detroit river.

I had never been so far away from home. I was so nervous to meet his family that we drove around Trenton for a while before heading to his house. I fell asleep (we'd been up for more than 24 hours) playing poker with him and his younger sister, who was nice enough to let me share her room for the week.

On St. Patrick's Day, we celebrated with his older sister and her boyfriend at a Knights of Columbus Hall. All they had to drink there was green beer. No water. Only green beer. He won a huge bottle of wine, shaped like a naked woman kneeling with her arms raised above her head. At some point during our second semester at college, he and some buddies drank the wine and survived to tell about it. We still have the bottle somewhere. It has made every single move with us. For a while we used it as a piggy bank.

He told me he loved me that spring break, right in his parents' TV room. His mom served us huge portions of food, including corned beef and cabbage. They laughed at my southern accent, especially when I ordered iced tea at a restaurant.

They were the first family I remember being so in touch with their roots. My dad's family is Scotch-Irish, but we never really thought much about it. Certainly never celebrated it.

And then he'd make me a mix tape with a little leprechaun on it. He'd write me poetry.

We'd marry and dance to the Pogues (Irish) at our wedding. We'd eventually have kids and name them Cameron Knox (Scottish, from both sides of the family) and Liam (Irish, and a third generation of Williams). We would introduce those kids to Irish music, maybe a folktale or two.

We would, on certain Saint Patrick's Days, dance in our own living room, to Irish music playing on the stereo. We would even rise from a lunch of guacamole (green) and green grapes when led by an Irish fiddle. And life would be good.