Day 36/37: Carlinsville (June 30-July 1)

I tried Richard again this morning and got through to him this time. He said he'd come up & bring me down to Carlinsville. He arrive around 1pm after what seemed an age waiting for him. He had got lost & the directions he'd been given only confused him more. Any way off we went for Carlinsville & two days that should have come with a health warning. It was a case of "and now for something completely different"!!

Rich, as he likes to be called, was a gent, a very genial host. He sure knows how to talk, to be honest I hardly got a word in edgeways during the two days I was there. He is an elderly gentleman, living alone and, I suppose with an unexpected visitor was delighted to have somebody to show around. Rich is extremely proud of his Irish roots & heritage though some of it is a bit twee for my liking. To have an Irish relative to show around, however distant, was like have a seal of authenticity stamped on to his own sense of Irishness.

And by Jaysus Rich didn't hang back in showing me around. Carlinsville has a population of about about 5,700. I was introduced, I reckon, to about 4,500 of its good citizens. Our story was repeated & repeated, and repeated. I had cycled down to New York and back to Boston, I cycled up and down & in and out. I had cycled to places even I didn't know I'd been to. I was like a wee toy brought out to show to the locals who gazed at me curiously. A token Paddy paraded for the locals. I now know what it feels like for the Sam Maguire on All-Ireland Day. I was passed around from one to the next and on and on, the excitement was unreal. Rich was hollerin, the crowds were hollerin. God-darn it even I started a-hollerin. The commotion attracted more onlookers as word got round that a real, live leprechaun was in town. Soon we moseyed on into town. With all that hollerin we just had to wet our whistles with frosted mugs of the old black stuff from the auld sod. We went into Ryans Irish bar saloon where some were shouting at the bar ma... err, bar tender to pull out the black stuff.
'Well, actually, lads, I don't drink Guinness!'. 'Might I perchance try a tipple of your finest root Beer..... please?
Quiet descends on the bar.
Rich shuffles nervously and the orders himself a bottle of Bud. Everybody else murmers with a certain relief and order their Bud lites & sodas. The bar tender was disgusted. Nobody really wanted to drink that warm oily muck that passes for Guinness in these parts.
To be cont............