Ireland

Old Irish Blessing
May God bless those who love us.
And for those who don't love us,
may God turn their hearts.
And for those whose hearts cannot be turned,
may God turn their ankles
so that we may know them by their limping.

They arrived by automobile from a location unknown.

The group entered a pub and had a drink.

The town was small, surely the hotel was not far from their present location.

My dad, John, not wanting to interrupt the wonderful time his companions were having by taking an offered lift,decided to leave the company of his friends and walk back to his hotel.

Upon exiting the pub John looked around.

He realized he was not exactly sure where he was or in what direction the hotel might be.

He stood perplexed for a moment.

A man strolled up to him and asked if he could be of assistance.

"Yes,I would like directions to reach the hotel where I am staying."replied John.

The man quickly replied "Which way are you heading then?"

John is stunned into silence and unable to speak.

His thoughts were, well, if I knew which way to head I would not be in need of directions. Being a man who could think quickly, and considering the possibility that this gentleman may be mentally impaired or inebriated, he decided the best way to rid himself of this helpful individual is just to say right or left and seek instruction elsewhere.

John replied "Right."

The man proceeded to give him exact directions to where he needed to go.

John headed off for the hotel and discovered the directions were dead on.

The Irish are a strange lot he thought.

I wonder what he would have said if I had told him left?

The next day John picked up a map and realized he could have gone left or right to reach his hotel. One route may have been a tad more circuitous but he could arrive at his destination either way. The man would have given precise directions if he had decided to go left instead of right.

My Dad told me that story when he returned from his trip to Dingle.

This was one of his many wonderful experiences when he was across the pond visiting Ireland.

You can reach your destination from many different directions.

When I have time I prefer the scenic route.



May your glass be ever full.

May the roof over your head be always strong.

And may you be in heaven a half an hour

before the devil knows you're dead.

Friday Feast #137

Vorspeise
What are you proud of?

My Family

Suppe
What is the best thing you’ve ever won as a prize?



A trip to The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in the southern Caribbean, lying northeast of the South American nation of Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles. It also shares maritime boundaries with Barbados to the northeast and Guyana to the southeast.

Salat
Name something you do that is a waste of time.


Dusting

Hauptgericht
In what year of your life did you change the most?

I have had more than one year of major change.
I could easily list 6.

First Big Change

When I joined the Air Force

Second Big Change

When I became a Mommy

Nachtisch
Where is a place you consider to be very tranquil?



Sailing on the Chesapeake Bay with my dad

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Thursday Thirteen (21st)

North Dakota:

It Really Is One Of The 50 States!

There are too many for one Thursday Thirteen.
Part 1 of 3

You might be from North Dakota:

1. If you own four house keys and only one is yours . . .

2. If the only car you pass in two and a half hours is a State Trooper . . .

3. If you know about your children’s shenanigans before they even reached home. .

4. If your nearest neighbor is a long-distance phone call..

5. If in winter, you leave your car running in the parking lot while you shop for groceries. . .

6. If Swedes are the minority population group in your community . . .

7. If at least three times a year your kitchen doubles as a meat processing plant . . .

8. If you have been served Fleischküchle, Lutefisk, and Lefse and you can pronounce them all correctly…

9. If you understand ALL the uses of the word
"Uff-Da" . . .

10. If you never confuse "Yah," "Yep," and
"Yah y'betch yah" . . .

11. If you have ever said,
"Cold weather keeps out the riff-raff" . . .

12. If you tell jokes about Ole, Lena, and Lars . . .

13. If Ole and Lena jokes remind you of real people you know!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged!
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Wordless Wednesday

Visit Wordless Wednesday Participants

Fishing Game Warden

“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'” ~Charles M. Schulz

One morning the husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap.

Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out. She motors out a short distance, anchors,

and reads her book.

Along comes a Game Warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, "Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?"

"Reading a book," she replies, (thinking, "Isn't that obvious?")

"You're in a Restricted Fishing Area," he informs her.

"I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading."

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."

"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault," says the woman.

"But I haven't even touched you," says the game warden.

"That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment."

"Have a nice day ma'am," and he left.

MORAL:

Never argue with a woman who reads. It's likely she can also think.

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Err, umm, Honey?
I think I went a little too far when I parked the car.

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Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.

I'm not a pessimist. I'm just optimistically challenged.

Jim Croce

“Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Jim Croce
Wikipedia

James Joseph Croce (January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973), popularly known as Jim Croce (pronounced CRO-chee), was an American singer-songwriter.

Early life
Croce was born in South Philadelphia. He graduated from Upper Darby High School in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania in 1960 where in 1976, he was the first former student to be added to the high school's Wall of Fame. While attending Villanova University (1965 graduate), Croce became interested in becoming a professional musician and met his future wife, Ingrid Jacobson, at a hootenanny at Convention Hall in Philadelphia, where he was a judge for the contest. When they married he converted to Judaism.

Early career
During the early 1960s, Croce formed a number of college bands and performed at coffee houses and universities, and later with his wife Ingrid as a duo in the mid-1960s to early 1970s.

In 1968, Jim and Ingrid Croce were encouraged to move to New York City to record their first album with Capitol Records. For the next two years, they drove over 300,000 miles playing small clubs and concerts on the college concert circuit promoting their album Jim & Ingrid Croce.

Then, disillusioned by the music business and New York City, Croce sold all but one guitar to pay the rent, and they returned to the Pennsylvania countryside where Croce got a job driving trucks and doing construction to pay the bills. He called this his "Character Development Period" and spent a lot of his time sitting in the cab of a truck, composing songs about his buddies and the folks he enjoyed meeting at the local bars and truck stops.

Success
In 1970, Croce met classically trained pianist/guitarist, singer-songwriter Maury Muehleisen from Trenton, New Jersey. Muehleisen's ethereal and inspired guitar leads became the perfect accompaniment to Croce's down-to-earth music.

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In 1972, Croce signed to a three record deal with ABC Records releasing You Don't Mess Around with Jim and Life & Times in the same year. The singles "You Don't Mess Around with Jim", "Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels)" and "Time In A Bottle" (written for his newborn son, A. J. Croce) helped the former album reach #1 on the charts in 1974. Croce's biggest single "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown", hit number 1 on the US charts in the summer of 1973, selling two million copies.

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Sudden death
Croce, 30, and Muehleisen, 24, died in a small commercial plane crash on September 20, 1973 in Natchitoches, Louisiana, one day before releasing his third ABC album, I Got a Name. The posthumous release included three hits, "I Got A Name", "Workin' At The Car Wash Blues" and "I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song."

This last video with Jim and his family is beautiful!


Musical legacy
In 1990, Croce was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Quotes
His personal motto: "If you dig it, do it. If you really dig it, do it twice."

On his roots: "I never really thought of my neighborhood in South Philly as being a neighborhood, it was more a state of mind. For people who aren't familiar with those kind of places, it's a whole different thing. Like 42nd Street in New York City is a state of mind."

Sunday March 25, 2007

When the first light of sun
Bless you.
When the long day is done
Bless you.
In your smiles and your tears
Bless you.
Through each day of your years
Bless you.

~Irish Blessing