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Tales from real life |
In 2021 I wrote a poem, Lost on Route 66, about the loss of the old ways by Irish immigrants who were assimilated and melted into a larger American culture. I presented Highway 66 as a more modern example of quaint old ways being replaced by the relentless march of progress. I never drove on Route 66, but I have seen the 1960's television show and heard the song by Bobby Troup: Get Your Kicks on Route 66. My maternal grandfather, born in 1892, was at least third generation Pennsylvania Irish. I can trace the family name to census records from the early 1800's. They clearly emigrated before the potato famine and long before Ellis Island. Grampa Montgomery moved further west as a teen and became an itinerant laborer in Montana. He retained just a hint of Irish brogue, but he'd lost contact with even his Pennsylvania roots by the time I was growing up. I got all my information about Irish culture from books and movies. I also have Norwegian, English, German, and Scots ancestry, but Ireland fired my imagination. I always felt a vague desire for 'real' Irish roots. It may seem odd that I feel the loss of something I never actually had, but that's what I tried to put into the poem. Nixieš¦ ![]() ![]() ![]() I have fond memories of dad and I playing cribbage while the television droned in the background. He'd tell stories of growing up with horse drawn farm equipment, serving in the Navy, or working as a carpenter to for the Seattle World's Fair. For decades I thought of television as the 'boob tube' with little real value. Now, I see that it served much the same function as the fireplace did when my grandfather was a child in the days before radio. It wasn't the content of the stories or the setting that made it special, but rather the personal contact.
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