The plastic tubing ran from the oxygen tank next to his chair, wrapping around his ears before finding the mark of his nostrils. The top of his ears were a shade of purple, an early warning sign he had been without oxygen for a period. Safety required the oxygen to be left indoors when he took his cigarette break. Returned from his nicotine hit, sitting now in his corner chair, he commented that the early spring sunshine was deceptive.
“…There’s a cutting wind out there. Wrap up if you’re going out…”
He looked older than his sixty-eight years, aging more quickly in recent years. The converted bathroom downstairs and oxygen tanks around the house were a novelty for the first day or two but now, as happens, seemed liked they had been there all along.
We chatted about the hurling from the night before when Kilkenny drew with Tipperary in an early season league match, Dad smiling ear to ear when he heard Richie Hogan had played well. He loved an underdog. Richie was small in stature but one of the best hurlers of his generation and Dad loved seen him getting stuck in with the bigger men, invariably coming out on top. It’s not the dog in the fight but the fight in the dog, and all that.
The wheel of the hand cart, transporting the portable oxygen, squeaked as we made our way to the car to go for a drive. A fresh tank gave us three hours so we headed out. Dad had wanted to go to a spot he remembered from his childhood back beyond Kilmallock so we headed south.
As we went over the humpback bridge, we could see the old railway station to our left, now converted into an office. He recalled hopping in the train here in 1981 to head to the Munster hurling final in Thurles, drink flowing as a local woman danced in the carriage.
“…Was in the terrace with the Reagan lads when Joe McKenna’s first goal hit the net, I threw the sandwiches up into the air in the excitement. McKenna was good but Cregan was the master. He’d turn a lad inside out.”
These stories were like specs of gold dust. Afraid to interrupt, for fear the flow would stop, I hoped he’d talk on.
“…Leonard Enright won me twenty pounds that day in a bet with a Clare lad…”
I’d heard this story before. It was five pounds the first time I had heard it.
Driving on, we passed his old school he’d cycled the 4 miles to each day and back again. Onward, we found the spot he was looking for, Murphys Cross:
“…There was a shop here one time owned by the O Briens and my mother sent me over on my bicycle one Christmas to collect the turkey. Jesus, it must have been 20lbs and I had no basket on the bike. I couldn’t keep it balanced, falling one side to the other. 5 miles and me falling all over the road…”
We laughed out loud at the memory, moving a little further back the road we came to find another shop he remembered cycling by those fifty years ago. He was smiling widely when we found it and realised it was still open, all these years later, so in we went.
The shop was quite small but managed to stock everything imaginable. There were bags of potatoes inside the door with the counter immediately to the left. The stock was on high shelves behind with breakfast cereal next to the bisto, brown sauce and snuff. The counter top was filled with buns, sweets and an old weighing scale. It hadn’t changed in years and he loved it for that very reason. He chatted happily to a local farmer before we were on our way.
Travelling cross country through Bruree, we followed a back road towards his childhood home. Reminiscing, showing me the route he travelled as a child on the back of the bicycle with his mother to the bus stop on the Cork road before they made their way to Limerick city for chips with vinegar on Parnell street after the shopping was done. He pointed out Shaughnessy’s field where they gathered as kids on Sundays to play hurling. Oxygen supplies running low, we arrived back home.
The memories of that morning would stay with me forever.
