In Reply to: Re: golden memories posted by Roadieo on August 22, 2008 at 00:07:12:

mo cara...dia duit.....i remember mary and lulu bkloaxam well....and although i never played ball down that end i did have one or two scrapes with mary.......i think the lindseys lived quite close to them as well....
last evening i went to the canadian national exhibition....an annual event in toronto....a fair of exhibits and midway rides...and each evening they have live concert.....last night they had ...mickey rooney....pound for pound the greatest entertainer in the world along with jolson....and his wife jan chamberlin....how ironic me going to see him perform....as a kid i wished i could have been him....particularly having watched his performance alongside spencer tracy in ....boys town....or his andy hardy films with judy garland....[ i had a crush on her]...in his show called lets put on a show....he sang....but primarly reminisced about his days at m.g.m.......and his friendship with judy garland....his wife is a singer of note.....watching him perform...88 years young....he said he was 86 years in show business...well watching him recall his life...reinforced my golden memory postings...and how its so important to share mchale road and castlebar from when i was young....once upon a good time....
thanks for all my wonderful and not so wonderful memories mchale road ...and castlbar....may you always stand in the setting sun of the west......you are enveloped between the cone of the reek and nephins summit....during the war everything was rationed ...including meat....but the bacon factory still operated....familiar sights for us on the road were all the workers from the road coming down the road at lunch time and in the evening,,,,the girls that worked in the factory in their white smocks and turbins and the men in their wellingtons.....frank griffin...or as we called him [spare the butter]the paymaster...could be seen cycling home for lunch...and again going back at 1.50p.m....always punctual....you could set your clock to his routines....he'd be back to make sure he'd
check the clock cards to see if anyone was late....he'd dock every second out of your wages....so they say.... i remember mrs.darker...very well....she was a lead hand in the sausage house....i remember going into the factory shop and wishing i could pinch a slice ogf ham or even a scrap off the machine ...it was always so fresh looking in its peameal coating....or a littlt scrap of luncheon meat rolled in its red sleeve.....there'd be sheets of robs...they called them spare ribs i often wonder why ....there was never any spare....breast bones ....knuckle bones....green bacon ....smoked bacon...colllar bacon for boiling....shanks.....back rashers ....shoulder rashers.....streaky fashers....i remember the slicing machines .....cranked with a wheel....until ....lo and behold electric slicers came in ....peter dever had the first electric slicer in town ....then christy hoban....then the factory.....during the war a treat was a thing called skirts....a kind of belly plab with a layer of meat and a layer of fat....in fact any kind of meat was a treat...the sausages lay on the counter white marble counter....in big piles of links....back then we all had vegetables growing in our back yards....particularly potatoes and cabbage....alot of us had chickens as well....we'd have a shed and then chicken fence with an area fence off for the chickens....there be rats as big as dogs scurring about at the chicken troughs....and then thank goodnes for....rommel conway.....rommel was a dog conways had ...the best rat chaser in town....i hated have to feed the chickens because you'd have to go inside the chicken coop....and beware if the cock came at you with his wings flappin'and his spurs like talons...the neck stuck out...and that beak ready to pull your eyes out...but the fresh eggs were always welcome.....as was the odd chicken that wound up on the sunday plate....i always new when we'd have a chicken....my mother would send me over to martha ruannes and ask her to come and kill the chicken....martha would come over.....grab the victim and pull its neck....the plucking was something else ...feathers everywhere.....and the would up in pillows ....when the chicken was cooked there'd be a fight for the wishbone....back then there was no tv just the radio....radio eireann broadcast at limited times....1p.m. to three p.m....we'd rush home at lunch time to hear the commercials....mondays it was always mitchellstown creamery.....after the news at 1.30....it would be a programme sponsored by.....way for it....birds....birds ...the makers of birds custard...and birds jelly deluxe...fridays was my favourite.....this programme is brought to you by .....imco....imco...cleaners and dyers.....a cleaning an' a pressin' and a dying for you...just let imco cleaners do it for you....then there was a programme sponsored by ....waltons not the...waltons.........waltons music....a programme of irish music...the radio went off the air at 2.30....and was dead until......bong...bong...bong...it was 6p.m. and the angelus....depending how good your aerial was and your radio we'd try to listen at times too the bbc....and the archers.....or maybe on radio eireann there might be a sean o'casey play...juno and and the peacock....or maybe the plough and the stars.....but at 10.30 everynight.....it made no difference who you are .....you can wish upon a star.....this is bart bastable.....on behalf of the irish sweepstakes saying good night and good luck and good fortune...good night ...his deep resonant voice warming your very bones....there were personalities like roy croft....joe linanne...roy croft and his programme ....begginers please.....and whio knows the beginners of tonight maybe our stars of tomorrow.....he brought the show on the road and to castlebar.....i remember myself going on doing my al jolson routine.....there was jimmy murray, pete gavin and dan ohearn....playing the harmonicas....we never made the big time ...but we did get invited by roy croft to go to the show in claremorris and swinford....it was alot of fun....dan ohearn had fun too as he tried to make out with a young singer dancer that was part of the troupe....there were many travelling shows that time ...a kind of vaudeville....but one of my favourites was ....baileys hippodrome.....they would comme to town for a week or two.....pitch a tent in the fairgreen....and put on the most wonderful variety shows.......and have a drama play after the intermission.....my favourite was ....the croppy boy....a drama based on boolavogue...and vinegar hill....gaby bailey was my favourite....a wonderful actor , comedian...singer,....and drummer....he'd usually stroke his head with the drum ...bruhes?...they'd close the the show everynight....with there's no business like show business....like no business i know...everything about it is appealing ...especially when you are stealing that final bow.....we as boys would go down to the fairgreen and see if we could do some messages or chores.....for the bailey's so we' get a ticket everynight....then there was paul golden.....look....i n t o-- m y --e y e s....at --the count--of three---you are sound ---asleep---yes paul golden hypnotist.....he appeared live on stage at the county cinema....1949....i was in st.geralds college...bro cyril[facts]ran the school...well one night i was queeing up to go to see paul golden....none other than facts himself was out for an evening walk but he was also known to walk around in the evening to see if he could see any of his charges up to no good....anyway that night he scoped me in the line up the next morning as i walked up the stairs to go to class he met me on the stairs....marched me in to his ofice he took out his bamboo....had me hold out both hands and he flailed me up and down....i didn't flinch...i had it all before so he couldn't do anything to me i never experienced before....however i did vow to get even with him...i never did ....the following year he was replaced bt.bro lucian....the last time i saw "facts" was when i posed with other students and teachers....when tom langan ...paddy prendergast...eamon mongey ....brought the mighty sam mcguire to town.....bro peter made a scroll on a blackboard.....welcoming the players to gearoid naombe...others in that picture was pro. gery ryan.....hold up the beads....ryan....edward...the bull nally...i stood in the back row ....frank mulligan stands out as does dan oneil....my friend vincent mcnicholas....who lived with his uncle in a house next to smiler murphy....mr. boland...he worked in kellys drapery shop....the fair green back in those days was also the local dump...know for its mounds of garbaage and rats....the brick outhouse used on fair days ....and the iron bridge...that spanned the town river....well myself and a couple of the boys used tio go to the dump to see if we ever could find any treasure....all we got was cut feet ....because in those days we never wore shoes from about april to november....we couldn't afford themm
...shoes were rationed....and expensive....begleys nest to parsons usedto make the finest clogs....with big tips....great for sliding when the frost arrived.....i rember one year sleen lake froze .....but i remember going out to ballor ....and saw people ice skating for the first time.....the lizybachs /
[spelling..?].....they were an austrian family...running the hat factory ....also skating was bedad...joe mcginn....the pelly's.....they owned and operated the imperial hotel.....very generous on st. stephens day when i called around with the ran....always good for a half crown....i had a narrow escape on saleen sliding out too far and the ice cracking....winding up with panic....wet clothes ...irach...? a kind of frost bite rash....and a good hiding......i wlked home with my legs so far apart one leg was in castlebar the other was in dublin.....we made our own fun....there was no couch potatoes way back then in our time.....we had another curiosity taking our attention the drag of a ....wild woodbine....i never did experience that ...i had an aversion to cigarretes...which i have to this day........perhaps my mothers chain smoking.....cultivated that aversion.....thank goodness i have one virtue.....
for today iwill sign off with more of kahlil gibrans....prophet.....no man can reveal to you ought...but thatwhich already lies half asleep in the dawning of knowledge.....the teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple----among his followers ....gives not of his wisdom...but rather of his faith and his lovingness......
anois slan leat....agus...tog go bog e.....