A Not So Brief History, Pt. 6

Cont'd. from 5/29...

One little tangent I forgot to tell. In August of 2003, a month after we had returned from our first trip to Ireland. Beth and I simultaneously decided we wanted to learn to play the guitar. She owned a guitar that she got while in college, lo, those many years ago. So we started learning.

The story of how I got my guitar...

The few month following Hurricane Ivan were extraordinary times in many ways. Here is just one example. Our friend, Larry Williams, who had just bought a new guitar, emailed me to ask if I'd like to take his Taylor with us to Ireland. He said, in fact that he would be willing to sell it to me for $500 (it's a $1300 guitar). I had been on the lookout for a "beater" guitar to call my own, but not having $500 at the moment, I was unable to move on that offer.

However, (and here's where it gets good) Larry and his wife Susan had major roof damage from Ivan (that's not the good part) and their insurance company was going to pay them to rent a place while repairs were made. It just so happened that we had a 26' travel trailer and offered to let the Williamses use it, not knowing about the fact that their insurance would pay us rent for it. In the end, they had our trailer for 2 months and we ended up with $500 and a beautiful Taylor guitar to boot!

And now, back to the story...

We arrived in Dublin on Saturday, November 5. Our long-time friend Christmas McGaughey met us at the airport. Christmas had been in Dublin for about a year-and-a-half, if I recall correctly, working with Kevin Fitzgerald (the Calvary guy) at his church, Crosspoint. We thought that Christmas would have her own car when she met us, but she didn't yet have a car, so she was driven to the airport by a couple from Crosspoint. All was good until we realized that she was planning to ride with us to our apartment. Cars in general are smaller in Ireland and the car we were renting was a Nissan wagon about the size of a Hyundai wagon. We had all our luggage and two guitars. There would be no room for Christmas! Fortunately, the couple who had driven Christmas to the airport were still in the terminal and they were willing to go with us to Rathmines, the community in Dublin where we were staying.

We got to our apartment in good order and settled in. Now get this -- without us trying to do this, with all of Dublin to choose from, the apartment we booked for the week was in the building next to the building where Kevin Fitzgerald lived!

Then I called my brother. "Your brother?" you say. Yes, my brother. What was my brother doing in Dublin?

To be continued...