The Story of Gaelic

Yesterday, I asked a friend of mine about to take a trip to Ireland if she knew the difference between Gaelic and Celtic languages, and how those differences came about. She said that she didn't. Sooo... I decided to do some research on my own. This is what I've found.

Gaul (modern France) and the British isles were once completely occupied by the tribal race known as the Celts. Celtic and Gaulish were two different names for exactly the same language; one name referring to the barbaric (“barbaric” here meaning non-Greek or Latin speaking - the Romans thought that non-Latin speech sounded like the baa baaing of sheep, and thus speakers were “baa baa rians”) tribe of people (Celts), and one name referring to their primary area of residence (Gaul). When Rome conquered Gaul, Latin was imposed, and today we hear that language as French. Rome didn’t conquer all of Ireland, so the Gaulish language continued as Gaelic (Gaulic). Welsh was it’s own cousin language and is different from Gaelic, seemingly having a more Germanic influence. Celtic as a unique language disappeared.

Later the Germanic tribes of the Angels and the Saxons took Britain, and then later still, Norman French/Latin was mixed in to create what is today called English (Anglish).

Interestingly, when Celtic was mixed with French/Latin, the Celts didn’t pronounce the “p” phoneme and many Latin words were pronounced with an “f” sound instead, e.g., “por” in Latin becomes “for” in Celtic, “pater” becomes “father.”

A dear friend of mine paid $100 to have her DNA analyzed to determine her genetic ancestry. She was told that her ancient grandparents came from northern Europe. At the time, I thought “whoopie-doo” because that really didn’t tell me much I couldn’t have guessed just from looking at her. But in the larger context that she had ancestors who were essentially mainland European Celts, I have achieved a greater understanding of what that actually means.

Spring Break

Today’s the first day of spring break, and it’s cloudy out. Will that be the norm for the rest of the week? We’ll see, I suppose.

It seems everyone I know is fighting depression. This, as I begin to emerge from my own. With the others, it seems the depression is driven by relationship issues. For those in their 20s, as most of those I’m referring to are, relationship issues seem like the center of self-purpose. Yep, I’ve been there, and I’ve done that. Too often no doubt.

Today is also the 8th anniversary of my first date with my squeeze. Time is rushing by so fast, I can hear its roar in my ears. It sure doesn’t seem like eight years have passed since I picked her up a the airport for our first weekend together. Squeeze has outlasted every other romantic relationship I’ve ever been in except for my marriage.

Someone wisely said “Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.” No doubt. No doubt.

Brunswick Stew

Years and years ago I had a recipe for Brunswick stew that, although an involved process, produced some of the best Brunswick stew I ever ate. For those of you readers who aren’t from the South, Brunswick stew is a concoction of meat (chicken in my case), vegetables, and a thick tomato stock; it is commonly served in the South alongside pork barbeque. The restaurant chain Smoky Bones occasionally has Brunswick stew on their menu, and it’s pretty good, but not as good as the stew from the recipe I used.

Unfortunately, I lost the recipe I enjoy.

A couple of years of searching the Internet for Brunswick stew recipes has led to a lot of expensive failures.

Then I turned to E-bay.

With a little patience, I found a copy of a 1962 Chapel Hill cookbook. It was a “By Me Now,” so I didn’t have to compete against other buyers. The book arrived in the mail last week. I started the involved recipe Saturday, and cooked the stew for seven hours yesterday.

Squeeze and I ate bowls of it last night, in my case washed down with a delicious Czech beer.

Was the Brunswick stew as delicious as I recall?

Yes, yes it was.

Neverwhere Land




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Trinity
A Harmony for Two Simultaneous Voices

(Voice One) (Voice Two)

Soft

Soft

Dawn

Soft

Flash

Dawn

Blinding Energy

Soft

Banshee Death

Soft

Wailing

Dawn

Vaporizing

Soft

Day glow two suns

Dawn

Christ almighty!

Soft

Resurrected in a
cloud of light

Dawn

Rash child burning in

Soft

Tomorrow's wind

Soft

Trash child burning in

Soft

Tomorrow's wind

Soft

Tomorrow's wind:

Five twenty-nine a.m.

Dawn

At Twilight's Wake

She doesn’t do it often, but when I’ve wallowed in self-pity just about enough, my friend Emily will chew my butt a little. “What would it take to make you happy?” she’ll sniff. “I’m serious. Exactly what would you have to do, what would have to happen for you to be satisfied?” Although my reply is usually flip and includes something about naked women and lewd Lithuanian midgets, her question is always a good one, and it usually sets me thinking.

There was a time, seemingly a long time ago, when things were, for one long deep moment, absolutely...perfect.

It was in the spring of my last year in graduate school. In the fall of the previous year those of us aspiring to Ph.D.’s were subjected to a week-long rite of passage called Preliminary Examinations. We spent three and a half years preparing for those hydra-headed horrors and our entire future careers hung in the balance. For those of us who passed, tradition demanded that we hold the most elaborate party of the year, inviting all the departmental faculty and graduate students for a grand spring blow out.

Now understand that this party was not a spontaneous and informal get together where a couple dozen people spent an hour chewing beer and swallowing pretzels. The planning alone took months. We commissioned our resident faculty gourmet to cook elaborate dishes. We purchased shopping carts of imported beer and exotic blended whiskey. We organized and reorganized our wardrobes for the big evening and hired bartenders and maids. It was like preparing for an invasion of a small foreign country. It has been said that luck is the residue of design, but sometimes luck is only the residue of luck. Our party that particular year fell on the night, almost the exact hour, that the American-Vietnamese cease fire agreement went into effect. It was time for the terror and the madness that had sucked the spirit out of my generation to stop.

The city was ablaze with porch lights of celebration and relief that evening as I excitedly drove to the building we had obtained for the party. My responsibility was to begin the “set up” and I was assisted by a tall willowy blond woman about my age whom I met for the first time that evening. As I unpacked food and drink, she finished some last minute vacuuming and straighting. Then she lit a fire in the fireplace and we sat together in front of it, enjoying the momentary lull.

Suddenly a great roar of church bells, probably every church bell in the city, pealed out. The hour of the armistice had arrived. The woman and I rushed to the front porch and, strangers though we were, we hugged and held each other and we cried.

Later that night I saw staid, conservative Dr. Dachowski dance with a handkerchief in his teeth. I saw crusty old Dr. Chambliss fish a joint out of his pocket, light it, and pass it among the senior graduate students as we sat on the steps of the front porch. I saw Dr. Matteson play the dulcimer and sing sad Gaelic folk songs.

It was a night I’ll always remember because at exactly that moment the future blended with the present and I was on the verge of real adulthood. I was with close friends who’d been with me through four years of academic hell— but were fellow survivors. My teachers trusted me enough to relax around me. And my country was finally at peace. It was one time when everything was absolutely, undeniably,...perfect.

A Poem from Sleep

This, from my fevered mind as I slept:

Tick, tock, tick tock,
The nuclear clock, the nuclear clock,
The nuclear clock foreshadows our doom,
The nuclear clock is heading for noon,
The nuclear clock will be striking soon,
Tick, tock, tick tock,
The nuclear clock, the nuclear clock