It is well known in my family that my dad hates memorials to the potato famine. If you want to know why, just ask him! It’s a “ooh! ooh! Mr. Kotter! Ooh! We were victimized too! We were victimized too!!” desperation that my dad despises. A-boo-hoo-hoo there was a potato famine. Get over it. Stop wallowing. So you had to eat your great-grandmother when she died. SO WHAT!! She was old anyway. I love to get my dad going on the potato famine memorials. The O’Malleys are from County Mayo – one of the hardest hit counties – but whatevs. Is that any reason to put up memorials in every city about it? It was black ’47, a-boo-hoo. It’s 2006 now. GET OVER IT. You just want to be included in the roll call of the world’s biggest victims. Etc. I could go on and on, but you get the drift.
In our walk yesterday I said something like, “Somewhere along here is a memorial to the potato famine. Which of course makes dad crazy.”
I was talking to Bren, but of course Cashel heard this and I could feel his little brain turning it over. Then the inevitable: “Why does the potato famine memorial make Gampa crazy?”
Bren replied, “Oh, because he’s cranky.”
We walked and walked. We saw the Korean War Memorial. We saw the US Navy memorial. We saw the really cool memorial to the Merchant Marines. That engendered a great discussion. Mainly about the seagull who perched on top of the main statue’s head. Then suddenly, we saw something that looked like a discarded set for a Flintstone movie. Seriously. Look at the potato famine memorial in Battery Park and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
“What is that?” asked Cashel.
“Some memorial, Cash. I have no idea what it is.”
Then we heard some loudspeakered voice moaning on and on reproachfully and we heard the Irish accent and Bren said, “Oh God. It’s the potato famine memorial.”
“We have to go check it out.”
We walked through it. There’s a kind of recreation of – oh – Glendalough – but – it’s dumb. I didn’t say anything, though, because who knows – maybe Cashel would LIKE the potato famine memorial, and it’s not up to me to tell him how to feel. We stood in one of the little Glendalough-esque alcoves, listening to the a-boo-hoo-hoo loudspeaker voice – on autopilot – there was an “old” stove cut into the wall, and Cashel went over and sat in it. All around us was the overwhelming sadness of the millions of Irish dead. Not. It looked like a Flintstone set.
Then I said, “Oh my God. We have to call Gampa right now and tell him where we are.”
So we did. It was hysterical. I dialed – Dad picked up – and I said, “Hang on, Dad – we want to tell you where we are right now …” And on the count of 3, just like we planned, Cashel, Bren and I screamed into the phone: “WE’RE AT THE POTATO FAMINE MEMORIAL!”
Seeing Cashel, with the huge smile on his face, and his big-boy teeth, scream those words – and he doesn’t even really get WHY the potato famine memorial is funny – but he knows it’s a joke, and that we’re “getting Gampa” and that will be, in and of itself, funny.
My dad was HOWLING.
The funniest thing about it is that people were wandering around through the memorial – people of all nationalities – looking at the plaques, listening to the a-boo-hoo overhead, contemplating, being serious and respectful – blah blah – and 3 people of actual Irish descent stand in their midst, shouting into a phone about how FUNNY the memorial is.
Oh my! That DOES look like something from the Flintstones.
and by the way, you have THE funniest family.
wow…just, wow.
I’m 1/4 Irish, and I guess I’m inclined to agree with your dad on this sort of thing. (But that might be because my “people” who came here won’t get a memorial for their reason for coming here: a brother and sister who were unceremoniously shipped off to America after their parents died and an unscrupulous uncle [whom I always envisioned as looking like Snidely Whiplash] swindled them out of their inheritance. I mean, it could make a really bitching memorial, what with the weeping brother and sister debarking the boat and wondering how they will find employment, and the spectre of the evil uncle cackling in the background, but even I recognize it’s an experience too uncommon to merit such a thing…)
Oh, I just looked at the photo of the memorial – ha ha ha. I’m sorry, but a flat slab of bent rock with some grass or something on top of it just doesn’t say “Irish” to me.
it looks like what would have happened if there had been a special episode of the Flintstones featuring a stone-age version of Frank Lloyd Wright.
(You know, like they had “Ann-Margrock” and other stoneagified celebrities on there). Actually, a Flintstones with a stone age Frank Lloyd Wright (I don’t even know what kind of “stone” pun they’d come up with for him) would be pretty mindbending.
Frank Lloyd Strike, world’s leading bowling alley architect?
ricki –
I’m thinking that that would be a good addition to a MONTAGE sequence of statues – which could be set up at Ellis Island: All the reasons people came here, no matter how specific.
I’m thinking oysters
anyone else seeing the oyster thing?
sorry
oh hang on, the other thought, was that when was in ireland, every where we went there were rocks but they were stacked, you know, ah, Kerry. the monks huts thingys. and oh well everywhere there was serious rock stacking.
It just seemed like there was an almost pathological urge to stack rocks in the Irish gene. arah thingy.
sorry didnt mean to be flippant.
I have back-folk who were ‘potato-famine’. Briget Browne and Thomas Kenny. over a hundred and fifty years ago.
who can imagine what their lives were like!
Don’t you get it? We were victims! VICTIMS! It was genocide, don’t you know? Queen Victoria herself infected the first potato!
Bill –
a boo hoo!!!!
The one thing I love about the Irish is their sense of black humor that spans the island north and south that didn’t quite manage to cross the ocean with most of them. Remember a while back when Ben and Jerry’s came out with a “Black and Tan” flavor and the “Irish” in America were carrying on about it, when the real Irish folks at Slugger O’Toole were cracking jokes like “When are they going to come out with a Bloody Sundae Flavo(u)r?” and “I hear there’s a town in Utah called “PROVO”!!!! I am so insulted!!!”
Frank Lode Wright
good one, bren!!
Emily – hahahahahahahahahaha I know!!!
I hear the Miracle Whip crowd is very upset and feeling oppressed because there’s a County Mayo.
Yeah, and a whole clinic, too.
Clearly, it would be Frank Lloyd Rock. Sounds a lot more like Wright than it looks…
I have a vanishly small amount of Irish blood. Can I be a victim too?
How about Flint Lloyd Wright? Or you could just put them all together and get Flint Lode Rock.
hahahahahahaha, Mark – hysterical! These suggestions are awesome!!
Of course none of it can’t hold a candle to Ann Mag-rock, the coolest prehistoric babe ever.
Hey kids! Let’s Twitch with Rock Roll!
cow belly, pot of beans
tie a rope around your jeans
tell your mama not to wait
you ain’t getting home till late
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
we’re gonna Twitch!
Theres a town I know where the hipsters go they call it Bedrock
Twitch! Twitch!
And when you get an itch to do the Twitch
in Bedrock
it’s a twitchin’ town so I’ll see you down
in Bedrock
Twitch! Twitch!
Well, we’ll twitch around the clock tonight in Bedrock
Twitch! Twitch!
And Rock is gonna roll with all his might in Bedrock
Twitch! Twitch!
It’s a twitchin town, so I’ll see ya down
in Bedrock
Twitch! Twitch!
Yeah the twitchin’s fine, have yourself a time
in Bedrock
Twitch! Twitch!
Oh. My God.
I recommend that you visit Auschwitz or Bergen-Belson on your next vacation. They should be good for a few laughs…