- Feb 3, 2024
- LitBits
- 0
New blog post by Pamela Jo Keeley
Knights and Their Machines
The bees are buzzing around the blueberry bushes I need to plant, but it’s the first friday of the month when the chiropodist comes to Taghmon and my boot is rubbing a raw place on the side of my foot. My time was wiled while I waited by a traveler harnessing his cob. It didnt look like the same one tied outside the hardware store last Wednesday, but I couldnt be sure. The foot doctor needed a twenty in folding money so I walked down to Supervalue and was just deciding on the crumbley blueberry scones for the cashback when the I hear a cacaphoney of horns blaring down the road. The manager tears off his apron shouting “Take the till, Fonola!” and dodges through the automatic doors that aren’t opening fast enough for him. I follow and snaking towards us a is a line of semi trucks bearing the sigils of the local girls and boys GAA teams with an Irish flag flapping from the smokestack. As the driver approaches he looses a long blast of his horn that makes the manager wave both arms with joy. Around me the mostly male crowd lets loose with much swearing that the lads done a grand job, made em proud to be a part of the Wexford to Galway 500 km benefit run. As it stands if your kid breaks an arm or your granddad has atrhitis you have to drive half an hour to Wexford Hospital and then probably wait another 2 hours to get treated. The hope is this is a start of a fund to bring a GP to town.
I did not think the tractors were to be loaded on to flatbed trucks for the journey, but it is far more practical. Each gleaming red or green tractor is spitpolished free of even a speck of muck and mud. Only the oldies in the back look a bit Frankensteined together. No amount of new paint can disguise they were built in a different era. I feel a kinship. But even they are strewn with blue and yellow bunting riding the wind like maypole streamers.
I think all the fellows were thrilled their tractors were off on a holiday-even if they couldnt spare the time. Our own1975 Massey Ferguson is couldnt be spared. It’s so indispensable I’m not allowed to drive it. The minute I take the wheel it dies and we have to have the tractor priest out to resurrect it.
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Knights and Their Machines
The bees are buzzing around the blueberry bushes I need to plant, but it’s the first friday of the month when the chiropodist comes to Taghmon and my boot is rubbing a raw place on the side of my foot. My time was wiled while I waited by a traveler harnessing his cob. It didnt look like the same one tied outside the hardware store last Wednesday, but I couldnt be sure. The foot doctor needed a twenty in folding money so I walked down to Supervalue and was just deciding on the crumbley blueberry scones for the cashback when the I hear a cacaphoney of horns blaring down the road. The manager tears off his apron shouting “Take the till, Fonola!” and dodges through the automatic doors that aren’t opening fast enough for him. I follow and snaking towards us a is a line of semi trucks bearing the sigils of the local girls and boys GAA teams with an Irish flag flapping from the smokestack. As the driver approaches he looses a long blast of his horn that makes the manager wave both arms with joy. Around me the mostly male crowd lets loose with much swearing that the lads done a grand job, made em proud to be a part of the Wexford to Galway 500 km benefit run. As it stands if your kid breaks an arm or your granddad has atrhitis you have to drive half an hour to Wexford Hospital and then probably wait another 2 hours to get treated. The hope is this is a start of a fund to bring a GP to town.
I did not think the tractors were to be loaded on to flatbed trucks for the journey, but it is far more practical. Each gleaming red or green tractor is spitpolished free of even a speck of muck and mud. Only the oldies in the back look a bit Frankensteined together. No amount of new paint can disguise they were built in a different era. I feel a kinship. But even they are strewn with blue and yellow bunting riding the wind like maypole streamers.
I think all the fellows were thrilled their tractors were off on a holiday-even if they couldnt spare the time. Our own1975 Massey Ferguson is couldnt be spared. It’s so indispensable I’m not allowed to drive it. The minute I take the wheel it dies and we have to have the tractor priest out to resurrect it.
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