Excerpts From The Book,
"Just Go And Do It"
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"Just Go And Do It", - Quick Marriage.
I was told a story one night from a man that came to the USA in the Seventies. I don’t think things happen as fast now, well, the marrying bit would not be as fast anyway. He arrived in the Seventies and he was in his early twenties. Coming from the country, he was used to going to a dance hall, enter the scrum and hope to get a dance from someone. Usually, all you got then was, to hear the music of the likes of Big Tom or some other band.
After finding his way around and getting started on a job, he started to go out to the bar. He was very surprised by the attention he was getting from a young American lady. She said, she always wanted an Irish man (she loved the brogue) and of course, her ancestors came here, from the highlands of Ireland, during the potato famine. This was her dream come true and no doubt, a lot of dreams for him as well.
After the night of chat, she invited him back to her apartment, things were moving fast, what could and would take months, if not years back in Ireland was happening right now in a matter of hours. The invitation to the bed was extended to him and while he had no experience what so ever, it was what he had dreamed of and also, it was high time he learnt something new.
Thinking of all the crazy nights back home, listening to ‘four country road’ and singing it on the way home was now being forgotten, this was the way to go. Jane Doe was going to change it all. Since Jane Doe had a lot more experience than John Doe, she led the way and got things moving. ‘This is awesome’, Jane was saying. ‘I can see Ireland, let’s go, let’s go. I can see Leprechauns, this is awesome.’ After a short time, things were coming to a peak and after some more Leprechauns sightings, the two seconds of magic happens. Jane Doe screamed ‘marry me, marry me’.
In that fleeting moment of madness, weakness, lust or whatever you’d call it, John Doe who had transferred command of the thinking process from his brain to some other bodily organ, shouted out, ‘Yes, I will marry you’. Early next morning, he was marched down to the City Hall to get a marriage license and he was married a week later. This whirlwind marriage occurred two weeks after he arrived in the USA and it would, no doubt, take some explaining things to the folks back home.
Phone calls to Ireland at that time, were not that common as very few homes had phones and letters was really the only method of communication. With all the excitement about the marriage, and that things were going very well, he wanted to let the family know back home what was happening. This was to be the second letter. The first letter hadn’t even arrived home yet, and in that he wrote, ‘I arrived, place is big here. I don’t know yet how long I will stay, write to you soon’. This new letter was going to be a beauty. In it, he would have to detail, what life was like in America and work in somehow that he now had a wife. He started off by writing ‘things are very good here, I have lots of work and I just got married last week. We are very happy, I will tell you more as time goes by but rest assured, everything is good right now.
With the letter completed, off he went to the post office to post it. He was thinking in his own mind that they would be surprised at the news but since it was good news, they’d be fine. He was looking forward to hearing their reply and of course, how the news went down with the neighbors.
A few days after the letter was mailed out, John Doe arrived home and found Jane Doe missing, he looks around and saw that almost everything of hers was gone. He waited that afternoon, that night, the following day, the following week afterwards but still no sign of the Wife. He didn’t know anyone who knew her and the two witnesses at the wedding ceremony were strangers so it eventually sunk in that she was gone for good. Around this time, he was thinking that the letter would have been delivered and he was hoping against hope that the letter would have got lost or something. That was a long shot and he was bracing himself for the reply letter.
About a month later, that dreaded arrived. He was thinking that he would have been banished from the family at this stage and that he would no longer be welcome home. The letter started by saying, glad to hear you are getting on well, everything is fine here. The black cow had a black calf, the sheep are now in the big field and we sowed the potatoes without you this year. You will probably be home to eat them.’ It continued ‘stop wasting your time, writing jokes to us here about being marrying. You were always a joker. It’s time to grow up, now that you are so far away and try to be more sensible when you are writing to us. That’s all for now, write to us when you have some news’.
Jane Doe never came back, nor did he find out where she went. He never got married since, well, marriage is supposed to be ‘until death do us part’ and he does not know that part of it yet.