Happy St. Patrick's Day

Good day to all the lads and lassies at your various homes, and domiciles,

"Top o' the morning to ya (and your reply, me darling ones, "and the balance of the day to you".

We are all back to normal, as normal as I can be, in any event. We are awash in the mighty joy of living in this most favoured of places.I am reminded of my sainted grandmothers, one Norwegian, and one the Irish Catholic Queen of the Nerney clan, formerly of Ireland, and forever in my heart.

She was to have twelve children, and I was blessed to be one of her grandchildren. It is a matter of pride for me that she is my grandmother, on my father's side, and I am honored to be Mabel Irene Quam Green's grandson on my mother's side.

Nana (Helen Margaret O'Shea Nerney) was the matriarch of her family, and she lives in all of our hearts. Irish Catholic and then some, and always smiling, and always willing and able to play the piano. She played it at her 90th birthday party at the recreation hall in Millbrae, and she played it at her 102nd birthday party at TLC in Felton California, and she played it at the ranch house at p.o.box 2805 in Ben Lomond, California (I don't remember the street address, but the mail box on Alba Road was 2.805 miles up Alba Road and that was what I saw when I would drive onto the ranch property).

When she was born it was in New York City, and she worked for a magazine. The name of it and her title I do not recall. She was married to Officer James Clare Nerney (of the New York police department) at the age of 20, and James was 31 years old. He lived until 1955 and I was at his bedside within the last two weeks of his life on the ranch property, and I recall saying goodbye. That is my only memory of him, and then I was to bask in the glow of my love for Nana until her passing in 1989 (her age of 104 years casting a huge shadow over my life).

I would visit dad and she and I would sit at the old table in the kitchen when dad was at work, and she and I would talk. Some of my most treasured memories are of her at that table learning about her life, and her joy of life was just wonderful. We would watch the Lawrence Welk Show and she would sit at the old piano in the living room, and play the music by ear that we had been listening to. She always loved to play lively music, and she always loved to sit and talk. My friends came up and were enchanted by her. Steve and his friends would come up and me and my buddies, and she would cook us dinner, and occasionally dad would be the cook. We all enjoyed spending time with her. I have had many family members die on me through the years, and my father's brothers were among them. Jim, and Jack and Allen, and Fred, were the uncles that I spent the most time with. Especially Jim (named for his father, also sharing the same middle name) and I spent time together in Millbrae at he and his wife Viola's house on Landing Lane.

Jim and I would sit in his den and he would play his 78's with his favorite jazz musicians, and big band music, and I would talk to him of the old days. Jim and I would talk of Nana, and we would talk of Steve and my sisters, and I would discuss the Post Office (Jim had worked at the Post Office, and his father was also a former postal employee). We talked of the civil service and how it was a great job to have during the Great Depression. Jim and his brother Jack both wore the map of Ireland on their faces, and they were great story tellers. Dad told me of how Jim's job in the depression helped several families, and that Jim and Vi had been very generous with those in the family who had had especially hard times during that era.

I have never been to Ireland, but Jack and Jim went, as well as Dennis Michael Nerney, and Jack's older daughter Susan. They brought back photographs of the "old sod" and they told me stories of their travels.

I would like someday to be there in the land of my ancestors and trod upon that green land. The "troubles" are mainly behind, a thing of the past, though now and then a policeman, or a soldier will lose his life. For their families the "troubles" are today, and last week. The world knows not of what it means to be Irish. I have these shining examples of Irish Catholic nobility in my family. I am the black sheep, a "Protestant" and they sometimes cast their eyes as they roll them at me. Still and all they talk politely to my face, and as to what they say behind my back, I have no knowledge.

Actually the Nerney's and the Stack's, and the Roger's, and all the others that count themselves among the children, and grandchildren and great grandchildren of Helen Margaret O'shea have a love for all of her descendants. She was a fine, fine, woman, and a great story teller and my heart will always be filled with her and her children.

So, the old Irish toast I raise, "May the Good Lord take a liking to you, may the road always rise to meet your feet, and may the devil not know your dead for at least a fortnight, upon your passing".

Hear, hear, and pass the Guinness,

Love and hugs, and begosh and begorrah,

Larry

Happy St. Patrick's Day...a little early!

Paddy was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place. Looking up to heaven he said, 'Lord take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey!'

Miraculously, a parking place appeared.

Paddy looked up again and said, 'Never mind, I found one.'

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Father Murphy walks into a pub in Donegal, and says to the first man he meets, 'Do you want to go to heaven?'

The man said, 'I do, Father.'

The priest said, 'Then stand over there against the wall.'

Then the priest asked the second man, 'Do you want to go to heaven?'

'Certainly, Father,' was the man's reply.

'Then stand over there against the wall,' said the priest.

Then Father Murphy walked up to O'Toole and said, 'Do you want to go to heaven?'

O'Toole said, 'No, I don't Father.'

The priest said, 'I don't believe this. You mean to tell me that when you die you don't want to go to heaven?'

O'Toole said, 'Oh, when I die, yes. I thought you were getting a group together to go right now.'

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Paddy was in New York. He was patiently waiting and watching the traffic cop on a busy street crossing. The cop stopped the flow of traffic and shouted, 'Okay, pedestrians.' Then he'd allow the traffic to pass.

He'd done this several times, and Paddy still stood on the sidewalk.

After the cop had shouted, 'Pedestrians!' for the tenth time, Paddy went over to him and said, 'Is it not about time ye let the Catholics across?'

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Gallagher opened the morning newspaper and was dumbfounded to read in the obituary column that he had died. He quickly phoned his best friend, Finney.

'Did you see the paper?' asked Gallagher. 'They say I died!!'

'Yes, I saw it!' replied Finney. 'Where are ye callin' from?'

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An Irish priest is driving down to New York and gets stopped for speeding in Connecticut The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car.

He says, 'Sir, have you been drinking?'

'Just water,' says the priest.

The trooper says, 'Then why do I smell wine?'

The priest looks at the bottle and says, 'Good Lord! He's done it again!'

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Walking into the bar, Mike said to Charlie the bartender, 'Pour me a stiff one - just had another fight with the little woman..'

'Oh yeah?' said Charlie, 'And how did this one end?'

'When it was over,' Mike replied, 'She came to me on her hands and knees.

'Really,' said Charles, 'Now that's a switch! What did she say?'

She said, 'Come out from under the bed, you little chicken.'

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Flynn staggered home very late after another evening with his drinking buddy, Paddy. He took off his shoes to avoid waking his wife, Mary.

He tiptoed as quietly as he could toward the stairs leading to their upstairs bedroom, but misjudged the bottom step. As he caught himself by grabbing the banister, his body swung around and he landed heavily on his rump. A whiskey bottle in each back pocket broke and made the landing especially painful.

Managing not to yell, Flynn sprung up, pulled down his pants, and looked in the hall mirror to see that his butt cheeks were cut and bleeding. He managed to quietly find a full box of Band-Aids and began putting a Band-Aid as best he could on each place he saw blood.

He then hid the now almost empty Band-Aid box and shuffled and stumbled his way to bed.

In the morning, Flynn woke up with searing pain in both his head and butt and Mary staring at him from across the room.

She said, 'You were drunk again last night weren't you?'

Flynn said, 'Why you say such a mean thing?'

'Well,' Mary said, 'it could be the open front door, it could be the broken glass at the bottom of the stairs, it could be the drops of blood trailing through the house, it could be your bloodshot eyes, but mostly.....it's all those Band-Aids stuck on the hall mirror.

Cousin Larry

TEST2

BOO TO THE NON-NERNEY WORLD

test

HELLO NERNEY WORLD