What a great trip! I met all of my mom's brothers and sisters and most of my cousins of which I have dozens.

Probably the best family vacation of all. And man was I a brat!

I was the prototypical "Ugly American" front page, bold type!!! I commented on how small everything was in Ireland, from the cars, to the houses, to the refrigerators and what have you.

The only thing that I said was bigger was the flies!

"Give that boy a spanking!"

I also was baseball obsessed back then. (Hence the helmet) I wore the love of baseball on my sleeve and would play cricket like baseball and shag hurling balls with my glove on.

The newspapers there had nothing on the Mets, so I missed out on the collapse of the franchise in 1977.

I was not a Cincinatti Reds fan but a Pete Rose fan. I wanted to look like him with my hair falling down the sides. One time when I was walkng in Belfast, a man yelled out "Cincinatti REDS!!!!" in an American accent. I thought that was sooo cool.

I loved a lot of things about Ireland.

They have these great weekly comics like Beano, Topper, Dandy and what not.

I also discovered page 3 of The Sun. I appreciate the fact that my Uncle Vincie was a concientious recycler of newspapers.

They still had milk with the cream on top that I often did not shake in when I put in on a bowl of Frosties.

I drove a motorcycle for the first and so far only time in my life that time. I was TEN!!!!!! Do you know how cooool that was?

I discovered punk, my older cousins Mark and Kevin had many records including the Sex Pistols. I preferred the Damned though.

I liked their name.

The Damned.

And I loved their song "Neat, Neat, Neat"

She was a friend of Caitlin's and really was one of the guys. I had a crush on her, cuz I loved her voice and her eyes. They look like friendship.