Denis Lehane: Sounds of little feet a distant memory
To think that all those years ago when I first told people that I’d be doing a newspaper column, they all laughed at me. Well, nobody’s laughing now.
Ten years of spouting baloney and balderdash with no end in sight. It’s the gift that simply keeps on giving. Ten years and it only seems like 10 minutes.
But alas, time has gone by, and this was really brought home to me on Sunday morning when I grabbed hold of the parish newsletter after mass, and spotted that our local Precious Times Pre-school in Crookstown is holding an open day for new youngsters.
Having fathered numerous children over the years, for the past 10 years, we have nearly always had a child from this house attending that particular pre-school.
And so, when I got home from mass, the first thing I did was to advise my missus that she’d better line up the next rascal for preschool.
“What do you mean?” says she, a bit confused by my statement.
“I mean bring on our next youngster,” I said, “won’t Emma be finished in June?”
“But we don’t have any more pre-school children,” came the reply.
“What do you mean woman?” I asked, scratching my old head in puzzlement.
“I mean we have none left,” says she.
“We can’t be finished that quickly,” I responded, “there is surely a small one running around some place?
“What about that little fellow called Elvis, you’re always talking about him.”
“That’s the cat,” came her curt response.
“Ok then,” says I, down but not out. “What about that other fellow, that tiny little guy with the glasses who has all his rhymes learned off? You were only talking about him the other evening, ‘Michael’, you said, ‘is so cute’.”
“Oh heavens above,” my missus responded, “that’s the President of Ireland.”
“The President of Ireland, my backside!” I declared.
“Sure he’s no more than two foot tall. He’s only a young fellow.”
But there was no talking to her. She was adamant that we had no more.
So Emma will be our last child for pre-school, but more shocking still, come September, my missus informed me that our eldest will be starting secondary school.
And so, with all this startling new information to take in, I had to sit down and finally take note of what had been going on whilst I have been so busy on the farm.
Yerra, with the height of running, dragging and tearing, I hadn’t realised that our family had been growing up.
And I will sure miss pre-school when we’re done. I had grown very fond of it.
You see, since the demise of the creamery and the death of the rural pub, for many in farming, the only place that you can have a decent discussion about the land is at the school gates, or in my case at pre-school with Richie Long himself.
Before Breda and Richie took up with the business of operating a pre-school, Richie used to milk cows, and he still has a great interest in all things agricultural. His herd of cows might be gone, but he still has an ear to the ground.
Their pre-school is actually built on the family farm. But alas, my time of going to pre-school is quickly coming to an end, and come June it could well be with a tear in my eye that this farmer will finally wave goodbye to a place that for so long has played such a big part in his life.
