I took a one way flight to Dublin,
Away from the shores of the promised land
And if you never know anything else about me
That should tell you what a fool I am
When I graduated from Washington State University in 1991, I didn’t really have a plan.
I had visited Ireland briefly with my brother and his drinking buddies two years before and wanted to go back and spend more time learning and living in the land of my ancestors.
So dad referred me to an old friend of his that was setting up human factors consulting offices in Ireland ahead of the establishment of the European Economic Community - a forerunner of the EU. Somehow, this would have given him an inside track on NATO and EEC contracts.
I kissed goodbye to my college sweetheart and booked a one-way ticket to Ireland - passport and six month work visa in hand. The internet as we know it was still in diapers, so I had to arrange everything by phone. I checked into a youth hostel in downtown Dublin and picked up the newspaper to start looking for office space in the classified ads. I knew no one (and honestly, had no idea what I was doing.) I was scared to death.
However that summer Yugoslavia broke up and started falling into warring factions.
When I arrived in early July, the ECC treaty looked to be on hold while Europe coped with the new reality of post cold war chaos.
One day in Dublin - alone, 6,000 miles from home without enough money for a return ticket. No job in a country that had about a 17 percent unemployment rate. I nursed a pint of Guiness to keep my hands from shaking.
I found an index card and a three fold brochure with a phone number advertising a “night warden” position at the Carlingford Adventure Centre, which had just opened the year before. I called. An unsure sounding fellow told me to hop a bus and come in for an interview. Room and board and 25 quid a week (about $50). I was desperate.
Further I dived into the unknown, trusting fate.
The bus took me north right up to the border with Northern Ireland - in the midst of The Troubles. Bombs were still going off, people were still being murdered. A black British Navy warship patrolled Carlingford Loch. I got off the bus and walked to a friendly looking pink building housing a pub on the edge of the road. It was the only time in Ireland in all my years when I felt unwelcome in a pub. I asked for directions from the inhabitants and was given a look that brushed me out the door.
What was I getting myself into?
I hauled my duffle bag deeper into the little village and found the Adventure Centre - an outdoor activity center housed adjacent to a medieval old stone building and Thosel gate. The owner, Tom McArdle informed me that my job was to check people into the hostel at night after hours. I had no experience, but no one else had answered Tom’s tack-board advertisement so “eh, you’ll have to do.”
It was the best job I’ve ever had.
In addition to meeting people from all over the world, I ran the outboard motor of the “rescue boat” while my coworker Paddy taught sailing and windsurfing lessons. I learned - and helped organize - orienteering outings. I explored the buildings and climbed around on King John’s castle - which was built in the late 12th century and still loomed over the idyllic harbor. I sat in its shadow writing songs and novels longhand on a yellow legal pad.
As summer turned to fall I’d hang a sign on the door of the Adventure Centre saying “inquire across the street, ask for Ed.” Thus I “worked” from a table in the back of PJ O’Hares pub next to the turf fire. By November, the tourist traffic had all but dried up, Tom told me “well, right, that’s all I have for ya” and the job was over.
Over the static of an international payphone line, Amy, my college girlfriend - now my wife of these past 34 years - told me it was time to come home.
I had spent what little I had made on food and drink and travel and hadn’t a punt to my name. No return ticket, not even bus fare. There was a group of Dublin City College students up for the weekend and one of them remarked on my Levis 501s - back then still made in America and expensive and trendy in Europe. He offered to buy them off me for the equivalent of $100. I had packed six pair of Levis jeans (because they were only $14 when I bought them back home.) I sold all but one pair to other students and took an order to buy and ship some more to my friends in Carlingford. My Kiwi friend Pete and I snuck aboard the student’s charter bus for a ride back to Dublin.
I bought a plane ticket at a travel agent but could only afford to fly to New York. Thankfully dad said he’d come pick me up from New Jersey.
I bought Amy a Claddagh ring on Grafton Street and planned to put it on her finger the moment I got back home.
There wasn’t enough money for a hotel, but enough for pints, so Pete and I stayed up all night with a few of the college students. I sold my last pair of jeans at the bus station in the morning, changing in the station bathroom to a pair of sweatpants just before the bus to the airport took me away.
They will fly alone - and I am both hopelessly worried and yet overjoyed with their opportunity for these adventures. I wish I could go with them, I am bursting with pride at their courage to go without me.
I didn’t want to go to Ireland on a vacation - I wanted an adventure, which is something more. There is no itinerary, no telling what the next morning will bring. Adventures are unpredictable. You know you are on an adventure when things go wrong, when plans fall apart, when you have to adapt.
You know you are on an adventure when you only have a moment to accept your fear, take a single deep breath and move on.
I remember a cannonball of lead in the pit of my stomach the day I climbed on that plane for Ireland. I have that same pit now as the girls make their final preparations.
I am told by friends that “the world is so dangerous” that this is a bad time to travel. Yet, 20 years in emergency medicine have taught me that danger lurks as much in the stairways, bathtubs and ladders near to home as in the world abroad.
They are at the right age to see the world. Travel bring perspective on both gratitude and possibilities of the peoples of the world.
Fly now. Make memories now before the reality of work and bills and debt and car payments tether you to earth.
Fly now into the unpredictable tomorrow thousands of miles away.
For in truth, every tomorrow is unpredictable.
Better to face it with a view for adventure.