IRISHMAN FOR HIRE

It all started in a little field in Goldston, North Carolina on Columbus Day weekend in 2008. It had been a tough year and our family needed a weekend away to reenergize. It was a fun weekend of swimming, relaxation and a lot of kid friendly activities. And on the first day of our trip, we attended the Goldston Old Fashion Day.

As Stephanie and I sat there in a field off of West Goldbar Avenue and watched our children playing in the bounce house, our conversation turned serious for a moment. “I met you when your Mom was a little older than I am now, Steph,” I said as I watched my kids having a good time with some of the local children. “If she only knew she had seventeen years left to live, do you think she would have spent more time accomplishing all of the things that she dreamed about doing?”

“Everyone would,” Stephanie replied, “but no one knows what tomorrow is going to bring.”

Sage advice from my deeply grounded wife and there was a lot of wisdom in her statement for me to ponder. A few months later, I spent the day living out one of my dreams in Disney World. It had been years since I had had the itch to take the stage but in one afternoon, I was reacquainted with my old passion to perform. And as the day was ending, I was still on cloud nine. Unable to fall asleep, I walked around our hotel grounds and took in the sights and sounds of a brisk Florida evening and thought for a moment, “What if?”

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When my son was born, my parents gave my wife a little silver cup that I used to use when I was a toddler. The cup is beat up. It is dented. And depending on who is describing the condition of the chalice, the goblet looks like a feisty, opinionated and spirited child made his feelings known to the world by banging it on anything and everything he could find.

My wife loves the fact that my parents gave her the cup because it speaks volumes about the deep rooted convictions I hold. To her it proves that I have always had an opinion about everything and well, whether people like it or not, I am more than willing to make my opinions known. I disagree with her assessment but whenever I want to argue my case, she has proof to the contrary.

“Look,” she says holding up the little silver cup with a glint of glee in her voice, “the evidence speaks for itself!”

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Chloe and I were sitting on the floor playing with some of her toys when Stephanie came back from the store. Chloe decided she wanted to help her mom in the kitchen and ran into to see what she could do, so I sat down at the table and took a look at the newspaper. While I was skimming through the headlines, Chloe said to Stephanie, “My favorite part of the day is spending time with my Papa.”

My heart melted instantly as I looked up from what I was reading and listened to the rest of their conversation.

“Your favorite part of the day is spending time with your Papa?” Stephanie asked.

“Yeah.”

“You know, your Papa loves spending time with you too, Chloe.”

“Yeah, I know. He’s the good guy,” Chloe responded.

“He’s the good guy?!” Stephanie chuckled.

“Yeah,” Chloe said. Then she ran over to me at the table and said, “You’re the good guy, Papa!”

I gave Chloe a big hug and told her, “One of my favorite parts of the day is spending time with my Chloe.”

“I know,” she said matter-of-factly and ran off to play in the living room with her dolls.

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Boston traffic is enough to make the sanest individual in the world go stark raving mad. One moment you have a road with four open lanes and the next moment, the Central Artery is backed up and roads in every direction come to a complete stop for miles. Rush hour traffic in Boston is the worst so I knew I was faced with a monumental predicament when I had to attend an early morning meeting in Boston; drive or take public transportation?

I decided to take the T because traffic would be backed up for hours in the morning and by the time I made it to my appointment; the meeting would be halfway over. I also decided to be obsessively early because I figured the extra time would allow me to grab a cup of coffee and a bagel once I got into Boston. Early engagements require a lot of caffeine and as an added bonus, if I arrived before everyone else, I would be able to get a nice comfortable seat at the table.

I didn’t want to sit in two hours of bumper to bumper traffic so I chose to ride the T. The biggest problem about using public transportation was when I got on the train; everyone was crammed into the car like sardines in a tin can. As I jostled and elbowed my way into a standing position in the compartment, the train pulled out of the station.

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I came into work last Monday morning and found out that I had a full slate of appointments scheduled. Everyone in my office had taken the day off except for my administrative assistant who had planned on coming into the office around noon. So for fun, my staff loaded up my schedule like the main runway at Logan airport. One appointment right after the other and at times, one over the other while another tries to slide in underneath. I was the only one in the office and by the looks of my schedule; it appeared the morning was going to be a challenge, but I was up to the task at hand.

It was hectic. Every time I peered out of my office door, it seemed like there were five more people waiting to meet with me. It was beginning to feel like a daunting task, but I was determined to show my staff that I could rise to the challenge. I had decided early on in the day that I was going to meet every appointment they had scheduled for me; on time and without delay. My goal was to clear my schedule, as well as my reception area, by the time my administrative assistant came into the office. It was because of this little internal game of cat and mouse that I was playing with my staff that the inevitable was about to happen.

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I am a life long New York Giants fan! As my schedule proved, I had very little time for writing this past weekend as I soaked in the aura of the Super Bowl and prepared for our annual party in honor of the big game.

As I woke up yesterday, I had time to reflect upon the Super Bowl that had been played on Sunday. I still don’t think my feet have touched the ground yet. The New York Giants achieved the impossible and did it in incredible fashion. But as I sat on my couch, recuperating from our own football game that we played earlier in the day, I had an inspirational thought; “Why am I taking a paid vacation day when today should be a Holiday?”

In the past couple of years, the buzz word that has dominated the headlines of our newspapers and television newscasts has been the word “change.” “Change direction”, Change the course”, “Change the leadership”, “Change the economic outlook”, “Change the tone/tenor”, “Change the course of history”, and so on and so on. “Change” is the buzz word for 2008 and in honor of this buzz word, I have a new motto for this election year; “Change that Holiday!”

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