As I Roved Out...
by Conor Sinclair

You meet all kinds on the Diamond. One lady, sporting a damaged nose and two black eyes, told me she was from Sioux City, Iowa and was having a great time ‘on vacation’- Americans never go on holiday. She explained that she tripped in a hole in Dublin City causing the injuries to her facial features. I thought to myself how delighted a citizen of our ‘Sue’ city would be to fall and get a broken nose. The writs and claims would be with the Corporation within the hour. The lady from Sioux City would not, she informed me, sue Dublin City. I remember a song from 1951 called ‘Siuox City Sue’ about a boy called Sue or was it a girl? Can’t remember!

I took a tour on the water bus one day. Pat Ward was entertaining. There were two groups on the outing- those aged from mid 30s upwards and teenagers who sat at the back. Pat played sing-along songs and the older crowd sang their hearts out. The teenagers sat silent. They didn’t know the songs. It strikes me that the whole music industry is nowadays geared for the young. They buy all the latest pop CDs and attend the big concerts in their thousands. Their lives revolve around music and yet they can’t sing a song on an outing.

Many people enjoy Songs of Praise on BBC TV on a Sunday afternoon. I watched it lately. It was a lovely gentle programme from sleepy villages in the Cotswolds and their small beautiful churches. When it was over I clicked to one of our own stations. A man was describing how he used to run Sunday night dances back in the ‘40s when the Church was against Sunday night dancing. “Oh yes, I ran dances.” he said with a guffaw and went on to say “I didn’t give a **** about the Church.”

Needless to say, our enlightened TV channel did not bleep out the obscenity. That was a Sunday evening on English and Irish TV. Sometimes I think that there is a great coarseness creeping into our lives, and TV is going a long way in encouraging it. Foul language is non-stop in today’s films. The actors of yesteryear could manage without this - which is described by the TV presenters before a showing as ‘strong language’. Once they’ve made this warning it seems to be alright to bombard our homes with offensive language of all kinds. What progress we are making!

Back to the Diamond- more interesting people. I met Carol Byler from Huntsville, Alabama and Lavon Brown from Jacksonville, Alabama along with our Mayor Alec Reid. Lavon is the secretary of the Chief of Police. Her ancestor Samuel Snoddy left Larne in 1822 having killed a man in a fight over a girlfriend. He went to Charleston, South Carolina and eventually settled in Chester in that State. Carol is employed by NASA. They both enjoyed their visit here.