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O-Town and The Lion Sleeps TonightIfound a nice seat on the train and collapsed. Before long, a bunch of young German girls boarded the train heading for skiing vacation in the Italian alps. One gal, Tanya, was singing some American pop song that made me giggle.
They piled into my cabin and chatted away in German. At some point, they talked to me a wee bit, and I pulled out my autoharp to play. They were baffled and asking if I knew any songs by O-Town or whatnot. Not a clue. So I played some instrumental stuff and then at some prompting began playing some of the Christmas songs I was practicing earlier. The whole crew began singing along. Then I pulled out "The King's Song" and that began the Oldies sing-a-long from "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" to "The Gambler". Okay, actually they didn't know "The Gambler," but I sang it nonetheless.
Then fatigue started to hit, and they asked me to play some lullabies. So I sang, "An Irish Lullaby" and work my way through my favorite ballads. One German boy was there and took a special interest when I sang "The Ring of Hope" from our upcoming Tolkien CD. He lifted up his copy of Der Herr Der Ringe, and I laughed quietly as the young lasses slept. Finally, I put the autoharp up and took a wee nap myself. Celtic ItalyAn hour or so later, the lasses exited the train in Italy and I kept heading down to Vicenza. New people boarded, and I started practicing my new Tolkien Blues song. An Italian boarded and sat down in my cart. I was tempted to quit playing since someone else was here, but soon realized he picked this room to listen to some music. So I went back through some of my Celtic songs and then we talked a wee bit.
He was from Milano and said he was a big fan of Celtic music. He liked The Pogues and The Dubliners and other artists and occasionally would go listen to some Celtic music in Milano. So I asked him about some venues. He said there were a quite a few, including a great festival. It was great to finally chat with someone I could understand, even if it wasn't perfect understanding. We had a nice conversation.
Then a Frenchman joined us, and I played on. They both asked about the autoharp and I told 'em what I knew about it. We arrived in Verona and while chatting with the Italian, he helped me realize I needed to get off the train there! So in a "rush", I exited. And they helped me carry the luggage off the train.
Soon the Vicenza train arrived and an Italian student helped me get my bags on this train, and we raced to Vicenza. Home At Last!Finally, I made it to Vicenza, my home away from home. It's been a couple years since I've been back, and it was very happy. An Italian fellow helped me carry my bags out to a Taxi. Then I started scrounging again for the phone number I found in in München. It was no where to be found. Doh!
So at long last some taxi drivers drove up. I told them them where I needed to go. Obviously, they lost interest when some women stepped forward, but even then, they asked one another where it was I needed to go and with my shabby directions, they said they couldn't help me. I was SOl. Sh!t!
No way to contact mom. Cold. And Exhausted. Ugh!
Well soon another driver approached. I gave him the directions, and he decided to give it a go. We drove up Collini Berici and began searching the hills for mom's place. We even stopped at a couple houses to ask if they had any clue where my mom was. And just when he was about to give up, we found it. Whew! Home at last!
There I was met by my panting Pekes, Leah (short for Azalea or Azaleas) and Betta (short for Elizabetta, guess...). And I got to meet Mama Kitty. She didn't give a spit for me. And I saw my brother's aging cat Coco. She and Leah are like 19 I think. Molto vecchio, but Leah was doing pretty well for an old lass.
I got in snuzzled them all profusely. Betta was a bit drawn back since she didn't know me very well. Only met her once two years ago. And she was much much older now. Mom made me a wee bit of pasta before I stumbled upstairs and got to see my granddad's puppy (I'm under the belief that just about all cats and dogs are kitties and puppies), Shasta (short for She Hasta have this and that). Shasta's as hold as Leah, but was showing her age much worse, poor girl. She's half blind, very jumpy, and I think misses her daddy (my Granddad), something terrible.
My mom told me that the day Graddad passed away, Shasta ran away. That really worried Mom, but fortunately, she came back.
Finally, I got into bed, read and wrote a wee bit before passing out.
Posted by Marc Gunn on Friday, January 03, 2003 |
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Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers
