Officially Ending That Hiatus

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This is what  Jack McCarthy  looked like in 1971

when he might as well have been singing

1000 bottles of beer on the wall

In only 10 days, I will drink them all

 

But before the end 

of that decade,

he met the woman

he is still married to

and they have been 

clean and sober

ever since

 

The occasion

was a Christmas celebration

for a large Irish family

+ two Italian boys

whose initials

are PO

and PG

 

The latter's

guitar is 

visible

 

It is a 1959 Epiphone

and I am presently

helping him

sell it

 

One of Jack's four sisters

was toying with an umbrella

but wasn't sober enough

to explain why

 

I don't know where

I was seated at the table

but I paid little attention

to the music

because chattering

filmed the room

 

Mostly, the person I spoke with

was a man of the cloth: Brother Edward

who taught math at Manhattan College

 

Mostly we talked about

the beatitudes of Geometry

 

When Jack sent me this picture [last week]

he referred to the professor as "my Uncle Eddie"

 

Excluding Jack's seven-year-old sister,

Brother Edward had consumed the least

amount of alcohol at the party

 

But in 1971,

on Christmas Day,

I was too drunk and stoned

to trust that assessment

A splendid time 

was had by all

***

 

Fast Forward to the present:

 

Within the past four weeks,

I have had at least

ten hours conversation

with McCarthy and PG

 

Their music is better than ever

*** 

Thank you for reading this

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