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June 05, 2005

Digging

Readers, I’ve been doing some digging. Not the kind of digging that results in potatoes and not the kind of digging you might do if someone asked you “Can ya dig it, brother?” I was digging into the long forgotten Trains, Buses and Automobiles archives. Deep beneath the Kildare Nationalist HQ is an underground basement lined with rows upon rows of shelves. Upon each row of shelves sit hundreds and hundreds of dusty brown boxes. Each box is labelled with a white sticker which has a file index printed on it. For instance, I came across a box that was labelled, “Hueston Anecdotes,” while I found another that said simply “Walking” in big bold print. Some labels were so old that their print had faded away. The light is dim in the Archives which didn’t make things easier for me to read either. I was looking for a box labelled “Encounters with the Salads” to find a witty yarn to fill this weeks column but it was no-where to be seen. Instead I came across a tattered old box labelled “Early Days.” I didn’t come across it so much as I tripped over it but since I was on the floor anyway I took the time to sort thought the worn manuscripts contained within the mysterious box. What I found was nothing short of trains or buses. It was the file containing my early columns. The ones I wrote when I first began college. The ones I wrote week after week even though I technically didn’t even have a column at that stage. I read through them carefully. They had everything. Characters. Commuting. Spelling mistakes. So here for the first time ever in print, feast your eyes upon this never before seen material:

“It was a quarter to three and I was still sitting on the top of the 90 bus to Heuston Station. My train was leaving at 3.05 and if I missed that I'd have to catch an arrow, much like you'd catch a cold. What was the hold up, I hear you cry! Was it the unforgiving Dublin traffic? Was it some sort of engine failure? No! It was none of those things. Downstairs I could hear someone arguing with the bus driver. I stressed to hear the heated conversation over the ever-annoying mumblings of someone’s Walkman but to no avail. The bus jolted to a start and I stared out the window at Dublin’s graceful seagulls swooping majestically over the Liffey. This beautiful moment was rudely interrupted by the out-stretched branch of a tree that slammed against the window scaring the be-jayzus out of myself and every one else sitting at the front of the bus. As we drew nearer to the station I slipped out of my seat that bit earlier to avoid the exit rush of sardines from the top of the bus. Works every time. Bid farewell to the driver, and made the dash inside. Quick look at the watch, three minutes until the train leaves. Now at this point you may think I went straight for the train yet the unrelenting urges of a sugar junkie never cease to conquer me. It's happened before that I missed my train due to a Milkybar craving but not this time. After stocking up, I quite literally sprinted towards platform six with the ticket master waving me to hurry up. Any faster and I'd get home quicker than the Arrow. I must have looked like Franka Potente in that German film Run Lola Run. “Not there yet,” I thought, “but getting there.”

Trains, Buses & Automobiles by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist (page 6)

Posted by LiamG at June 5, 2005 09:49 PM