Urt

U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.!!

After 6 months, I am back. Dry your eyes. The blogs will resume.

After working farms all over Ireland, proposing to my future wife, finding out what getting Morrocan Belly means, and sleeping in some of the dirtiest places on earth, it feels good to be back home in the good ol’ USA.

Through my travels in Ireland I learned that it is bad luck for an Irish fisherman to learn to swim.  They believe that once you learn you’ll be forced into a situation to use it. Every year there are nearly 200 commercial fisherman drownings. I couldn’t believe that not learning to swim wasn’t a staple for the industry. i confronted an old salty Irish fisherman over a pint of Guiness and asked him why there was no yearn to learn. He told me, “If heaven forbid you fall overboard, take a long drink of that black water and swim for the bottom and save yer’self the misery of false hope.” The waters are so unforgiving that even the strongest swimmers find their doom.

This school of thought has been a long standing tradition with the Irish. Every family knits their own sweaters and because of this they have a stitch that’s unique only to their family. I was told the main reason for this was that if any fisherman fell overboard and drowned, when his body would eventually come to shore, it would be the stitch of the sweater that the people would be able to identify the body.

Now not all Irish tradition is so bleak and dark, but it is all still extremely superstitious. Like women swimming.

Ouch, sorry Katy.