26 July 2026
1193
R. Linda:
Who says ye can’t go home again? ME!
I spent two days in Belfast working on a story on the renewed Troubles, as you know. Once I got me story done, I took the weekend to relax on the old sod. I was staying with me sissy Sheila in Newry, and decided to take meself to some old haunts in Dublin.
I travelled on down to the Republic and met up with Liam McGinty, me oul’ Segotia. Liam and I got into a lot of mischief in our university years, like doing dumb things in public to make people laugh. We’d take turns jogging around Trinity College, but not your typical jogging; we’d run with legs and arms flailing with stupid expressions on our faces. One of us would run; the other would film it. I'd be quite chuffed to say none of those films exists anymore, but admitting that is a big admission, and because there is no proof to be had on the Internet, we both thank St. Brigid for not turning our faces red.
I did find one thing in particular that I had not noticed about meself. Once I started talking, Liam looked at me with an amused expression.
I was telling him about the number of “Nor’eastah’s” we get, and he was like, What? I even said they were enough to send one to the “packie,” and he was laughing.
“Wot be uhhh, uhhh, Nor'eastah and a packie?”
He rightly thought Nor'easter, but he thought packie meant a slang term for a Pakistani. That was when I knew I was talking like a Bostonian — not an American, mind you, a Bostonian. I had to explain that, yes, he was right: nor'easter, and packie was a package store, not a person.
I had called him a “Kehd” when I first saw him, saying, “Hey kehd, howarya?” Yeah. He ignored that, and I didn’t notice.
But later, when I put “wicked” before every word, he started shaking his head, and I knew I had to think before I spoke. He had no idea what a “wicked pissah” was, and the Irish culchie went out the window when I replaced it with townie. I ordered a tonic, and he had no clue what that was, and neither did the waiter. When I said soft drink, they both said, “Oooh. Okay.”
I ordered scrod; he and the waiter were like, “What? You mean hake?” Liam guessed.
On the way home, we came to a carriageway I called a rotary. When I missed a turn, he told me to make a U-turn, and I said, “Okay, banging a Uey.” When he told me to turn by the fountain, I drove up to it and said, “That bubblah?”
When I saw Liam’s house and said, “Hey, you live in a triple deckah,” he looked perplexed. “What’s a triple deckah? A bus? Because this ain’t a bus, dare, Gabe.”
That's when it finally hit me.
I'd gone home expecting to slip right back into the old rhythm, but somewhere between New England winters, packies, bubblahs, rotaries, and wicked pissahs, the rhythm had changed. I wasn't trying to sound like a Bostonian. I just… did.
It's a strange thing when your oldest friend becomes your translator. Liam spent half the day asking me, "What in the name of God are ye on about now? I be so confused," and the other half laughing at me. Fair enough — I'd have laughed at him too.
It is said that you can never go home again because home changes. It turns out they're only half right about that. Sometimes home stays exactly the same... and you're the one who changes.
So who says ye can't go home again?
ME.
Apparently, I can get there just fine. I just need subtitles.
Gabe
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