12 Comments
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Paul R's avatar

My Mother was from Tipperary and I used to spend the summers there as a teenager. The story might be set in Detroit but the drama reminded me of my emerging sentience to social issues in the rapidly changing world behind the net curtains in Roscrea in the early 1970s.

Well done, Jimmy. A portrait of a world in a terrible state of chassis.

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Jimmy Doom's avatar

I was painting life in an American Irish family as best I could. Ours wasn't super traditional but I was surrounded by it

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Patty Mallett's avatar

A confused kid with a tough life ahead of him. Sounds like however stretched his parents are, though, they love their kids. He’ll be OK.

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Jimmy Doom's avatar

I believe he'll be okay

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Patris's avatar

I love this and I love every one of those characters.

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Jimmy Doom's avatar

Thanks. The writing part is still fun. A bit sad, but fun.

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Joe's avatar

I don't know why, but it took me all the way to the end of the story to get the joke about the "apprenticeship".

Good one!

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Jimmy Doom's avatar

I hear stories all the time about kids latching on to the wrong element of a word.

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Jim Cummings's avatar

Outstanding, Jimmy. I see some real parallels to my own family history in this one. A very layered story with some sorrow and some humor. Very Irish indeed.

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Jimmy Doom's avatar

Thanks Jim. Sorrow and Humor do feel like the prevailing winds of the culture.

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lou J's avatar

Man, you squeeze a lot of humanity in there. Gonna try and adopt the habit of sprinkling love words into the middle of any future fights I have with my wife. Perhaps the weirdest, most useful takeaway I’ve ever garnered from a piece of fiction.

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Jimmy Doom's avatar

Thanks Lou! That's a great compliment.

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