People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them. - James Baldwin
Evening eased itself into the pub
the way habit does -
unannounced, welcome.
Wood darkened by years of hands.
The door releasing hops and damp air.
Richmond brick holding the cold outside.
This was Virginia ground - no question.
The James nearby, unseen but felt.
Cary Street humming its low weekday song.
Inside, the past had been invited in;
not lived, not claimed,
just remembered and kept.
They were Americans, all of them,
born here, rooted here,
with Ireland carried like a family story:
creased photographs, last names,
songs learned from someone else’s mouth.
Not longing so much as loyalty
to what survived the crossing.
Mike talked about his grandmother’s hands,
how they moved when she cooked.
Kathleen swore her temper came standard-issue,
passed down with the cheekbones.
Tom argued politics, then baseball,
then back again -
each case airtight, joyfully unfinished.
The bar showed its age without apology:
rings from pints, varnish worn thin
where elbows leaned hardest.
Guinness rose slow and dark,
a ritual taken seriously
even by those who knew
it was just beer.
Music came on late -
a fiddle trying to remember itself,
a bodhrán tapping something older
than the room, younger than myth.
Songs weren’t precise,
but they were sung like promises -
loud where they needed to be.
Salt from fries.
Vinegar sharp as laughter.
Wet coats steaming themselves honest.
Stories moved freely;
about work, about fathers,
about how memory edits things kindly.
Ireland was never far.
Neither was Richmond.
They sat together without fighting.
Outside, traffic slipped past -
red lights blinking impatience.
Inside, time loosened its grip.
Home became less a place
than a shared agreement:
stay a while, listen,
don’t rush the last sip.
Near closing, voices lowered.
Even the loud ones learned to soften.
Goodbyes stretched longer than planned,
no one eager to be the first gone.
When I stepped back into the cold,
the pub stayed with me;
on my breath, in my ears,
in that small warmth you carry
when you’ve been briefly known.
Some inherit land.
Some inherit stories.
That night,
we didn’t have to choose.
Attention is the beginning of devotion. - Mary Oliver
A Reflection
My family history has always been a little unsettled. Some days the stories lean Irish, other days Scottish, and most days I settle on Scots-Irish as the likeliest truth - less a conclusion than a working agreement. The past doesn’t always arrive with clean records, but it does bring habits: a love of argument that never quite turns mean, a respect for stories even when they contradict each other, and a tendency to linger.
Maybe that’s why an Irish pub feels like the right compromise. You don’t often find a Scottish one, and the best Irish pubs aren’t really about lineage anyway...they’re about welcome. That night in Richmond, Ireland was present and so was Virginia. No one needed to prove anything. Inheritance showed up not as a claim, but as a moment; shared, imperfect, and carried out into the cold, poured neat.
GBS jr
2002
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