Thursday dawned clear enough for 18 holes of golf, which means 16 holes of drinking with Ben. Afterwards we decided to go out to the pub with the girls. Only this time it wasn’t the local pub, it was Johnny Fox’s on the glen, located somewhere south of Dublin in what they so quaintly call the mountains. The draw at this particular pub was that a band called the Wolftones called it home and were going to be practicing there all weekend. Ben and Kathleen along with their son Brian his wife and Joyce and I all met up there about 8:00pm.

Alight dinner and a few pints later the band rolled in. They were great friends of Brian’s and sat with us the whole while while not playing. A drunken night ensued, and a great time happened. All I can remember about the trip home was Kathleen saying over and over again “Go easy Ben” “go easy Ben.

The P.S. funny part of the story is that four months later working at Martin’s Tavern in Georgetown DC who should walk in but the lead guitarist/ singer of the Wolftones . He sits down and says” I hear you have a pretty good pint of Guinness on tap here” and I reply ” yes we do, would you like one or two?” He says draw me one and I do. I wait til he has had about a half of the pint and I ask ” well, how is it?” and he replies that it’s pretty fair where as I say, ” but not as good as the Guinness at Johnny fox’s on the glen”, and the look on his face was priceless. Then I remind him of that Thursday night with the Hogans and my wife and he just smiled againa nd said ” It’s so nice to see a friendly face in this God forsaken Town. Then we both laugh and have a few more pints, my three included Bill Tait