Howe’s about it

This week’s rag is written by our man in Tucson, Arizona, and honorary native of Omagh – the one and only Mr Howe Gelb. Take it away Howe…

Time and space are a funny thing. If it’s not one, it’s the other.Next thing ya know, ya wake up in Scranton getting a fist fulla Guinness innus.

Irish Spring was a popular hand soap for showering back in space and time, Pennsylvania.

As time and space bends around this current corner, I find myself in a wonderful rain shower here in springtime Ireland.

Having a few days to negotiate a settlement with the jet lag before the tour on the continent starts up, Omagh was the most excellent choice to sleep the primitive time travel off and dilute any impending tour frantic with a healthy dose of Scrantic.

In the eve, we hit all the hot spots.

McCann’s. Grants. The INF.

During the day, budding blossoms beckoned, and off we went to the country to catch a slice of seaside, too.

There was a reel playing on the radio.

Johnny Whelan.

Hypnotic and bold; lyrically wordless and calming for the soul.

But, before that, was a mysterious voodoo sound as of yet undetermined.

With slight Cajun cadence and Irish lyricism, the band consisted of rocking accordion and piano triplets a plenty, with distorted dirty guitar blasts, circa 1978.

It was the best thing we’d ever heard.

No clue as to the who. Nor the when.

Before long, we found ourselves on Boa Island amongst the massive lake region.

Driver Mark turned my way and cocked an eyebrow: ‘Wanna have a quick stop…? There’s something here to see.”

“Sure,” says my jet lag, as I muttered something else presumably incoherent.

We pulled down an unmarked farm road, and came to a stop by a gate whilst baby lambs were baaing alongside as if to remind us of Easter Sunday, per which it was. We creaked a hinge through the cemetery gate to behold the query of small mossy ruins depicting the ancient stones marking final resting places of those that came long before in time and space.

But one carved figurehead stood out amongst the rest: The Janus head stone.

When Googled, it told of a possible origin of time and space called the ‘Iron Age’; something between 550 and 1200 years Before Christ… This being his day and all.

Mark handed me a 2p from the car, and we then proceeded to drop the large copper coins into the top of the Janus stone, where a volume of rain water had collected and thusly splunked a splash.

It was the kind of place that reminds us of how diverted we are daily amongst the unexplained ‘isms’ on a mysterious planet.

We said a silent word or two, and meandered out of there like true Easter Sunday meanderthals.

‘Twas a splendor of a field trip, seaside and all.

Later that night, slumber beckoned early.

We were both oddly tuckered at an early hour.

Off to bed we headed, the day done.

A blast of heavy wind against the glass window woke me up with a smile.

Hopefully a storm was pending.

But nope.

Just a significant gale that roared to awaken.

Upon hearing nothing more, I slunk back to sleep.

At 4.30am in the morning, something, again, woke me up.

And I heard a vibration on the phone.

There was a text from back home in Arizona.

It was 8.30pm at night back there, and my house, which I left several days ago, was now all lit up. All the lights were turned on inside of it.

Including the overhead lights.

No-one had been there since I left.

And having left it in the middle of the day, I had not the need to flick any of the lights on to pack and leave.

Stranger, was that the same friend who was passing by the place earlier said it was dark as the sun was setting…

But now, as she and her partner happened to be driving by again, their car began to sputter and fritz.

They pulled over and she looked up at the house and saw all the lights were on inside the place.

What happened?

Is there any connection to the copper elements inside the labyrinth of wiring inside the adobe walls of that 125-year-old dwelling, and the large copper coin dropped into the head of a 2,500 year old pagan head stone sparking all kinds of ignitions on this electric planet we live on?

Dunno…

But, maybe, the house and its zeitgeists just miss me and my electrical soul surge, and took it upon themselves to light it up while I’m gone.

Hard to say, currently, but there appears to be a copper current that threads through space and time.

Works beyond the weights and measurements of the body.

Kinetic… but Scrantic, too.