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Mike Gallagher

@michaelgrattan615

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Retired union organizer

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Rainy Sunday afternoon session by @michaelgrattan615

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10 days ago

East Branch, creek coming in
#Westport by @michaelgrattan615

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18 days ago

CAPTAIN ANTHONY GALLAGHER (b.1800- d.1819), one of Ireland's most notorious outlaws may have been our great, great, great, great uncle.

He robbed the Cromwell-installed English landed gentry in their fancy coaches and on their estates. The Captain (a title he chose for himself) once forced a landlord to eat a dozen eviction notices prepared for tenant farmers. He eluded capture repeatedly, on one occasion sneaking out the back door and riding off on the magistrate's horse. A folk hero, Gallagher's exploits were cheered on by the regular people. The English put a price on his head.

Recovering from an illness at a friend's house, he was betrayed by an informer, surrounded and captured. Condemned to hang at a brief trial, he offered to show the authorities where the loot was stashed. He said it was under a rock seven feet from a stream in Barnalyra Woods. They hung him anyway and then went looking. In the two centuries since, no one has been able to find the pile of stolen goods.

What makes us think there is a connection to us (other than the last name)? Anthony Gallagher was born and raised in the exact part of County Mayo, Ballina, where my father's people were from. We have traced ancestry backwards to a great, great grandfather, Patrick, born in 1862 in Anthony's very town.

My two remaining brothers, Neal and Brian, and I are talking about an expedition to 1) search for the buried treasure and 2) check secular and church records to fill in blanks in the family tree. One problem: no metal detectors allowed and anything you find belongs to the state. We will probably never actually go, but meantime we are having fun talking about it. by @michaelgrattan615

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24 days ago

My youngest brother Neal was hired as a cameraman on Dolly's new TV variety show. On day one she introduce herself to every name-tagged person on the set. The next day she remembered and knew every single face and name.
Neal says she was the kindest, most thoughtful star he ever worked with. RIP Dolly by @michaelgrattan615

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a month ago

These two youngsters were selling lemonade but giving away salty pretzel sticks to make their customers thirsty. Smart. by @michaelgrattan615

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a month ago

On a hot day the cows are happy to go swimming by @michaelgrattan615

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2 months ago

Bird hotel. Westport. Watched for a long time yesterday afternoon. The adult birds did not enter, only fed the babies through the holes.

#Westport taken in Westport, Massachusetts by @michaelgrattan615

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2 months ago

Walking along the narrow path in the woods, I nearly tripped over this baby deer concealed in the underbrush. It did not move. Eyes open, so not asleep. Not apparently sick or hurt either. Maybe too young to be afraid of humans? Dunno.
The old farmer told me later that its mother probably had an errand to do, hid the fawn in the bushes and told it not to move a muscle until she got back.

#Westport by @michaelgrattan615

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3 months ago

Happy Juneteenth!

Geneva Evans was a home health care worker, union leader and friend. She died a few years ago. In poor health in her later years, she was living in a damp basement apartment and struggling to get by on a $930 a month social security check.

That's why every so often my wife and I would take her out for a meal. We heard about a new restaurant that featured North Carolina cooking. Since that was her home state, we decided to try it out. The food was so authentic that it triggered her memories of growing up poor in a large tenant farmer (sharecropping) family. Chores from dawn to dusk, working the landlord's land six days a week, never out of debt, hard work all day, then get up and do it again.

By 19 Geneva had had enough and became part of the Great Migration. She followed her sister to Philly, then alone on to Boston where she lived for decades without ever losing her country ways. For one thing she remained a hard worker. She had elderly and disabled clients all over town but still had energy at the end of a day to make dozens of phone calls to her co-workers to build the union. She signed up members at her own workplace and won the election there. She participated in a three week strike at a different company across town. Every Friday afternoon she volunteered to talk to unorganized workers at their check pickups. She even traveled to Chicago and Los Angeles to spread the union word.

She never lost her accent and used many country expressions. "The whole nine yards" and other southern figures of speech but many of her own invention. For instance, she called Hispanic people "High Spaniards." That's just the way she heard it.

She loved all kinds of music: gospel, r&b and soul of course, but also country and Western. We were both huge fans of crooner George Jones and spent time together spinning his records.

In closing, two things you need to know about Mrs Evans: She was country and hard working. The two are deeply connected. Thinking of her on this Juneteenth. Because of her hard work and hard working country manner, three quarters of a million home health care workers today work under the union banner.

I miss her. by @michaelgrattan615

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3 months ago

What if trees could talk?

No, not to us like the Ents of Fangorn in Lord of the Rings but to each other.

In a world where whales sing songs that travel for miles, ants build cities, dolphins give each other names, the stars we see on the Webb telescope may not even exist any more and octopuses dream, is it so unimaginable that plants are able to communicate with one another?

Two books on my to-be-read list, The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben and The Overstory by Richard Powers have this very idea as their starting premise.

#Westport by @michaelgrattan615

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4 months ago

Goldfinch Stealing Sunflower Seeds Automata

What I liked most about the story my friends Chris and Shailah told was that they didn't mind being robbed by the birds. Instead, they figured that was just the cost of the entertainment provided.
I'm not nearly as forgiving when critters peck or gnaw at my tomato crop. by @michaelgrattan615

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5 months ago

I wandered lonely...

This poem is on the demo tape I've made to audition for voice over jobs. Would you hire me to narrate your book?

This is at an abandoned flower farm near the head of the Slocum River. Open to the public by @michaelgrattan615

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6 months ago