Midlife Irish
Chapter One
Icebergs
I'm a middle-age guy, if I'm going to live another forty-nine years.
I know this isn't going to happen. There's nothing "middle" about
this. If I get the same deal as my dad, I am left with sixteen
years. I'm a three-quarters-age guy, which is a more accurate word
than "middle."
I live in Demorest, a little town in the mountains of northern
Georgia. There are about seven hundred other people who also live
here. I think I know most of them. I would say that Demorest is like
Mayberry on that Andy Griffith show, but Mayberry appears to be a
much more complex place. The most famous person ever born in
Demorest is Johnny Mize, the Hall of Fame baseball player. He was
born here, played for the Giants, the Cardinals, and the Yankees.
Then he came back to Demorest and died. When I first moved here,
there was a sign, "Demorest, home of Johnny Mize." They took the
sign down when he died.
I am a married man with three kids. My full name is Francis Xavier
Gannon. Like almost everybody named "Francis Xavier," I'm Irish.
I've never thought much about that. My mom was born in Anne Forde in
Bally ... read full excerpt from Midlife Irish: Discovering My Family and Myself ebook
