I never wanted a Guinness more than the moment when I reached the bottom.

~~ Paul Egan. Upon finishing his climb of Croagh Patrick. [Paraphrased]

Once upon a time, when I was a young boy, my father gave me a ‘beaver stick’. For my readers who have never had or seen a beaver stick, it is a…stick, about the thickness of a broom handle, the ends of which are chewed by the aforementioned beaver into a sweet conical end. It would be used in the construction of a ‘beaver dam’. (Check out a YouTube segment on Beaver Dams.)

But, I am starting to digress.

I stood looking at things that we brought down from our home in the Adirondacks to our apartment in New York City. Time was October, 2022.

After picking out a few tools that we would no longer need (I was going to give them to our Super), I spotted a stick. I thought it was a ‘beaver stick’. Well, I said to myself, who needs a ‘beaver stick’ on the Upper West Side. It needed to be tossed. But where? Ah, I said to myself, just across Riverside Drive is Riverside Park. There are plenty of sticks of all kinds laying around. I’ll just take it over and toss it into the shrubs. I actually got as far as the front door of our building, carrying the stick, when I thought it just felt funny. Not like all the ‘beaver sticks’ I’ve had before.

I got to the sidewalk, still holding the stick, intent on discarding it into the Park. No, I thought, something feels wrong.

I looked at the stick. Whoa! This was not a ‘beaver stick’. This was a gift from my father to me. A very special gift. It was his walking stick that he used on his one and only ascent of Croagh Patrick in 1970. June 10th to be exact.

[My father’s Walking Stick. He was 56 years old when he made the climb. At 78, I will attempt to make it to the top. Travel sites indicate that for an experienced hiker, it is a 4 – 5 hour climb. Videos are mine.]

I returned to the apartment and put the stick in a corner, vowing never to throw it away. That would be unforgivable. You simply can not discard an artifact, hand carved by my father, that he used to make a pilgrimage up Ireland’s holy mountain. For that day, it was his shillelagh, connecting him to his Irish heritage.

And I nearly threw it away!

Days later, I sat and held the stick in my hand, turning it over and reading what he had carved into the shaft.

Climbing Croagh Patrick is something that millions of Catholics, mostly of Irish descent, do as a form of penance, and to be closer to God.

The mountain, also called The Reek, over looks Clewe Bay in the northwest of Ireland. It rises 2,507′ above the sea. A legend tells that St. Patrick fasted for 40 days on the summit, clearly meant to emulate Jesus’ fasting on a mountain in Judea for 40 days.

[Croagh Patrick. Source: Wikipedia.]

I plan on being in Ireland in August of 2025. And, in memory of my father, I have made plans to climb the holy mountain. I won’t be there for 40 days fasting, however. Nor will I do the climb any where near the last Sunday in July. I don’t wish to compete for trail space with the thousands of pilgrims heading for the top…many barefoot.

So, here’s to my father on the day when we remember and miss the fathers in our lives…

[Note: My father got his Guinness at the pub when he walked away from the mountain. Just sayin’…]