Well, if it isn't himself...

Taken June 2009 in the Burren, west coast of Ireland

The Gerry Fella enters the world

Most anyone who has met my grandfather Gerry Archbold agrees that his life story is one worth telling.  Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, he was an IRA rebel as a youth; an international soccer player; an immigrant to Canada; and finally, a family man about town in Chicago.      

If you are one of this audience who has met him, surely you have already heard a fair portion of his story and probably learned a thing or two about "soccer-football," as he would say, then you ever anticipated knowing.  Now 77 years old and living in the northern suburbs of Chicago, Gerry is still as feisty a fellow as you would hope to meet — a true Irish character.  He still has an authentic Dublin accent despite being in the United States for 50+ years.  He's a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat who believes in unions and equality.  He thinks the Irish did everything first, including the discovery of America.  

I'm his granddaughter Jessica Halston, a 25-year-old writer living in Southern California.  After growing up listening to all of his stories, I finally decided it was time to help him commit his tale to legend.  But this could only be done in his own words, so what I hope to bring you in bite-size blog format here is an oral history told by 'The Gerry Fella,' or my 'Papa', himself.

He is a sensational storyteller, and he tells things as he saw and remembers them.  Sometimes as I listen, I wonder if the actual events he recounts really unfolded as he says.  Then I realize that I like the magic his memories conjure just the way it is.

Just for a little taste before the first full post, here's his retelling of the day he was born:

"We lived two blocks west of the Broadstone railway station in Dublin.

That was the headquarters for the Midland Great Western Railway.  The workers there were working all up along the tracks.  There was a big job.  At five o’clock every evening, the whistle would blow.  Men all over the area would hear it and stop work.  I came out of my mother when the whistle blew.  I popped right out.  It was on a Monday afternoon at five o’clock, September the 12th, 1932.  I said to me-self, “Okay, Gerry, time to go.”"