That's cheesy, O'Reilly

This story came about when a young lady suggested to write something about cheese. The original post had a different ending which I cut off, because it turned it into a children's story. (still might be one, but not as much anymore)
Anyway, I love cheese and apparently, so does O'Reilly.....


O'Reilly hauled the shopping bag into the tiny kitchen of his cottage, where he hoisted it on the table. He had just finished emptying everything on the table when the phone in the living room began to ring noisily. Throwing the bag on the chair in the corner, he shuffled off.

Three days later his grandson Toby sat in the kitchen, munched on roast potatoes, washed it all down with buttermilk and chattered his grandfather's ears off.
When the boy was finally satisfied enough that he would safely survive the next half hour (man grandpa, call me a Turkey, I'm stuffed!), Toby wandered around and, as always, looked at the old, faded photographs and embroidered samplers hanging there.
His route led him past the corner where an old, rickety chair stood, that O'Reilly's grandfather had made himself. Suddenly he said, "Man Grandpa, but this stinks! Man, was that the cat?"

What? O'Reilly was taken aback.

Didn't she always use the litter pan in the bathroom or went outside? He began to look around himself, sniffing and searching.

Indeed! Why, the little.......

Then he noticed the shopping bag and suddenly he remembered something....

"Well," said O'Reilly, "have a quick look in the icebox, boyo and tell me whether the Limburger is inside or not."
The Limburg Cheese was not in the refrigerator, but in the shopping bag in the warm kitchen. And the smell that curled Toby's nosehair, was not O'Reilly's little tiger cat to blame for, but an imported cheese from Germany.....

O'Reilly's Summer day

O'Reilly sat beneath the old weeping willow  in the grass, sticking his gnarled feet into the fresh, cool water of the  merrily gurgling brook. Beside him bobbed a bottle of ale, carefully tied to a string.

It was a lovely day early in the Irish summer, of the variety the tourists only experienced in books and travel brochures.

Behind him he heard the screeching and laughing of the twins Marcus and Shaun, who raced across the meadow. Hooting and yelling they tore past their grandfather and splashed into the water like millstones. Mavourneen, the little cat sat on O'Reilly's other side and growled, admonishing them. She'd been hoping for a fish the whole time. Didn't matter, O'Reilly used that fishing-rod only as an alibi anyway.

"Well," he told his pocket-tiger, "boys will be boys."

Humming, he reeled in the line, cast again and yawned.

He remembered when he and his brothers had played here.

They likewise had screamed, hooted and hollered , dropped like millstones into the water and chased off grandfather's fish. They had gotten sunburned, scraped their shins on tree bark climbing into the willow, tickled trout and organized wrestling matches.

In the willow branches above O'Reilly someone bleated, "Grandpa, look!" Then a red-haired something fell with a huge splash in the creek.

As he wiped the water from his eyes, O'Reilly couldn't help but grin.

Sometimes it was good when history repeated itself..

Happy Birthday, O'Reilly!

I once knew an old American of Irish descent, who loved to snap and growl, but had a soft heart and thus in some ways served as a role model for O'Reilly. In loving memory for J. W. Bailey. Happy Birthday, Grandpappy.

O'Reilly was satisfied.
One could even go as far as to say that he was happy.
Which he never would have admitted, as he had a reputation as curmudgeon to maintain.
Which nobody was buying anyway.

He dandled the first great-grandchild on his bony old-man knees, letting  the wee one gnaw on his knuckles, and phlegmy humming a half-forgotten lullaby, as he was lost in reverie.

His small cottage on the outskirts of the village was filled to overflowing with people. The air was thick enough to cut with cigarette smoke, mouth-watering aroma clouds wafting from the tiny kitchen, the smoke of the peat fire, smelly, dirtied baby diapers, wet wool, wet dog and a mass of people.

The same with the noise level, that would have to be reduced in little slices:
Screaming, laughing children, babies screaming, scolding, laughing mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, daughters and cousins.
Cussing, smiling fathers, grandfathers, uncles, cousins, brothers and sons.
Barking dogs.
With whiskey, poteen and beer well-oiled throats, which in turn sang cheerful, indecent or wistful Irish songs and ballads.

In short, an Irish birthday, as was proper.

That was the way it had always been in the village.
The young people may prefer to move to Dublin or so, but if there was something to celebrate, everyone was there.

In spite of everything, they stuck together.

O'Reilly grinned so widely that his dentures threatened to fall out.
Then he raised his glass of ale, answered an affectionate insult with a good-natured curse, put his other arm around his best friend Finnegan's shoulders and joined in as someone began to intone "The Hills of Connemara".

A cold autumn storm roared over the little cottage on the outskirts of the small Irish village. From the small, brightly polished windows, a warm light shone out into the darkness, in which a moody wind enviously listened to the happy laughter and singing.