Irish guys with Irish eyes

Sunday it was still rainy and the sky the perfect shade of gray for getting into an accident with a car of that color driven by someone who refuses to turn on his lights.

Despite this, and that I called a half dozen people who had other plans, I drove up to Milwaukee by myself to attend the Irish Fest. Sometimes you have to go it alone, though I am trying to get out of what for me is a bad habit.

Actually, my Irish pals the Clarkes had their booth o’ jewelry set up at the biggest show of its sort on this continent – when the weather isn’t like a day in winter along the Irish Sea.

They are my babysitters and I am their biggest baby – minus the cell phone habits of their teenagers and already potty trained, to boot.

Speaking of babies, what I noticed being among those from the same gene pool is that quite a few Irish guys have baby faces with big bright eyes. That’s to say, there were dozens who looked like the photo my folks gave me of me when I was a toddler – albeit most of them 210 or so pounds heavier.

The look runs a spectrum from a couple forms – the ruddy chubby cheeks, button nose with the round pale blue or green eyes or the just a tad less round face, longer schnozz with deeper set eyes.

Do we need to thank the conquering Danes for this? Who knows?

What advantage this gives us among humans is a look Mommies love that prevents us from being clubbed to death for the mischief we cause. It’s more honest, too – it says, yes, we are overgrown, tubby, immature, crying, looking for attention.

Just look at the faces God gave us. Hug us. Love us. Maybe even spank us. But remember to put us to sleep on our bellies just in case we have tummy aches from too much air in our bottles.

This is the wide open look that helped the Irish conquer America.

The latter of the two types is a look that can seem like a rodent lying in wait to set off a car bomb or seem as imposing as actor Brian Dennehy.

These are the sadder eyes of lost puppies, don’t mess with me eyes, lost in drink eyes, eyes that have seen hopeless romances or useless violence or any combination thereof, eyes that were once on baby faces furrowed by wondering too often how fast time passes.

There could be no Irish theater without these eyes, no Irish music. No Celtic soul.

Until I am heavyset again (which science has proven will occur by having heavy friends) I think my own face is closer to the latter type. Or maybe an orc from Lord of the Rings.

Either way, when you’re feeling lonely, it’s nice know you are part of a tradition milling about before you, drinking beer, wearing Notre Dame hats and buying ceramic jack o lanterns with shamrock shaped eyes.

And I wonder what the guy I talked to later that night looked like. I lost a credit card sometime between buying a hat Saturday at the air show and buying a hat Sunday in Milwaukee.

So I phoned the call center when I got home, a call that no doubt went to India. The very helpful lad who tried to sell me identity theft insurance: He said his name was Alec McGhee.