April 2, 2021

Guinness

The summer we turned 12, my friend Stevie Sheen and I decided that a good way to meet girls was to get our names into the Guinness Book of World Records.

The Guinness Book of World Records was an idea cooked up by Sir Hugh Beaver in 1951 when he was the managing director of the venerable Guinness Brewing Company. It appears he was on a shooting expedition in North Slob in County Wexford, Ireland (Definitely the better of the two Slobs) when he came up with the idea. As his shooting party traversed the heaths on horseback, he got into a heated argument (I don’t actually know if it was heated but two Irishmen on horses) about which was the fastest game bird in Europe. It was of course the golden plover and shame shame for those amongst you who thought it was the red grouse. Beaver, not patient enough to await the advent of the Internet, thought a book of records was exactly what the world needed at the time. He hired some fact finders and printed one thousand copies, and thus launching one of the most successful and best selling book projects in history.

Just because some guy in Ireland, probably from South Slob, had insisted it had been the red grouse.

By 1972 it had become a huge phenomenon. So much so that our local newspaper, the Montreal Star, carried a regular Saturday article, in a little box tucked into the bottom right corner of the back page of the sports section, which featured the latest record. That Saturday, Stevie and I had read about the first woman who had rowed across the Pacific. Now neither Stevie nor I had access to a rowboat, and I still needed permission to jump off the three meter diving board at our local pool, so a rowing record was likely out of our grasps, but we still thought we could come up with something.

There were, after all, girls out there to be met.

Like Sir Beaver neither Steve and I were too keen to wait another 30 years to go online in order to look up some records, so we made our way to the in real life internet- the Dollard des Ormeaux Public Library. The public library was out near Fairview Shopping Center and Stevie and I had hiked out there, in order to buy french fries and a slushy at Woolworths, quite a few times. I think it was about three miles each way which seems like a long way to walk, along the median of the transatlantic highway mind you (my parents have now both passed away so I can safely reveal this detail), in order to get a slushy but throw in some french fries and it all seems quite reasonable. Stevie was prepared to walk it again but I had an ace up my sleeve- the public library was the one place in the world where my father would drive me, even on a Saturday, his day of rest, with no questions asked. And so, he grabbed a few books he was planning on returning, checked to make sure I had my library card, fortunately did not make some snide comment to Stevie about whether he was  able to read, and we all piled into the Impala and went to the library.

It turned out the library only had one copy of the Guinness Book of World Records.

And that copy was out.

Clearly Stevie and I were not the only boys in Montreal interested in meeting girls.

It was due back in two weeks.

Two weeks later I returned to the library with my father minus Stevie, who had decided that perhaps there was an easier way of meeting girls than eating one hundred hot dogs in twenty minutes. Also, that one trip to the library in a year was enough.

I took the book out. It was the 1968 edition. I read it through twice. Kept it three weeks longer than I should have. Paid a $1.75 cent fine. Incurred a pretty serious lecture from my father about being responsible. And didn’t find a single record that I could remotely come close to breaking.

So I forgot about getting my name into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Until 50 years later.

In the summer of 2021 three friends and I took a bucket list trip to play golf in Ireland. Our friend Jeff, who had gone the year before, had told us that the tour of the Guinness brewery was really worthwhile. I told him the only way I would end up on that tour was if it rained for five days straight.

I went on the fourth day.

Playing golf in the Irish wind and sideways rain on a links course is actually a really fun thing to do. It creates a strong sense of comraderie and a lifetime of stories.

To repeat. A really fun thing to do.

Once.

A little less fun twice.

Pretty miserable three times.

My golf partners had gone up to Portmarnock to play that famed course in the driving rain. Fourth time, they reckoned, would be the lucky charm.

I stayed in Dublin and went to the Guinness Brewery.

Now I’d like to tell you the tour of the Guinness Brewery was really interesting but I only lasted ten minutes. Barely made it out of the lobby. The combination of fermenting malt and yeast yielded a most unpleasant odor which made me gag. It almost made me want to quit drinking beer. I said almost. So instead, I snuck out and went across the street to a pub and ordered the beer I would have gotten for free had I lasted another forty-five minutes until the end of the tour.

The pub was nearly deserted which made sense because although Dubliners take their reputation as prodigious drinkers quite seriously, it was not yet 11:00 AM and most were no doubt still trying to digest the gallon of oil and lard which had accompanied their traditional fry up breakfast. The bartender, a cherubic red head with a matching mariner beard was polishing mugs and gave me the once over before addressing me.

“American?” He asked.

“Canadian,” I answered.

“Tourist?”

“Golf trip.”

“Aye. Shame it’s lashing down. You just need the right gear.”

What I needed was an ark. But I didn’t say that.

“Are you Scottish?” I asked. The ‘aye’ was a dead giveaway.

“Scottish! Feck off!!”

“But you said aye,” I protested.

“I’m from Derry. Northern Ireland. We say aye.”

“Ah right,” I said “Londonderry.” I knew my geography.

“Are you after gettin a beating? It’s Derry.”

“I’m sorry. I’m from Canada.”

“I’m just taking the piss. You’ve been over at Guinness have you?”

“Yes.”

“A big destination for the tourists so it is,” he said.

“It was very interesting,” I said “I took the tour.” I didn’t mention the gagging 

“I hear they give you a right nice pour at the end of the tour.”

“Yes,” I said. The brochure did mention a tasting.

“You must have quite the thirst on you.” He said handing me a pint of foamless Guinness.

“Aye,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t think I was making fun.

“That Guinness World Record book is named after the brewery. Not a lot of people know that.”

“That’s very interesting,” I said, not wanting to say that it was actually called the Guinness Book of World Records. “When I was young, I thought that having my name in the book would help me meet girls,” I said.

“How did that turn out for you?” He asked.

“Not so good.” I said with a laugh.

“Ach. Most of those records are shite. A bakery up in Galway holds the record for most cookies baked in a day. Total shite.”

“Yes,” I agreed, remembering the book I had borrowed from the library. “The majority of the records are pretty silly.” I hadn’t worked up the nerve to say shite yet. “I once tried to break the record for fastest time to peel and eat ten oranges. I didn’t make it past three.”

“Jaysus,” he said “that’s shite.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Total shite.”

“Of course there are some good ones,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Oldest man to break the four minute mile.”

“Really?” I asked “how old?”

“41. And he was an Irishman so he was.”

“Who?”

“Yer man Eamon Coghlan.”

“That’s pretty good,” I said “Fair play to him.” Ok, so now I had worked up a quite a lot of nerve.

“If you don’t mind me asking. How old a man are you?”

“62.”

“Well, there you go then.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s 21 years older than Eamon. That’s fecking good that is.”

“I don’t really run. I’m not sure I could even drive a mile in four minutes.”

“Who said anything about running,” he said with a smile. “You just have to say you are after going for the record. That’s mighty impressive that is. You’ll have the ladies coming for miles.”

“Nobody’s going to believe that,” I said.

“Aye. You might be right.” Again he gave me the once over “ You don’t look like much of an athlete.”

As we were talking, a man had settled into the stool next to me and ordered a double whiskey.

“I apologize for listening in on your conversation like,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “but are you really after getting your name in the book?”

“A lifelong dream,” I said. It wasn’t really. It was a dream interrupted by fifty years of life.

“Well the wife is going over to Galway with her choir group. She’s meeting up with other choir groups from all over Ireland. They’re after setting a world record. A Guinness record like.”

“In singing?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

“No.”

The next day the sun came out. Not a breath of wind. My crew drove up towards Belfast to play at Royal County Down- one of the most storied golf courses in all of the world.

To their amazement, befuddlement and, dare I say, disgust, I did not go with them. Instead, on that most glorious of Irish days, I rented a car and drove west to Galway and took part in a Guinness World Record.

There were 2700 of us.

All dressed as leprechauns.

You can look it up. Most people ever assembled in one place dressed as leprechauns. Galway. July 20, 2021.

I have a picture.

Largest Gathering of People Dressed Like Leprechauns

See?

That’s me over there.

In the green.

The end.