No Irish

“My Grandfather had many skills, but he was at the point where he would take any job.”

July 1987
I don’t do well at parties. I’m like a lot of other people who tend to find their set of friends and stand in a closed circle and carry on like they were together wherever they usually gather. In this case I knew Cathy from church and we were just getting to know each other. She was a Democrat which is unusual for our otherwise conservative Armenian church, but then again so is a green eyed Irish woman.
“Every group has encountered prejudice,” Cathy said to me with that accent that had traces of New York and something else that I couldn’t quite identify.
“Yeah, that’s true,” I replied without much conviction.
“Oh so you think it only happens to Sevs, huh?”
“Well, no.” She used the Armenian word for black. She was Irish but she was married to Hopet, an Armenian man who was as quiet as she was vociferous.
“Every group that comes to this country gets it. Being white doesn’t even matter. It’s about being different. Whatever is different from the norm, has a tough time here.” She was more animated now than when we had exchanged pleasantries a few minutes earlier. She liked thinking about things and talking about what she thought more than a lot of people I knew. Hoped sipped his coffee and looked at me. You’re in for it now his look seemed to say.
“Yeah, that’s true.” I sensed a testimonial on the horizon.
“My grandfather was a big, strong man. Healthy as a horse. Strong as an ox. But you know what? He couldn’t find a job when he came here.” She stopped suddenly to see if I was paying attention. Her middle-aged cherubic face leaned in on me.
“Hard times,” I ventured. I pictured my own barrel-chested grandfather standing proudly in front of an ancient Dodge truck from which he sold vegetables.
“There were jobs. There were plenty of jobs. No one would hire him though.” There seemed to be some kind of residual pain in her. She brushed back her bangs, as if the pain were there.
“Wow.”
“Yeah, wow.” I suppose I deserved the sarcasm. “They even had signs, ‘No Irish.’”
“Huh.”
“They said it to his face, too.”
“How did he…”
“My grandfather had many skills, but he was at the point where he would take any job. He found one digging ditches.”
“Ditches?”
“Yeah that’s right, but the foreman at this one site would not hire him. My grandfather even offered to work for free for a week. The guy said no, though.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Yeah,” she laughed, “but that didn’t stop my Grandfather. He grabbed the shovel out of the foreman’s hand but the foreman grabbed it back. My grandfather grabbed that shovel again, jumped in the ditch and started digging.” She told this part of the story with so much passion and conviction that we were both transported back to New York 40 years ago.
Hopet sipped his coffee. He gave me a look that seemed to say, “How you like them apples?” I felt as though he had never tired of hearing the story.
“Damn.”
“That’s not all though. He came to the site every day for a week. He worked for free. He worked harder than anyone on the site.”
“That’s a great story.”
“But that’s not the end of it.”
“What? What happened? You mean he didn’t get the job after all that?”
“Oh yeah, he got the job.”
“What then?”
“He eventually became the boss of that foreman.”
I was silent for a while.
“That’s the greatest story I’ve ever heard. You grandfather was a remarkable man.”
“Damn right.” She chuckled softly.
I looked for Hopet but he had turned to go for more coffee.