The Busted Knuckle Chronicles
Big Bertha
Kathryn (Kat) Perry
A neighbour, Garret, came a-calling to express condolences over my sister, Lisa’s death. Garret is 93 and a real colourful character. Immediately following talking about how wonderful my sister was, Garret talked of how amazing a cow named Lucky Polly who had just celebrated her 22nd birthday. Twenty two years, he marvelled. Twenty two years be damned, I scoffed. “Did you never hear tell of Big Bertha?”, Garret replied. Promising to get my niece Kaylee out of the house, partly to distract her from all the morbid talk, and mostly to pay homage to Lisa. As an avid motorcycle enthusiast, motoring through the back roads of Ireland seemed a fitting tribute to my beloved sister.
Lifestyles - Big Bertha & SK Events
Not long ago, after our dad’s death, Lisa and I had done the same for him, the man responsible for my sisters and I loving two wheels. The Kingdom of Kerry – Kaylee and I astride a pair of Ducati motorbikes now destined for a farmhouse. It always takes an age to get to Kerry, a mountainous peninsula down in the south-west of Ireland. Five hours and 18 minutes to be exact. By late afternoon, the sumptuous views had vanished and the dark of night had engulfed the roadsides. Bored of the blackness, we fell prey to a thirst. Now, neither Kaylee nor I are drinkers. Unlike other members of our family, we are considered non-drinkers. “Next pub,” we agreed. A few eye-straining minutes later, Kaylee pointed at a sign - The Blackwater Tavern. Our motorbikes veered left down a road with a thick grass strip down its centre. We noted a build-up of vehicles on the roadsides, primarily tractors. A very tall man with no teeth and a peaked cap appeared in front of our windscreens, calmly directing us to ride through a gap in the hedge. “You’ll be grand,” he assured us as the Ducatis squeezed through the hedge and came out in a field where there were more tractors and cars parked. We alighted and proceeded to the pub. The establishment was “packed to suffocation” as one man put it, but in that majestic way
Page 33 April 4, 2013 that Irish pubs used to be packed, with old men guffawing into creamy black pints at every turn. Red-cheeked children ringing rosies around a turf fire. Giddy fiddles and bodhráns rattling out of the darkened corners. OK, so it’s the day after St. Paddy’s Day in County Kerry, we deduced, but there’s surely something above and beyond that going on here, then just continuing the party. We approached the barman inquiring, “Did you never hear tell of Big Bertha?” I asked. “Of Course lass,” the barman said in surprise. Big Bertha, a Droimeann cow that had died in 1993, and boasted two entries in Guinness World Records. First, she is the oldest cow Continued on Next Page