I listened to an episode of The Brian Lehrer Show this morning, on the way to work, and they were interviewing Niall O’Dowd about the St Patrick’s day parade in NYC, as well as other Irish-American matters.
While Niall was speaking, he spelled out A.O.H., speaking of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. When he said the letter “H,” he pronounced it as “haych.”
It struck me as something familiar, and I immediately tried to remember if my dad said his H’s like that. For some reason I thought so, but I couldn’t recall to mind how or why he would say it that way. I tried to remember him saying it, and I couldn’t. For five minutes I was rolling along, not listening to the show anymore, just trying to remember my father’s voice pronouncing the letter H. At long last, I was relieved when the memory came to me, that of him spelling out our last name over the phone to someone at the phone company or some such.
The relief only lasted a few seconds before I realized I can’t remember any such idiosyncrasy belonging to my mother, who died just over 15 years ago. Sitting here now, I think I can almost recall a whisper of a ghost of her laugh. But it’s just a vapor.