LIKE BATS OUT OF HELL
You would think that a Priest Convocation would be one of the safest places on earth to be picked up and taken to the place where the event was to be held. Well, maybe so in most countries except in Ireland and Canada. At least, from personal experience, I think so!
Back in 2015, I had the pleasure and honor of leading the priest convocation in the Diocese of Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. Bishop David Monroe drove me to the retreat house in his Diocese several miles away. The view was stunning all the way there, but by the time we arrived my knuckles were more than white from gripping the door handle. He was driving fast to say the least. On the passenger side of the car, there was much of the way a ravine without any guardrail, and it seemed that Bishop Monroe would hit the gravel every mile or so which caused me to suck in air dramatically as if the car was headed straight over the cliff into the ravine hundreds of feet below!
It did not help to know that five years earlier, my driver had experienced severe injuries following an attack in a church, perpetrated by an individual reportedly grappling with mental illness. As a result of the assault, Monroe required hospitalization for nearly two months. For the whole trip, I kept wondering about his possible past head injuries and maybe my future head injuries. We made in just fine, but I was more than relieved that one of his priests had been assigned to take me back to the airport.
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In 2010, I was invited to lead the priest convocation in the Archdiocese of Tuam in Tuam, Ireland, by Archbishop Michael Neary. The Archbishop, his priests and myself met at the Shrine of Knock all week. After the convocation, one of the youngest priests drove me around to see some of the sights. My favorite was Kylemore Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery founded in 1920 on the grounds of Kylemore Castle, in Connemara, Ireland. The Abbey was founded for Benedictine nuns who fled Belgium in World War I. It is a large castle, so large, that the handful of Sisters finally moved to a farmhouse nearby. I even had Mass for them one morning.
The young priest who drove me around had a heavy foot on the gas peddle. Since the driver sits on the right side of the car, that means I was sitting on the left side. With no air conditioning being needed, I had my window rolled down. The roads were narrow in that part of Ireland so thorny shrubs were raking my side of the car as they whizzed by almost taking out my left eye and bloodying my left arm more than once! More than once, I let out an "ahhhhhh" as the shrubs and small trees raked the car!
If that was not bad enough, all of a sudden a flock of sheep or a herd of cows would appear on the road as we rounded a corner. This meant that we both felt propelled toward the windshield as he slammed on the brakes. The only thing that saved us, not to mention the poor sheep and cows on the road, was our seat belts! It was a lot like a wild roller coaster ride on the world's largest "Beast."
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I don't think I would ever try to drive on the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Again, the driver sits on the right side of the car and drives on the left side of the road. As a passenger, I was always mistakenly opening the driver's door to get in.
If that was not confusing enough, the roads are narrow and winding because St. Vincent is an island with a volcano in the center and slopes right down to the water in most places. Buses, vans and speeding cars vie for control of the roads. Speeding cars tend to pass you in blind curves, barely making it back into their lane before crashing into a line of cars. Adding to the stress was the fact that there are few guardrails, shoulders or places to pull off. There are not as many animals on the roads there as in Ireland, but there are lots of children walking a thin line between the traffic and the edge of the cliffs.
I would not even think about renting a car and driving it down there! It was hard enough just riding in a car with young men speeding around blind curves, even in mini-vans packed to the gills with old people and children, like "bats out of hell!"
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