Mark Rodges: The Causeway Storyteller
I spotted his kilt before I saw his face. He stood across the room dressed in majestic blues and greens of what I would later discover as the Causeway Tartan. It's an oddity that you observe a man in a skirt, at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Atlanta, but there he was, hands folded, his statue towering over the small gathering in the upstairs banquet room. And, I believe he was there to meet me.
My being there was a fluke for my invitation came late, but knowing there are not many places I adore more than Ireland, I made it a point to navigate through the Atlanta traffic to meet their representatives who had traveled to meet writers and attend the Stone Mountain Highland Games. As if we were in their homeland, the conversation was just as sweet, the drink, flowing just as freely. With my trip to Ireland coming in less than a month, I wanted to know more. I wanted to be at their mercy. I yearned for them to teach me about Ireland and its culture, it's people.
My last - and longest - conversation of the afternoon was with the man in the kilt. His name, Mark Rodgers, and we planned to meet in a month's time on his beloved Causeway Coast. I was as giddy as a schoolgirl, for I was going to where I considered to be, my adopted home.
For the longest time, loving Ireland has been a mystery to me. I suppose there's always a mystery to travelers as to why they connect with one destination more so than another. I've traveled to many places, met extraordinary people, yet the Irish have remained closest to my heart. Mark would become an integral part in my own discovery.
My being there was a fluke for my invitation came late, but knowing there are not many places I adore more than Ireland, I made it a point to navigate through the Atlanta traffic to meet their representatives who had traveled to meet writers and attend the Stone Mountain Highland Games. As if we were in their homeland, the conversation was just as sweet, the drink, flowing just as freely. With my trip to Ireland coming in less than a month, I wanted to know more. I wanted to be at their mercy. I yearned for them to teach me about Ireland and its culture, it's people.
My last - and longest - conversation of the afternoon was with the man in the kilt. His name, Mark Rodgers, and we planned to meet in a month's time on his beloved Causeway Coast. I was as giddy as a schoolgirl, for I was going to where I considered to be, my adopted home.
For the longest time, loving Ireland has been a mystery to me. I suppose there's always a mystery to travelers as to why they connect with one destination more so than another. I've traveled to many places, met extraordinary people, yet the Irish have remained closest to my heart. Mark would become an integral part in my own discovery.
It's December in Northern Ireland
It's our first trip to Northern Ireland, and we are in the hands of the master, Mark Rodgers. We meet at Bushmills Inn in Bushmills, the city known for its Bushmills Irish Whiskey, Ireland's oldest distillery, more so that its bed and breakfast. We discover that no matter which Bushmills you experience, they are both extraordinary. It's a wet and cold winter's day, and we are all bundled so that walking becomes a chore. We notice that from the moment Mark greets us in the the Inn's lobby until the time we say goodbye day's later, he carries his walking stick. Almost like part of his body, the walking stick is a necessary appendage for any good storyteller, he imparts.n
