Michael’s job ended abruptly within a week after returning to Pennsylvania. He telephoned Mike in Massachusetts. Mike gave him Johnny’s number after a short conversation about his quest to find a boat builder willing to teach him how to build a traditional Irish canoe.

Johnny said he was too old to build currachs anymore. However, Johnny knew an Irishman in New Orleans that was organizing a currach building project scheduled to begin in early January, or in about three months. He gave Michael Danny’s number and wished him luck.

Danny was a very busy person. He owned a pub in the French Quarter of New Orleans, had numerous side businesses and performed regularly as a musician in venues throughout the South and other parts of the world. He was bringing one of Ireland’s top master boat builder to New Orleans to build a fleet of authentic Irish racing canoes.

Michael left many messages on Danny’s answering machine. They played phone tag as time ticked away. Near the end of October Michael decided to take matters into his own hands. He drove to New Orleans and sat in Danny’s pub for two days until Danny walked up to him and said in an Irish brogue, “Hi. I’m Danny O’Flaherty. Please come with me to my office. We can talk there in private.”

By the end of their hour long conversation Danny telephoned Pat in Ireland. They spoke together in Gaelic. Danny asked Pat if Michael could be his assistant to help speed the project along. They anticipated the project would take approximately two months to build nine traditional Irish racing canoes. Pat agreed. He would need all the help he could get.

Danny asked Michael if he would kindly make a documentary movie of the project and write a currach building manual, in return for the privilege of learning the ancient craft. He explained that the tradition of currach building was in danger of being lost in Ireland. Modern boaters wanted faster vehicles, made in factories, out of fiberglass, epoxy and metal.

He gladly agreed to the conditions. Danny told him the project would begin January 3rd, in Baton Rouge, at the headquarters of the Celtic Society of Louisiana. He gave Michael contact numbers and said he’d call Steve, the Society’s president, and let him know to expect him. Michael was prepared to live in a tent for two months, if necessary.

Michael knew how to sketch, write and use basic carpentry tools. He also knew that Dana was a skilled photographer and wanted to be a videographer. He didn’t know if she would be able to join him on this adventure, but he hoped so. He called her that evening.

Sometimes chance encounters and random events change our lives in unforeseen ways. I often feel like an actor without a script. The twists and turns my life takes sometime feel like they’ve been choreographed, ahead of time, by an invisible playwright. For instance:

Have you ever been thinking about a choice, let’s say to stay put or move on to a new place? Suddenly you notice the licence plate on a random car in front of you, at a stop light. It is from ‘that place’ you’ve been dreaming about. Is that an accident or a coincident? I guess the answer depends on what you’ve discovered about the nature of the Universe.

Michael met Dana many years ago in a large city out west. She just happened to be living in the same boarding house he rented a room in, for work related reasons. They slowly got to know one another during the nine months he lived there. Although she was considerably younger than him, they found much in common.

They both liked to play the piano, explore the city/country, cook, drink good coffee, laugh and they had mutual friends. Many of the twelve or so boarders in the house developed friendships and would do things together. They respected each other’s space and privacy and generally found great pleasure living together, like brothers and sisters. Well almost.

Michael fell in love with Dana. She didn’t feel the same about him however. He moved to the east coast, for personal reasons, and they lost touch for many years. But he did write down his feelings for her and he mailed her a few letters soon after departing. He felt it best to act mature and forget her, reasoning that it wasn’t meant to be, despite what his heart whispered to him during quiet moments.

He worked and lived with his sister, niece and nephew in a small Western Pennsylvania town on the Ohio River named Sewickley. This is where Dana found Michael and this is where another event began to unfold that was to change his life forever.

Terebra Turriitella is a very common species of vegetarian marine snail inhabiting the shallow areas of the world’s oceans. It’s shell can grow up to seven inches long in the warm and tropical waters of the Philippines. The cooler water of sub-tropical and temperate regions limit Terebra Turritella’s shell growth to less than a few inches.

The word ‘Terebra’ is Latin and refers to ‘a screw shaped device used by ancient Romans for starting a breach in a fortified wall’. ‘Turritella’ comes from the Latin word ‘turritus’ meaning ‘turreted’ or’ towered’. The common English names for the Terebra Turritella Shell are: Auger Shell, Tower Shell, Turret Shell, Unicorn Shell, Screw Shell, Common Screw Shell and Great Screw Shell. I’m sure there are many others.

Most people are attracted to a particular shell because of it’s exterior size, shape, color, texture and, in some cases, smell. Some shells are coveted because they are rare or unusual in some way. This isn’t the case concerning the outward appearance of the Common Screw Shells. They’re just different shades of beige or brown and are generally dismissed by serious shell collectors as ‘beneath their notice’.

Michael found this attitude amusing. He had discovered that the air inside many different species of small shells can be resonated using an ancient and obscure technique used to make whistle sounds with acorn caps. (The ‘acorn cap whistle skill’ is believed to have originated somewhere in the temperate regions of the world, sometime after the end of the last ice age, but no one knows for certain.)

He also discovered that the Great Screw Shell can be played as a flute, capable of releasing an octave and a half of perfect diatonic and chromatic musical notes, after pitch holes are introduced into the shell’s body of whorls. The sounds produced by this new wind instrument closely resemble the sounds produced by Native American Flutes,  pan pipes, ocarinas and recorders.