My Son in Americay
A long time ago in the county Mayo, this story it first began
Before emigration was finally cured by the First Economical Plan
A brave young lad had to leave his home and travel across the sea
But he got well paid in the building trade when he got to Americay
He got on very well but he sent nothing home and his mother began to think
That he'd run away with a blonde or worse, he'd spent all his money on drink!
So she wrote him a letter and folded it up and sent it on its way
And on the cover she clearly wrote "To my son in Americay!"
Well the postman collected this letter she wrote and he drove
in his van to Cork
Where he placed it on a liner at Cobh which landed it then in New York
Sure there was the whiskey and everything else -
the mailbags lay on the quay
And among the rest was this letter addressed "To my son in Americay"
Well American postmen, I needn't relate, they are rather like me and you
And when they came to this letter at last, sure they didn't know what to do
Well they looked up all the official lists- ah but those had nothing to say
There was no directory could help them to find her son in Americay!
Well it hung round the office for years and years and it gave
all the boys a laugh
Until at length sure it got some use - in the training of the staff
And to every new postman that came on the job it was shown as Example Three
As "Insufficiently addressed to 'Me Son in Americay'"!
Now the son he got older and wiser too and at last to himself he said
"How are things going with me mother at home, now is she alive or dead?"
So he walked round the block to the GPO, there he stood
with his cap in his hand
"Well be any chance would there be a letter for me from me Mother in Ireland?"
"Oh Yes! Kind sir - and here it is - we've been waiting for you for years!
We knew that someday someone would come from Cork or old Donegal
Sure its two hundred million are living here in the whole of the USA (??)
MR
apr97
Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!