A wee bit of BS

I first went to Ireland in the summer of 1993. It was a very different time then, a time before the 'Celtic Tiger' hit the economy. It was a more relaxed time and people did things a wee bit differently. I went to work at a camp for inner city youth for the summer. When we (four of us from North America) first arrived on the camp site we would call home for five weeks we had a list of tasks to complete. The field was actually a former walled garden on the large estate not far from Dublin. I remember one task was to board up a large gate. We had plywood, tools, and more than enough people to get the job done quickly and efficiently. However, we were in Ireland so we did not. One tool we had was a tape measure. At that time, our Irish colleagues did not have much use for it. Instead, two of them would carry the plywood to the gate, another would mark it with pencil, bring it back to us and cut it. This cycle was repeated a few times and was never fully completed. Needless to sa...