Columnist Joe Delaney: Bumped and bruised, another year at the Sun begins

Joe Delaney

Thursday, July 5, 2001 | 8:20 a.m.

Joe Delaney's column appears on Thursdays and Fridays. Reach him at 259-4066 or joe@lasvegassun.com

This column marks the start of my 35th year as entertainment columnist and critic for the Las Vegas Sun ... The start date was actually June 17, 1967 ... For the past six years I have spent three of my annual four-week May-June vacation in Montreux, Switzerland, teaching at the International Academy of Broadcasting and the fourth week visiting old friends in Ireland.

This year I planned to teach the first two weeks, spend a three-day weekend in Dublin, return to Montreux for the final week and be back in Las Vegas with one week of vacation still left on June 18.

As the Scottish poet Robert Burns once wrote, "The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley." ... Our best-laid vacation schemes couldn't have gone further a-gley this year ... The first two weeks in Montreux were near-perfection in every respect with the class and myself ahead of schedule.

Borrowing a small suitcase, packing just enough for Friday through Sunday in Dublin and a Monday return, we were off for the highly anticipated weekend at the Hibernian Hotel, a charming bit of old Ireland, catching a funny play based upon Irish novelist Maeve Binchy's short stories ... Recently retired, Binchy's novels have often made the U.S. best-seller lists.

Saturday afternoon in the apartment of Liam Boyd, TWA's top man in Ireland during its many years there, we divided our television time between rooting Jennifer Capriati home in the French Open and doing the same for Galileo, an Irish horse that won the Epsom Derby, catching the best moments of both events, munching smoked salmon on fresh brown bread and drinking hot Irish tea.

Sunday afternoon, it was a long delightful lunch at Hunter's, once a stagecoach post house in Wicklow, with George and Mary Waters and Nick O'Neill and his wife, Kay ... Waters was director general of RTE (Radio Telefis Eireann) in the 1970s and 1980s when I was doing the six Irish documentaries ... O'Neill, a poet with the camera, was cinematographer and almost everything else on those Irish films that were aired on both ABC and PBS locally.

Waters is the founder of the International Academy of Broadcasting in Montreux with a Board of Trustees that includes Walter Cronkite, Quincy Jones and Sir Peter Ustinov.

At 6 a.m. on June 11, I was hit with a massive nose bleed and had to cancel my flight back to Geneva, spending the day at the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, then returning for an extra night at the hotel.

This scenario was repeated Tuesday morning, resulting in more flight cancellations, checking out of the hotel and into the hospital; my home in Dublin until late on June 18, the date I was due to fly home; Montreux to Geneva to London to Los Angeles and Las Vegas, a 25-hour journey.

The nose was now under control; my hospital dismissal included the statement that I was to have complete rest and quiet for two weeks, not flying home until Saturday ... The O'Neills had an extra bedroom and a lovely home and grounds in County Wicklow, five miles from anywhere ... That next morning, at the O'Neills' I slipped in the bathtub, cracking my head and severely bruising my left side.

The nose survived intact ... This guaranteed my maintaining complete quiet until I flew on June 25 from Dublin to L.A. to Las Vegas, a week ahead of the doctor's suggestion ... The nose is still behaving and most of the soreness from the bathtub fall is easing.

I'm left with an unused Aer Lingus airline ticket from Dublin to Geneva, another on British Airways from Geneva to London to Los Angeles, plus having to buy a one-way ticket to cover the June 25 trip home. We completed the school project with me on the phone from the hospital ... Most of my belongings had to be packed in the suitcase, still in Montreux, and shipped to Las Vegas.

Surviving in Ireland for 17 days with just enough clothes and belongings for that projected three-day weekend was not the easiest ... As I type this, all of my belongings are now with me plus the suitcase I borrowed and I am in the process of trying to salvage what I can from the various unused airline tickets ... This is why my first column of the 35th year is a week late.

I have only the highest praise for the staffs at the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital and the Hibernian Hotel; and the deepest appreciation to Joe Lynam, Bill Morrison and Stephanie Sheehan at the Irish Tourist Board; and to the Waters and O'Neills for caring, for watching over me and seeing that I got home safely, then calling from Spain and Ireland, respectively, to see how I was doing.

Entertaining events

Good to have three top acts who deserve to work here more weeks per year in town this weekend: Claude Trenier and the Treniers (Castaways), Rich Little (Suncoast) and Robert Goulet, with Paige O'Hara and the vincent Falcone Orchestra (Venetian) ... Trust your Fourth of July was safe, sane -- and fun ... See you Friday.