To date, we've interviewed 23 different souls in search of Dynamite Johnny, including: Fr Patrick Maloney, James Sarlo, Ville, Rip, Scooter La Forge, Kristin Agar and Cynthia East (Johnny's great granddaughters), Stephen Barranco, Louis Perez, Gerry Ryan, Marian Betancourt, Rob Griffith, John McAuliff, T.J. English and Dave Hein, to name but a few.
We've been run, or maybe, swept off our feet by our trip to the U.S. We've sailed through the five, nay, six boroughs of Manhattan. We've bounced from Staten Island to City Island to Roosevelt Island, and from Nantucket to Riverhead, Long Island. Islands Galore!
In The Ear Inn we found a most hospitable of watering holes. We met and interviewed Rip (Captain Richard Hayman) one of the owners. Rip is the enthusiastic character in the threshold above. Rip related (among other revelations) how he was once ship wrecked in South America. Another owner of the Ear, Martin Sheridan, turns out, is related to Johnny. Johnny's mother was Bridget Sheridan, a close relation of General Philip Sheridan of the American Civil War. Martin is also directly related to General Sheridan! The Ear Inn was located about as near to the Hudson River as you could get (without falling in) these days it's just a stone throw from the waterways of Lower Manhattan.
McSorley's Bar in the East Village were also extremely accommodating. Thanks to Shane, Greg, and Michael, and of course, the Mahers. We met another fearless captain in Billy Beck below, a Ukrainian American with God and Country to the fore and fear resigned to the sawdust floor of McSorley's Old Ale House.
With three days left we are still exploring Johnny's legacy. We've made Tompkins Square in the Lower East side a familiar trodding ground and interviewed some wily and wild characters there. We've been to the Carolinas and been to Mystic, Connecticut. 5 of the 50 states of the Union have been trod, and 23 personages have been consulted in search of the ghost of Dynamite Johnny, I think we are getting close!
