The Story of Sleeve Boy



Taking my morning constitutional over the Sperrins, as is my custom, I turned up a mountain road just past the village of Claudy and caught, from the corner of my eye, a glimpse of a sign. It was a sign for Sleeve Boy Park.

Who is this Sleeve Boy, a curious traveler might ask, and why is a park named after him?

Ah. Well, that is a local legend.

Once there was a boy. And this boy loved to go to the park. But this boy, you see, he was very poor. So poor that he owned only one shirt, its sleeves worn to tatters from years of work on the family farm.

In the olden days, things were more uptight than they are now. To be admitted to the Country Park for a stroll one had to dress respectably. And after weeks of eying the boys' ragged sleeves with disdain, one Sunday morning the attendants finally shook their heads and refused him entry.

His head hung in shame, the young boy walked home weeping.

"What's the matter?" asked his older sister. But when the boy told her, she only shook her head and frowned unsympathetically. "Serves you right for wandering around parks when there's work to be done here."

"What's the matter?" asked his little brother. But when the boy told him, he only giggled and gave his sleeves a tug, tearing them even further, before running off.

"What's the matter?" asked the boy's mother. Reluctantly he told her. The woman scratched her head in thought. "Sure I have some sleeves saved up from your father's old shirts," she finally said. And she pulled out a great big basket filled with scraps of old clothing. She fished around in it and soon enough retrieved two perfectly good sleeves without a single hole in either. Problem is, one was red and the other blue. Meanwhile, the boy's shirt was white. "No law against that!" she said, and gestured for her son to hand over his shirt. Before he could muster a word, she was already busy at the sewing machine. Off came the old, tattered sleeves. On went the intact ones. Finally she presented him with the finished garment and pushed him out the door.

Never had the park attendants seen such a sight. A young boy in a shirt, white and freshly laundered. Only one sleeve was made of red flannel and the other of blue linen. They did not like the look of this nonsense one bit. But the boy was clean and his clothes weren't torn. They had no choice but to let him in.

That day the boy played in the park to his heart's content - chasing butterflies, sniffing daisies, and feeding squirrels till sunsent. And every so often thereafter, when his sleeves would grow worn and ragged again, he would come to his mother and she would replace them with newer sleeves from her basket of scraps. One month you could spot him in sleeves of pink and yellow. The next in sleeves of green and violet. Sometimes one sleeve would be checkered or polka dotted, and the other plain. Who could tell what would be found in the scrap bin!

From that point onward, the young boy became know as Sleeve Boy. Everyone in the county recognised him from miles away, delighting in his unique appearance. Fellow villagers would even come and give him their old sleeves, so that he might continue visiting the park.

That winter, the fortune of Sleeve Boy's family began to turn. Their struggling farm did well for the first time in years. "Let's go to the city and I will buy you a stack of new shirts for your birthday," offered his mother. But so accustomed now was Sleeve Boy to his look, that he did not want new shirts. Instead, for his birthday he asked for a bicycle. He rode this bicycle every day and soon enough began to race, distinguishing himself not only by being the fastest boy around, but also by his striking attire. "Go, Sleeve Boy, Go!" shouted the spectators at the races. It was always clear which one he was. Soon, the big teams came calling and the sponsors, and before long Sleeve Boy was a famous bicycle racer in the distant land of Italy. And after an illustrious career, he moved back to his old village and made a generous donation toward the preservation and upkeep of the local Country Park, on the condition that all children - rich or poor, smartly dressed or unkempt - were to be allowed in at all times. Many decades have now passed, the park since renamed in his honor. Such is the happy tale of Sleeve Boy.

...Or at least could have been. In fact, "sleeve boy" is the anglicisation of the Irish sliabh buigh, and as such means nothing like what it sounds. But it is stories like this we tell ourselves on a 7 mile climb, to keep our minds occupied and to keep ourselves sane when our legs already feel heavy with still 80 miles to go in this final long training ride before that Event we hadn't fully committed to until This Very Moment.

Thank you Sleeve Boy. You've been an inspiration.

Comments

  1. Great story! Love it! Back in college I had writer's block while working on a paper. It was St. Patrick's Day, and I remembered reading somewhere that the way to cure writer's block is to start writing about anything. So I wrote a story about leprechauns living in the TV set in my room and their thinking that the people on the screen were really in the TV. Anyway, I wrote the story, the writer's block went away, and I got a good grade on the paper. I thank the leprechauns. Love your story here about Sleeve Boy. Great imagination.

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    1. "...I remembered reading somewhere that the way to cure writer's block is to start writing about anything"

      Yeah… Careful though. That's how this blog started.

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  2. You had me thinking it was real. Nice conceit and explanation.

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  3. Now that SHOULD be a real legend!

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  4. Real or not, I would love to see this made into an illustrated children's book!

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    1. Now that is a neat idea.

      And there could be pages for kids to color just thesleeves. :o)

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    2. ...and so begins the groundswell.

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    3. Velosoverhere

      as a frequent visitor to Slieveboy Park it will not be the same any more. do you know that the next village up the road is called Park.

      Cnocin (cnocin is a small sliabh)

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  5. So I'm curious now, what does Sleeve Boy actually mean?

    The stuff that goes through my head on a long brevet has surprised me. I am sure I'm paraphrasing this from somewhere, but I believe cycling is a form of psychoanalysis.

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    1. To put this in context...

      Sleeve Boy materialised as I was riding a self-imposed 200k yesterday, alone for hours in the middle of nowhere. I arrived home exhausted and delirious, but apparently lucid enough to draw a picture and write this post before passing out… although my memory of doing either is vague at best.

      Post-ride blogging = drunk blogging?

      As far as I can make out, sleeve boy (aka slieveboy/sliabh bui/ sliabh buigh) means something like Yellow Hill.

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    2. "As far as I can make out, sleeve boy (aka slieveboy/sliabh bui/ sliabh buigh) means something like Yellow Hill"

      I much prefer your interpretation of it. Great story.

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    3. I can't know the meaning of these repetitious excursions to exhaustion and delirium. It is not about training. Training is accomplished with overload at a level from which one recovers quickly and completely. If anyone has told you it is necessary to be exhausted and delirious to be an athlete or to be a randonneur, don't listen to them.

      If drunkenness and delirium are how you find your muse, well, there's a long tradition of that.

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    4. You take me too literally. I get overwhelmed with the emotional weight and sheer magnitude of rides that are both challenging and scenic. It is not a bad form of delirium.

      That said, I think only the most hardened of cyclists could be anything but exhausted after their first 200k ride of the season. A hardened cyclist I am not. I did recover quickly though, and rode my bike the next day as always.

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    5. I bet Sleeve Boy could tear off consecutive 200Ks whenever he wanted.

      Allez, Sleeve Boy, ALLEZ!

      Spindizzy

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    6. Ability to ride the next day is a good marker. Wanting to ride is the best marker.

      I pass for a hardened cyclist in most quarters. After a long cold winter and spring no way would I have attempted your ride, not if those many kilometers included hills. Probably I could do it, it would hurt and I would be well exhausted. Please give yourself some credit for being a competent and capable and talented and accomplished cyclist. You are all that.

      You do have a way of making circumstances sound dire and drastic. I tend to forget some authors are still young and excitable.

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  6. Well, I have to tell you, you really know how to leave us hanging...

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    1. I hear ya! Stay tuned for Sleeve Boy II… son of Sleeve Boy.

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  7. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

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  8. This is one of those stories that really *should* be true.

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  9. I'd like to know where the father is while all this is happening. Is he supportive of Sleeve Boy's racing career? Otherwise, solid story.

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    1. Always a developmental editor in the bunch. Or should be.

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    2. Down the pub of course.

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    3. Now there's no need for such insinuations. The father could have been a teetotaler for all we know, spending every waking moment working on the farm. I am sure he was quietly supportive of Sleeve Boy's pursuits.

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  10. I found myself surprisingly disappointed at the end of your story.

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  11. Buachaill na muinchille abu!

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  12. I love stories like this – my dad could spin yarns like you.

    Just been reading a thread on Bike Forums about an ALAN bicycle (this is true!)...

    First:
    "Not sure if it's true, but supposedly the company's name 'ALAN' was derived from the two words, ALuminum and ANodized..."

    Then later:
    "I seem to remember that the founder of the Alan company named it after his children, Alberto and Anna, and it's spelled AlAn."

    You don't know what to believe, do you? My guess is, they're both right, the first explanation being the chicken, the second the egg(s)... :)

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