Little Chapel on the River

"See, some people call this place here the bar. Others just call it Guinan's. I call it my riverside chapel." -- Jim Donnery, Winter 2001 His license plate said "Irishman." So it was fitting to first meet Jim in the green-walled pub of Guinan's. It was freezing outside, but warm in there. Jim made it warmer with his big booming voice that signaled friendship from the first word, even to a stranger. It happened to be me that night, tiptoeing into the sacred after-hours world of the little chapel for the first time, but I could have been anybody. That's just the way Jim was - he was kind. To people he knew, and those he didn't. Jim was born on Christmas Eve in 1950 in Cornwall-on-Hudson, according to his obituary . When he was small, his Mom, Dorothy , would drive him down to the river banks to watch the tankers and freighters go by. Before Guinan's was Guinan's, his father as a kid used to row his boat across the river to buy candy and...