By Tom Deignan

Until all hell broke loose in downtown Manhattan on Sept-ember 11, 2001, the chances of Irish immigrant Jim Guinan and journalist Gwendolyn “Wendy” Bounds ever crossing paths was very slim. Frankly, about as slim as you could get.

After all, Brooks was a mover and shaker in Manhattan, a journalist at The Wall Street Journal who had been hired at that esteemed paper when she was just 23 years old.

Guinan, meanwhile, ran a humble pub and country store in the upstate New York community of Garrison. The family pub, named after its owner who came to the U.S. with his wife and four children in 1957, is located directly across from West Point military academy.

It was beloved by cadets, who stopped by for a drink or two before heading out of town on Fridays. Guinan’s was also well known among locals who came to buy breakfast, newspapers and coffee in the morning, or for a beer at night.

Guinan is trained as a carpenter. Now 79, he has been running Guinan’s since 1959. Every month, Guinan’s also hosts an Irish music night, held the Thursday after a full moon.

Sounds like a great place. Simply put, it’s not the kind of place you meet many Wall Street Journal columnists.

But following September 11, Wendy Bounds found herself more or less homeless. She lived, after all, right near the rubble of what once was the World Trade Center.

There was talk of a place to stay upstate in Garrison. This did not initially strike Bounds as her kind of place. A friend, however, said that if Bounds did make it up to Garrison she should visit a place called Guinan’s.

Three years later, Bounds now lives in upstate New York and she has written a fascinating book called Little Chapel on the River: A Pub, a Town and a Search for What Matters Most, published by William Morrow.

Bounds describes how she, an outsider in a number of ways, becomes deeply involved with the Guinan family, and many of the crusty locals as well. She even ends up lending a hand around Guinan’s, working a few shifts and helping keep the place in shape.

Jim Guinan, it should be noted, suffers from a number of ailments, including diabetes. Though two of Guinan’s children, John and Margaret, both have families and full-time jobs, they spend a part of every day helping their dad with the family business. Jim’s wife, Peg, died in 1988.

Bounds, seemingly the quintessential Manhattanite, now lives not far from Guinan’s in upstate New York. Ironically, she came to Manhattan initially to experience all the thrills city life had to offer. She is originally from North Carolina.

Now, in her book, she claims that the Guinan family taught her what really matters in life.

As Bounds writes, “This is the story of a place, the kind of joint you don’t find around much anymore, a spot where people wander in once and return for a lifetime.

“For most of its days, the place billed itself as a country store, but its true heart was the adjacent pub. There was a rusty horseshoe posted above one door and a gold shamrock embedded, slightly off center, in the fireplace hearth. The floor slanted toward the river, and the men returned to the same seats every Friday.

“Most people called it Guinan’s (sounds like Guy-nans) after the Irish owner, Jim Guinan. Some called it the bar. One regular patron christened it his ‘riverside chapel,’ which seemed to me to fit best because for most of these guys, coming to Guinan’s was something of a religion, with its own customs, community and rites of passage.”

Little Chapel on the River has been praised by the likes of Dennis Smith, Malachy Mc-Court and Billy Collins, a testament not just to Bounds’ powers as a storyteller, but this book’s particularly Irish charms.

Last week, New York Governor George Pataki showed up at the party for Bounds’ book. He hailed her as a “brilliant writer.”

Perhaps more important than approval from the leader of one of the largest states in the U.S., however, is the approval of the grizzled regulars at Guinan’s, referred to as “parishioners.” Most of these old timers think Brooks has done a fine job capturing the things that matter most about a place like Guinan’s.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net.)