It was years ago, 1979 to be exact, when I would take out the album at night.  The next day was to be an invitational cross country meet.  Our team, the Marian Central Hurricanes (why we were the Hurricanes in the Midwest, I never quite understood) was a high ranked team.  We had one of the top runners in the state, the great Daryl May who led our pack.  I was a toward the back of the pack, a pusher in cross-country parlance.  In other words, I pushed our runners to get toward the front of a race by merely trying to outrace them. 

I wasn’t the slowest runner, but I wasn’t the fastest either.  But I could worm my way toward the front of a race if I just could keep a steady gait.  That was why I would take out the album, the Chieftain’s #9, Boil the Breakfast Early.  I would listen to the title track over and over to get myself ready for the race.  There was something about it that just reacted with my Irish DNA, that sound of the bodhran and the fast pace of the pipes that made my legs do what they should do.  

Walkmen were not yet invented, so I had to play that melody in my mind.  Which I did; as soon as the gun went off, I would race with the Chieftains.  As the years went by, little did I know that I would someday be performing with the Chieftains.  And so, last Saturday, the day before St. Patrick’s Day, I had the honor of playing with my heroes.  

[Our friends Martin and Brian have asked me to drop the old phonograph needle on some of their tunes, perhaps some lesser known, and report back to everyone.]

Love and lack thereof are perhaps the most common themes in popular song.  However, there is also a jukebox full of what-if-this-whole-music-thing-doesn’t-work-out-for-me? numbers.

Switchback takes a turn at career doubt on “The Has-Been That Never Was” on their American Roots and Celtic Soul, LIVE – Volume Two.  From the stage Martin McCormack will tell you the song was inspired when he and Brian FitzGerald saw an old kudzu-shrouded cabin down south.  But I suspect there is a dash of bad dream in there, too.

“On a bowl backed mandolin / And on a porch all broken / Strums the has-been / That never was” begin the melancholy lyrics about a played-out player looking heavenward, playing for possibly the only fan he has left.

It’s often in these tunes’ later verses that we learn how music-biz failure was resolved.  “Tulsa Time” was a hit for the late, great Don Williams.  The song has him heading west from Oklahoma to be a star but soon admitting, “Well, there I was in Hollywood wishin’ I was doin’ good . . But they don’t need me in the movies and nobody sings my songs.”  He is soon eastward bound, telling us, “Gonna set my watch back to it / ‘Cause you know I’ve been through it / Livin’ on Tulsa time / Livin’ on Tulsa time.”

In a bit of coincidence both the scene and the theme of “The Has-Been That Never Was” are wonderfully covered by a daughter of Switchback’s favorite producer for their albums, Lloyd Maines.  Natalie Maines and her Dixie Chick partners sing “Long Time Gone” about a country singer whose wings got clipped.  “Now me, I went to Nashville / Trying to beat the big deal . . . Living from a tip jar / Sleeping in my car . . .”  The song even starts on a creaky porch, just like Switchback’s, but ends happily with the singer back home “singing every Sunday / Watching the children and the garden grow.”

American Roots and Celtic Soul, LIVE – Volume Two was recorded at Chicago public television station WTTW and in their famous Sound Stage Studios.  Its 16 cuts draw from several Switchback CDs and were performed with a live audience.  The album makes a fine companion to Volume One.  Those dozen tunes were recorded in venues small and large across the U.S. and Canada.  So Volume One has that boisterous frisson of on-the-road live while Volume Two has an excellently pared down crystal-clean sound even with its bigger band.  (“The Has-Been That Never Was” originally appeared on The Fire that Burns and can be found also on one of the discs in Switchback’s Twentieth Anniversary Collection.)

In film the has-been character perhaps hit its comedic height in 1965’s Cat Ballou starring Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin.  At the famed Hole-in-the-Wall hideout, an elderly gent approaches Marvin’s Kid Shelleen character and says something like, "Hey, Kid, you remember me?  Old. . . old. . . old. . ." Then he just wanders off shaking his head.

Doug Kamholz is an itinerant washboard player who has freelanced for the New York Times, Washington Post and many lesser media.  His most honest work was as a pig farmer in central Illinois, where he now lives and occasionally makes dinner for Switchback.

I just finished having the largest meal of crow in my life.   As of writing this, I have finally managed to get the pin feathers of that dark and unappetizing creature from between my back molars.   I look at what remains on the plate and have to admit that I deserved every bite of the meal: beak, claws and all. 

What happened is the collision between my Irish temper and the 21st century.  The vehicle involved being that modern contraption known as the cell phone.  It is not my friend, I am beginning to realize, but rather, some sort of impish devil at best or just a deliberate device to self-inflict humiliation and pain by shooting oneself in the foot.

I was frustrated with getting things settled for our tour to Ireland and Iceland.  We were down in Arizona, playing concerts, with potential folks to jump on board, but no information to give.  

Our tour coordinator, Jeanne, is a good, decent, hard-working person.  She joined us on the last tour to Ireland and I still think we have a good relationship.  But that wasn’t going to have any bearing on my anger when, finally, it looked like everything was in order to go forward with the tour. I double checked on the time for our folks leaving Iceland; I just had a sense and it proved right that it would have been a 3 a.m. wake-up for a day of traveling from Reykjavik to Dublin to Chicago.  I'm pretty sure it would have gone over horribly with those travelers.

I decided to vent this frustration to our business manager, Sue, who for about 20 years now has been able to talk me off the ledge. I ranted to her about how I felt our agent couldn’t really be thinking of that flight for our merry band.  Except, I didn’t really say it quite that civilly.

I didn’t go full Irish, with the various adaptations of the F-bomb or uttering of “feckin’ eejit”, that makes Irish ranting almost an art form, but I came close.  Again, for me, it was the situation more than anything.  I ranted about that, ranted about a lack of ticket sales for our show in Woodstock and ranted a bit about Brian because that is always therapeutic to do.  Without another thought, I fired the email back to Sue.

Except it didn’t go to Sue.

I was headed out with friend Norm for a rare day of relaxation and a chance to allow my mind to go numb in the mountains of the Tonto State forest outside of Payson, when the cow cookies hit the fan.

"ATTENTION MR. MARTIN McCORMACK," the caption of the email read.

Suffice it to say, Jeanne’s boss, alerted and enraged, wrote a wonderful email dressing me down.  I read it at first with a sense of “What is this?”  Slowly it dawned on me that my Irish rant went to the wrong email address.  And to make matters worse, Norm and I just got past the last cell tower and into the land of NO SERVICE.

I read it to Norm.  

“Wow, he told you,” he said.  “That has to be one of the best reprimands anybody ever gave anyone.”

“Yeah,” I said.  “I am impressed and I’m the one getting flayed.”  

“Well, what can you do?  You went on a rant and sent it to the wrong person.”  
 
“Boy, do I feel like an ass,” I said feebly. 

“Yeah,” said Norm.  “You are an ass.” 

Nothing feels so stupid as to read your own rant being quoted back at you by someone thoroughly angry with your rant.  And so, now with my buddy Norm offering his condolences, I attempted to make amends once we got back into cell service.  I called Jeanne and told her that I was very sorry for being on a rant, being an ass and that next time I would dig a hole and yell into it.   For her part, she was very professional and understanding.  Her boss, seeing that I was apologizing for my rude behavior was also understanding. 

I could only imagine the joy of that email of mine, going round the office, to spouses, to friends perhaps.  “There but for the grace of God,” perhaps one would say.  Or “Man, good work on putting stuck up musician boy in his place.”  That sort of thing.   And I of course deserved it.  I deserved it for not learning from my hero Abraham Lincoln.

People don’t know it, but Lincoln had a temper as well as a great knack for sarcasm.  And he was also under stress way more than most humans, dealing with a little thing called the Civil War.  Sort of makes everyone else’s worries look wimpy, including a musician like myself ranting about the wake-up time in Iceland.  

I suspect he perfected it after what would have been a 19th-century “wrong-address” incident.  That was an editorial he wrote in the Sangamon Journal, excoriating a fellow politician by the name of James Shield.  The state of Illinois went bankrupt (yes, Illinois, we did it before, we can do it again!) and Lincoln, then a rising political star and lawyer, chastised Shields for supporting the notion that people could just pay in gold and silver instead of paper money.  Pretty silly notion, sort of the “let them eat cake” mentality. 

Thank God such foolish thinking isn’t around today.   

Lincoln didn’t use his real name, but that didn’t stop Shields finding out by strong-arming the editor into revealing who was behind the nom de plume. According to American Battlefield Trust, Shields wrote Lincoln, “I have become the object of slander, vituperation and personal abuse. Only a full retraction may prevent consequences which no one will regret more than myself.”

Unlike yours truly,  quickly trying to make amends,  Lincoln basically gave Shields the Victorian version of a poop-emoji in response.  Shields, now doubly humiliated, decided that only a duel could solve his besmirched honor.   Missouri allowed dueling (and maybe we need to bring it back with our politicians today?) and so Bloody Island, right outside St. Louis, was chosen as the spot.  Lincoln, having been the one challenged, was given the choice of weapon to duel.  He chose heavy, long cavalry swords. 

"I didn't want the d—-d fellow to kill me, which I think he would have done if we had selected pistols," said Lincoln.  Being over six feet tall, Lincoln had the reach and height advantage. Shields stood about as tall as me --  5’9”.  

Thankfully cooler heads prevailed and the day of duel: the seconds stepped in and along with the bystanders made Lincoln and Shields end the farce.  Today, it would have been livestreamed on Facebook by someone and I am sure the two would have gone swinging away at each other.  It would have had 10 million views, been retweeted and re-edited to make Lincoln look like a homicidal maniac, shown on the news and would have been dissected by sixteen op-ed pieces written in support of and against the dueling duo. And even a couple more impassioned pieces would crop up, saying how Bloody Island is a bird sanctuary and should be left alone for the rare dooga bird.  Ah, 19th century, how much we miss thee.

Lincoln learned his lesson.  This served him in later years when as president, he would witness true blunders made by his generals, resulting in thousands of deaths and very nearly the destruction of the United States.   

An Irish temper would not have served him.  Rather, he developed a policy of writing a letter, and ranting.  Then setting aside the sealed letter with the words “never signed, nor sent” scrawled across it.  For him, that little space, that hole in the ground was enough to help his stress and keep him from truly hurting others' feelings.

When Gen. George Meade, having won Gettysburg, had Robert E. Lee’s forces trapped by a flooded Rappahannock River, he could have ended the Civil War two years early just by pressing that advantage.  But Meade chose to wait.  By doing so, he allowed Lee to build bridges and get his army back to the south.  

Lincoln, apoplectic and nearly insane with rage, wrote the following “scathing” letter:  

Executive Mansion,
Washington, July 14, 1863.
Major General Meade

I have just seen your dispatch to Gen. Halleck, asking to be relieved of your command, because of a supposed censure of mine-- I am very -- very -- grateful to you for the magnificent success you gave the cause of the country at Gettysburg; and I am sorry now to be the author of the slightest pain to you-- But I was in such deep distress myself that I could not restrain some expression of it-- I had been oppressed nearly ever since the battles at Gettysburg, by what appeared to be evidences that your self, and Gen. Couch, and Gen. Smith, were not seeking a collision with the enemy, but were trying to get him across the river without another battle. What these evidences were, if you please, I hope to tell you at some time, when we shall both feel better. The case, summarily stated is this. You fought and beat the enemy at Gettysburg; and, of course, to say the least, his loss was as great as yours-- He retreated; and you did not, as it seemed to me, pressingly pursue him; but a flood in the river detained him, till, by slow degrees, you were again upon him. You had at least twenty thousand veteran troops directly with you, and as many more raw ones within supporting distance, all in addition to those who fought with you at Gettysburg; while it was not possible that he had received a single recruit; and yet you stood and let the flood run down, bridges be built, and the enemy move away at his leisure, without attacking him. And Couch and Smith! The latter left Carlisle in time, upon all ordinary calculation, to have aided you in the last battle at Gettysburg; but he did not arrive-- More At the end of more than ten days, I believe twelve, under constant urging, he reached Hagerstown from Carlisle, which is not an inch over fifty-five miles, if so much. And Couch's movement was very little different--

Again, my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape-- He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with  our other late successes, have ended the war-- As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how can you possibly do so South of the river, when you can take with you very few more then two thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect, and I do not expect you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it--

I beg you will not consider this a prosecution, or persecution of yourself-- As you had learned that I was dissatisfied, I have thought it best to kindly tell you why.

[ Endorsed on Envelope by Lincoln: To Gen. Meade, never sent, or signed.]

At this point in his life, Lincoln had mastered not only how to channel his emotions, but mastered the use of the technology of the day.   Still, General Meade had heard that Lincoln was angry about his dawdling, but no bother, it was not directly from him.  And Lincoln never showed his hand to General Meade.  Instead, he vented, but vented his anger to a letter never intended to be sent. 

For myself, I apologize again to Jeanne, our tour coordinator. I did indeed, by my own doing, hurt her feelings.  I pretty much think she could best me in a duel, too.   And perhaps like Old Abe, I should sit down, take the time to channel my feelings properly and put that email in the “never signed nor sent” file and give the angel of my better nature a chance to flap her wings. ​

Dear friends of Switchback,

There are days when I find myself at home asking out loud, “Who is this little human that lives with us and where did she come from?” Áine turned five years old on Monday. For me that is something both amazing and sad to behold.  The sad part is obvious, in that it means that I too, am five years older. It also means that gone for good is that little baby girl, toddler and ultra portable kid.  Now, there is this little human. With little human observations.  

For example, her enjoyment of the Hamilton official soundtrack.  Áine listened to it just two times and started singing the songs around the house. Annie gave her the blow-by-blow as the album played and employed a history lesson using American currency. At night Áine's prayer became, “God Bless Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, those three other men, and the Schuyler sisters.”  And then after a brief thought, “And please bless a little bit King George and the soldiers, even though they were kind of mean.”   

As her compassion to King George and the redcoats show, she remains very sensitive to the plight of other people, consoling her fellow classmates at school. During the Nativity play last month, Aine was cast as Mary.  When her best friend (who was dressed as an angel) started crying because she didn’t see her parents, Aine shifted the baby Jesus under one arm, then pointed out to the crowd and said, “Look! Don’t cry, they’re right over there!”  

Annie's mother gave Annie and myself a crystal Waterford “make up bell” some years back. For those who never have an argument in their relationship, this is a bell you ring to break up an argument and encourage the parties “make up.”  Áine discovered the meaning of this bell and now, even discussions about filling the bird feeder are interrupted by the tinkling sound of a bell, rung by a smiling girl.  I have found myself much more careful in how I approach topics with Annie, as I always see Áine reaching for the bell. 

Thankfully, she still enjoys playing at parks.  She has travelled to numerous parks around the north side of Chicago and into Evanston.  The fact that she comes alone doesn’t normally faze her, for there are always new friends to be made.   “Hi friends,” she says, “will you play with me?”  She is blind to any differences in people that us older folks are unfortunately far too aware of. To her, a kid is nothing more or less than a potential friend.  Usually she is able to take on the older kids and keep up running and playing tag.  Her own joy in connecting with people is infectious and allows her Papa the opportunity to connect with the other kids' parents.  Many a wonderful conversation with a stranger has been started by Áine wishing to play with their kid.  She has made me more open to saying hello to people and putting the feeling of joy into practice. 

The world does creep in and already she has picked up that girls and boys are different. She is aware that other girls talk about looks and clothes.  It’s hard to run interference on it and allow her to not start down that path already.   The joy is that she is still a kid. 

She does have a crush, on a little boy in her class named Max.  She considers him cute.  “I’m going to marry Max,” she once said.  I froze.  For now, she is still Papa’s girl, thankfully. 

And, she surprised me when she announced she wants to be a singer.  Already Áine has composed several songs and shows an interest in instruments.  Where she goes with this is up to her.  

It is hard to wave goodbye to the toddler, the baby girl and start making room for the young girl, with young girl ideas.  Already there are times when I will glance at her and see the future young woman.  In the meantime I thank God for each day I can hold her, carry her upstairs at night and still have that great feeling of a little daughter, peaceful and sleepy with her Papa.  

[Our friends Martin and Brian have asked me to drop the old phonograph needle on some of their tunes, perhaps some lesser known, and report back to everyone. This month is a tangent.]
 
Folks who follow Switchback see occasional dates on their schedule marked “Outreach Program.”  Let’s go close-up with one of those, one that happened in October in Springfield, Illinois.
 
The Hope Institute for Children and Families provides educational and residential services to children facing extraordinary cognitive, physical and emotional challenges.  Switchback came for a week-long residency, everything from one-on-one engagement to an all-school concert to the finish their time there.
 
This outreach program was quite different from a one-show gig.  To plan their time, Martin McCormack and Brian FitzGerald worked with Hope’s music therapist for months leading up to their week at the school. Alisabeth Hopper helped the band create a curriculum, a compendium of lesson plans to be piloted at her Hope Learning Center.  Full of details, activities, aims and goals this “HopeWork” is designed to be used in part or whole at other facilities by other musical performers.
 
Then, of course, there are all the fun parts.
 
About 30 youngsters arrive in a smallish space along with half a dozen staff.  Marty and Brian have met all these folks earlier in the week, and most of today's songs have been sung in smaller classroom rehearsals.  With the band plugged in just a few feet from the front row, first up is a medley of sing-alongs working off the same tune.  It’s “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” easily oozing into “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” with a smooth segue into “The ABC Song” where Marty asks Brian if he’s truly confident of the lyrics.
 
Songs throughout this half-hour session start and end gently, the idea being to stimulate but not over-stimulate Hope’s students.
 
Next up, so to speak, is “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” with full-throat audience participation on the “One, two, three strikes you’re out!” line.
 
Marty then reminds the students they are working on “White Christmas” for their upcoming holiday show so they should give that one a try.  The room is full of singing and signing the familiar December-dream carol.  Later the audience is asked for a song suggestion.  It’s “Jingle Bells” with bells handed out and enthusiastic response to the shouted “Hey!” with Brian upping the tempo each time around on his new mandolin.
 
Most of us have witnessed Switchback absorb energy from their audiences.  That is not different here with the youngsters’ encouragements ranging from small to dramatic.  One Hope staff member commented that among performers at the school Brian and Martin are clearly more interactive and that they listen for what the students want.
 
Switchback did an instrumental so the audience could be the percussion section, slapping out beats on their thighs.  It was just a strum-along, but Brian, always the creator, started whipping off licks on his Taylor M4-CE that would fly on any stage.
 
With the end near, Switchback led the singing of that tender and saucy tale of an errant meatball sneezed into oblivion - “On Top of Spaghetti” - to the delight of all.
 
After a few small-group photos with much hugging and many smiles, Switchback finished with Hope’s traditional good-bye song and its lyric “Music is over until next time.”  Then Marty signs off with a warning about the next day’s closing concert:  “There might be dancing!”
 
Here is the full disclosure section.  My lovely wife Sheila Walk heads our Springfield Area Arts Council which funded this whole wonderful week by hiring Switchback and Hope’s music therapist.  Back years ago when I first met Martin and Brian, they were fresh from a half-day at this same Hope Institute.  Over lunch Marty said Switchback wanted to be “the house band for Hope.”  Pretty damned endearing.  Sheila says it took a few years and a generous bequest, but this year she made it happen.

Doug Kamholz is an itinerant washboard player who has freelanced for the New York Times, Washington Post and many lesser media.  His most honest work was as a pig farmer in central Illinois, where he now lives and occasionally makes dinner for Switchback.
​