​Dear Switchback friends,

As I write this, the sounds of the Pacific come in through the screen door.  Out the other door are the highway sounds, cars going by at 30 miles per hour, heading off to the Polynesian Cultural Center for a luau.  By the look of the brochure costs, it is the tourists who are once again to be eaten alive.

The north shore of Oahu is a great place to “hunker down” with my family.  We just finished a dinner of pompano fish, freshly caught by a young father and his three sons out by the coral reef.  Aine watches “Wally Kazam” on television.  As I look at Annie’s laptop monitor, it reads 1:16 a.m. back in Chicago.  One more weekend and we will be back in the Midwest, where spring will welcome us with her freezing rain and straining daffodils, yearning to be warm.  I shut that thought out of my mind and wonder, “Will that dog be back again?”

When people land in Hawaii, the pilot usually says, “Welcome to Paradise,” and in so many ways, the pilot is right.  Even the threat of storms here means that there might be some rain (a Hawaiian Blessing as it is called), followed by a lot of sunshine. The weather is not like the storm forecast in the Midwest that shows an unbroken front that often stretches from Manitoba to Texas, snowing in some places, flooding in others, and generally making half a continent miserable.  Here, even miserable is tempered by sunshine.  The rain falls warm and forgiving.  It is Paradise. 

But, every morning outside my lanai, there it was.  A deposit made by a local dog, strategically located to ensure that the unsuspecting tourist will step in it.  This dog revealed itself on day two of our stay here.  It is a big, chunky black Lab.  The owners appear to be native Hawaiian and are affable enough as they go chasing down this dog.  “Oh, there you are!” the dog’s owner declared, deftly sidestepping the mound of Mahalo it left.  The lab wore a thick red collar, at least the first day, when the owners reunited with their dog. Later, it went commando.

“Are you going to say something to them about the dog?” Annie asked me.  I was immediately defensive.  First of all, the idea of any confrontation over dog poop is something to be avoided when on vacation.  I saw the owners bundle the overweight dog into the pickup truck where it waddled to the tailgate and looked at me with its big yellow unblinking eyes. 

It was sizing me up and I could tell the dog was laughing.  “I’ll be back to alter your Aloha, haole,” was what he was saying to me, as the truck turned and zoomed off at 10 miles per hour, which for Oahu is making a statement.

The dog was gone, but there remained his calling card.  Now there are a bunch of staff guys at this rental property.  Their neon lime green polyester work shirts attempt to create a jovial vibe as they walk around the property, occasionally with a rake in hand, but most time, it seemed they were just walking around the property.  

“Sir,” I said to the guy who slowly walked within striking distance of the Lab-lava, “this black Lab was running around and he deposited this big business outside my lanai.”  He rolled his eyes toward heaven and sighed. 

“Yeah, we are trying to get that dog. Don’t even mention that dog,” he said as he walked off, pleading to the Hawaiian gods with his hands outspread.  The dog doody was still there, a prodigious bit of island in a sea of short green beach grass.  

“All right,” I said to my family, “I am going to clean this up.”  I found an old dustpan that was used to empty coal ash from the grills and walked over to the pile.  Dressed in my swimsuit, with my very pale skin glistening with 500 SPF lotion, I slowly attempted to coax the poodle-strudel onto the coal ash dustpan.  I felt like I was on a curling squad.  

I pushed against the resisting beach grass and tried not to roll this canine-cannoli across the entire yard.  Finally, I had the object of my annoyance in the dustpan and took it to a nearby trash container.  

I felt like I did a good deed for everyone there and even rinsed the grass down for good measure.  

The next day, after waking up to a glorious Easter sunrise and watching the deep blue rollers crossing the reef at high tide, I sipped my Kona coffee and counted my blessings.  

Then the dog came back. Commando.

He ambled to the exact same spot where he done his job the day before and squatted.  I ran out onto the lanai.  “Bad dog,” I said, “get out of here.”  The dog looked at me with his yellow unblinking eyes wearing a blank expression.  All my yelling and gesticulating were part of his entertainment as he made another Magnum-oh my.

As I was rounding the gate to shoo him off the property, he was done.  He smiled at me, quite happy that he showed me a bit of “hope you are enjoying your holiday” and for good measure squirted around the palm tree where I had planned to hide Easter eggs for Aine. 

The Lab ambled onto the beach and walked away as I waved down another guy wearing a neon lime green polyester shirt. 

“That black Lab was back,” I said to him as he walked around without any rake. “He did his business back in the same spot.”  

The guy looked at me, and perhaps because it was Easter, refrained from saying anything other than, “We know about that dog and are getting it under control.”  

“Well, I don’t want my daughter to go running across the lawn and step on some ‘under control’,” I said, trying to be light about it.  He looked at me and turned away. 

I decided to go to Church and pray about it. The Lord works in mysterious ways, I figured. He might work on this, too?

Back from church, I was surprised to see that no one had moved that Waimea-watchit.  It sat, baking in the sun.  Barefoot people walked obliviously around it, heading to the beach, sauntering over to the grill and arranging lounge chairs.  Any sense of civic duty ebbed with the low tide.

I sighed and thought that at least on this holiest of days, I should humble myself and move the mountain to Mohammed, so to speak.

So I armed myself with the dustpan and once again went canine-curling across the lawn.  Everyone ignored me wearing my bright red sand shoes, hunched over, my back showing the areas that I missed with my 500 SPF lotion, my long hair dangling over my face, muttering to myself as I rolled something that was definitely not an Easter egg. 

Rinsing down the lawn after another successful attempt, I was happy that at least all the kids looking for Easter eggs would not pick up a dud with me on patrol.

The next day, no sign of the dog, but a sign that the dog was there.  I was incredulous.  
“This dog has it in for me,” I said to Annie.  “Does he have GPS in his lower intestine?”
Sure enough, a guy in a neon lime green shirt with no rake was walking slowly toward the ocean to see if it was still there.  It was. 

And I said to him, “Sir, this dog just dropped another puppy pile in the exact same spot.”  The guy looked at me, noticing that I had failed to completely sunblock my skin and that I had a beet red patch of burn that looked something like the map of Antarctica forming on my stomach.  “Okay,” he said, not even looking at the gigantic rover-range that was blocking my view of the ocean.  

And seven hours later, I gave up and took the now trusty dustpan and expertly got the Oahu-uh-oh into the trash.  

People splashed in the ocean.  Retirees with platters of burgers walked over the lawn in bare feet to the grill.  A little boy rolled his ball as his mother shed her shoes and padded across the lawn. She gazed open mouthed at the ocean as the kid trotted back and forth over the scene of the crime.

And I wonder, when I leave, what will happen?  Will the Lab look around and say, “Well, where did he go?”  Will a neon lime green shirt guy finally decide that it isn’t beneath him to scoop up a Honolulu-how-do-you-do?

Or will some other guy, sitting in his swimsuit on this lanai, his pale skin slathered in 500 SPF, look out at Paradise, turn to his wife and say, “WHAT is that dog doing?” 

Martin McCormack
WayGoodMusic.com

Dear friends of Switchback,

Welcome to the High Holy Season of the Year!  No, not Easter, but St. Patrick’s Day Season, which for us began in February and will not end until around April 10th. We are pretty busy at this time of year, celebrating our Irish heritage through music with as many people as we can.  And we are pretty far-flung these days too, heading across the Midwest and on to Arizona and ending up playing Kona and Oahu in Hawaii.  It could be argued that our season never really ends.

But at this time of year I always go back in my mind to the early days before Switchback, when Brian and I were with the Wailin’ Banshees.  This was in B.R.D. time (Before River Dance) when there really was no such thing as the Irish pubs we see in abundance today. Yes, there were Irish pubs in Chicago, but they were pubs that had Irish in them.  They had names like The Abbey Pub, Sixpenny Bit, and The Goalpost. And there were Irish cabaret-style places like the Irish Village, which would have dances and bring entertainers over from Ireland. The Irish Heritage Center on the north side of Chicago was still a vacant high school, and Gaelic Park on the south side didn’t have the hall and pub it has today.  It was a park for Gaelic football. 

In those days during the mid-1980's, you were identified as being either a “greenhorn” which was an Irish-born immigrant or a “narrowback,” an Irish-American.  Irish dance and certainly Irish music were still an “ethnic” thing, not the form we see today, embraced, celebrated, and often played and danced by people without any Celtic blood.  And that is a good thing, in my opinion. 

Still, as a band that was comprised of one greenhorn and three narrowbacks, the Wailin’ Banshees was an unusual group.  That we also were four people, two of whom were 40 years our seniors, united in the love of Irish music was also unusual.  We made for a fun but slightly dysfunctional Irish band, acting more like a family band than anything else. 

Some of the pubs we played were only for greenhorn Irish.  And in those days there were pubs that leaned heavily toward the IRA.  And I don’t mean places that just sang rebel songs either. As narrowbacks, Brian and I were not always welcomed and always viewed with suspicion.  But with Galway-born Bert McMahon along, with his easy demeanor, glint in his eye, and fantastic banjo playing, we were safe. Some pubs and events were more politically oriented.  These were places where Irish aldermen held sway, and their lackeys would uphold fealty to the point of obnoxiousness. 

I remember Brian and I once played a fundraiser for a northside Alderman.  We were hungry and went to where the food was being served. As musicians it was customary to be fed at such events as part of the deal.  We got two plates of mostaccioli and chicken (which people don’t realize is really the food served at all Irish weddings and events, not corn beef and cabbage) and were about to sit and eat when a crowd of angry looking men gathered around us. 
 
“You bettah make a donation for the alderman,” growled one.  “That food ain’t free.” 
“Well, if it isn’t free, I ain’t eating it,” I retorted. 
“Oh, you’re going to eat it,” replied one glowering lackey. 

So Brian and I, hired to play and already playing at a discount for that alderman, literally ate with a circle of people standing over our table.  In came our fiddler Mary McDonagh who was known and respected by many in the Irish community, greenhorn and narrowback alike. She snarled at the pack surrounding her boys and they skulked off.  But we got a lesson in Irish politics that day:  always bring the alderman with you. 

When Jayne Byrne ran for re-election as the first (and to date only) female Mayor of Chicago, our band was hired to supply the music.  And since it was an Irish event, Jayne had to prove her own fealty to the homeland. She made a rousing speech and soon someone was yelling, “Sing with Marty, sing with Marty!”
​  
I was pushed over to the microphone where Jayne stood. 
“Do you know ‘The Town I Love So Well?’” Jayne asked. 
“Sure,” I said, knowing that the song is about 20 minutes long and totally uncertain why she would ask for that song.  But we did it. 

We were standing eyeball to eyeball around a microphone, Jayne belting out every word as we went through the whole story of Derry.  Perhaps for her, as Mayor, it was symbolic of her aspiration to make Chicago a better town. “I can only pray for a brand new day for the town I love so well,” goes the last line of the song, which is beautiful, except it comes 19 minutes and 45 seconds down the pike.  Jayne wasn’t the best of singers, but enthusiastic. Her singing was better than her re-election campaign though. Still I smile when I think back on her and those narrowback politicians. They thought like Irish and fought like Irish. Jayne allowed the filming of the movie The Blues Brothers in Chicago, and for that she should have a statue erected to her.  But in true Chicago fashion, something better has been done:  the automotive interchange that unites I-290 and I-90 and spins off I-55 a couple miles south is all named after her. Thousands of swearing truck drivers, scared visitors on their first foray to the Windy City, and I-Phone reading commuters hunker down at that spaghetti bowl of roadway every morning and afternoon.  Jayne would have loved the chaos, I figure. 

It was St. Patrick’s Day that put the Banshees into high gear.   For at that time of the year not only did the regular pubs want a band, but the Knights of Columbus groups, the country clubs with their WASP-ish take on the holiday, and the odd tour boat filled with St. Patrick’s Parade revelers would be vying for an Irish band.  And a lot of bands fought to have a slice of the St. Paddy pie, Irish and non-Irish alike. There was a group, whose name I can’t remember, that had the right idea to dress up as Germans for Oktoberfest, Italians for St. Joseph’s Day, and all in green for St. Patrick’s Day.  But for the places that wanted a bona fide Irish band, we were a good choice and the phones would start ringing to hire us in January. 

A typical St. Patrick’s Day would consist of four or five gigs of one or two hours, with a lot of driving between.  There were no cell phones in those days, so I wore a watch and had to call each venue the day prior to confirm the start time, save a parking spot for us to quickly park, and most importantly supply some food to keep us going.  It was supposed to be pulled off with military precision, but never did that happen. 

We would try to dress well for the shows.  In the early days we all wore different outfits.  Brian would have an Irish cap on. I would have a vest and white shirt, and Bert would wear a jacket.  Mary always wore a lovely green flowered dress. Later we got wise and had the three lads all decked out in matching Kelly green Arnold Palmer jackets with grey slacks.  It was a good look and set us apart even more from most groups. We were an odd outfit:  part Irish showband, part bluegrass group, part family-band, and part traditional Irish, and we didn’t give a damn what others thought of us.  

The first gig would be playing on the boat the Spirit of Chicago.  We would all pile into Mary’s Crown Victoria and put the sound system and our instruments into the trunk.  Down to Navy Pier we would roll, and we would trundle out the sound system and set up for the early revelers.  A group of excited step dancers, released from grade school for the day, would also be on hand to help us celebrate.  These kids would have simple Irish outfits on. It would be several years before we would start seeing the result of A.R.D. (after River Dance) with the $1000 glittering, bejeweled dresses and bouncy curl wigs. 

Down the Chicago River we would sail to where the river was dyed green near the Michigan Avenue bridge.  Revelers would be out early, wearing loud green hats, scarves, and huge sunglasses. The deck of the boat would be swarming with Irish-for-the-day types, having green beer and enjoying the view of other revelers lining up over the bridge. 

We would play several sets and then play for the step dancers.  I would look nervously at my watch, for we had to keep moving to make our next stop at WGN Radio.  We would do a radio interview and play a tune or two for Kathy O’Malley and Judy Markey. They both loved Bertie.  Bert was a handsome man, with sparkling greenish grey eyes and snow white hair. His soft brogue could charm any lady within hearing distance of it.  So Bert would chat with them and then we would play a couple of traditional Irish tunes.  All the time, I would be checking the clock to make sure we would make our next stop on time. 

And soon it would be on to a pub for another two sets.  Depending on which pub hired us, that could be a dash out to Palatine, Illinois for a stint at Durty Nellie’s or over to Grandpa’s in Glenview for their St. Patrick’s celebration.  Soon it was two o’clock and we were only halfway into the day. It was a tradition to play at FitzGerald’s, and so we would run out to Berwyn. There we would wolf down corn beef sandwiches and play another two sets.  Paul and Mary McHugh would play for the step dancers, then we would get up and play. Finally, we would vacate the stage for the big act of the evening, the Dooley Brothers. 

All the time, the clock is ticking.  Now it would be close to 7 p.m., and I had already sung “Danny Boy” four times.  We all are tired and Bert, not wishing to be rushed, would be seated at the bar having a beer and a shot of VO.  Brian would be off securing some food for us to eat as we drove to the next show. Mary would be pacing nervously, her fiddle packed and her jacket on.  And I would be trying to get paid. Somehow we would make it back to the Crown Vic, maneuver the big hulking beast out of the crowded parking lot, and running late, hightail it back out to the suburbs to a country club for their St. Patrick’s affair.  Nothing ran smoother than Mary’s Crown Victoria after I got it up to 80 miles an hour. St. Patrick’s Day was the only day of the year that the car had its speedometer over 25 mph, and as I hit the gas, a puff of carbon would kick out of the tailpipe. Mary would nervously say, “Oh no, Marty, too fast.”  But we had to get to the next show and set up. 

Thankfully, the country club gigs would be rather subdued events. The manager would always look at us like we were savages brought in from the wild.  And I guess in some ways we were. We would be set up in a far corner, and the general rule was to be “heard but not seen.” No drinks at the bar. Bert would have to get his beer on the sly.  

The members of the club would come politely dressed in green in complete contrast to the hooting and hollering hordes that were crowding the bars 40 miles to the east.  The whole evening would consist of us playing background music as they dined. We would have to dive into Irish-American standards like “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” And I would be asked to sing “Danny Boy.”   It was never too long of an evening, and the great pay made up for us missing all the fun going on back at the clubs. But by this time the whole band would be exhausted, and there was a huge relief that all the clubs and obligations had been met with no hiccups.

After the last number was played, the guests would vanish like a receding floor.  The manager, assured now that the band he hired had delivered and free of the need to maintain appearances, would invite us over for a drink at the club bar.  And we would head over to the bar and have some drinks. Slowly we would pack up one last time for the day. We would all pile back into the Crown Victoria and rumble back into the city at a respectable 55 miles per hour.  It would be about midnight when we would get to Bert’s girlfriend Eileen Fleming’s house. Eileen would have some tea waiting, and we would sit around laughing about the day and not really wanting to let the excitement of St. Patrick’s end.  

Martin McCormack

WayGoodMusic.com

Dear friends of Switchback,
 
I was asked by the staff of the Venu, a residential resort community in Scottsdale, Arizona, to write an article about how Switchback has adopted them as not only a place to play, but as a base camp for our Southwestern U.S. touring. I realized that this article could explain the synergy that is created by our friends who support our music and aid in our ability to bring our music to new audiences. This article might also inspire you to join in the effort.
 
This cooperative effort is what I call “making a WayGood World.” I tease that “The WayGood World is a vast and ever-expanding Empire that is larger than Switchback itself.” People new to our music, and the close relationship we maintain with our friends, are confused. Some wonder if we are a cult!  We aren’t, nor do we offer Kool-Aid at any of our concerts, nor espouse dressing alike or having our haircuts all look like Dr. Spock’s.
 
Our friends realize that I am referring to that collective joy that has been created between them and ourselves.  Picture a bunch of Deadheads that actually help the Grateful Dead tour, donate money to make records, sell merchandise and spread the word about their music, and you get the picture. The Venu is a location where there now resides a whole passel of Switchheads. And it didn’t happen overnight. 
 
The Venu is a collection of condominiums and rental properties, very much like a lot of resort communities in the Southwest. So there is a community room and a swimming pool. A lot of people who stay there are “snowbirds” coming from the colder climes of North America, with a few European stragglers thrown in. The result is a very vibrant community that coalesces around wintertime. Add in one very determined, energetic friend of Switchback, Norm Weitzman, and faster than a flu-virus the joy of the WayGood World can spread. 
 
Norm used to live in Chicago and moved permanently to Arizona a few years ago. Keen on having the band come to the Southwest, he reached out to Brian and myself. Norm did two important things to make it happen. He offered us a place to stay and he created some initial concerts at the Venu that in turn brought in more friends to the music. This happened not by coincidence, but by some very thoughtful planning on his part. The first concert we did was in the great room of the Venu. We had driven down to Arizona, so were able to bring our equipment. The result was an enthusiastic embrace from folks who really enjoy live music. Soon we had Diane Gilbert making dinner for the band and that then morphed into a potluck dinner for the residents who attended the concert. The general public soon started coming due to word of mouth, so the traffic (and subtle marketing) at the Venu increased.  
 
Norm decided that we should have an outdoor concert. The beautiful desert behind the Venu was the logical choice to have it. Surrounded by stately saguaro cacti and desert plants, the event took place much like a Mickey Rooney “Andy Hardy” movie. We decided to see how much extension cord we could run out from the Venu. John Steinsky volunteered to film the event and Brenda Steinsky helped mobilize folks to come out and attend. Flyers were created announcing the date and pretty soon an amazing “Concert in the Desert” was created. It was nicknamed “Desert Norm” in honor of Norm and the name stuck. Pretty soon the public heard about this concert and came from as far as Sedona and Mesa to attend, along with a dish to pass. Some friends of Switchback, vacationing in Arizona, made the trip to the Venu and in turn met the Switchback friends living there. The community-creating aspect of the shows brought new attention to the Venu and new friends to Switchback and the WayGood World. And the unique setting of “Desert Norm,” with the mountains bathed in the red-orange sunset, hummingbirds, quail and the odd javelina walking by, made the music that much more magical. 
 
Obviously Brian and I carve out a living making music and it takes money to travel. So over the course of three years, Norm doggedly worked on having Switchback come at regular intervals to the greater Phoenix area. And much like an invading army, Switchback and our supporters at the Venu have collectively struggled to get a toehold on the beachhead of regular shows in Arizona, as well as back in their summer homes. Robin Gilbert has been working with our agent to have us play in Canada and John and Brenda Steinsky have plans for a future Switchback concert on Prince Edward Island. Joel Greenburg and his wife, Judi, have mentioned our invading Boston.
 
In addition, Switchback now maintains a complete sound system at the Venu. We fly to Phoenix, rent a van and head to our Southwest home. We not only continue to present concerts at the Venu, but plan to offer a poolside party as well as some other special events in the future. The desert concerts will continue with the next one being offered on March 24.  
 
We have been blessed over the years to have people who believe and support our music. Many of you reading this did what Norm and the folks at the Venu are doing. I would encourage you to mention where and how you helped in the comments section of our blog page to encourage others to do the same. We have been able to travel and present our music without the support of a major label or company because we have the support and company of our friends. As I have also said, “We are only as successful and popular as our friends wish us to be.” Thanks to our friends, like the ones at the Venu, it truly is becoming a WayGood World. 

Martin McCormack
WayGoodMusic.com

Dear Friends of Switchback,

Four years have gone by since the polar vortex of 2014 and the birth of my daughter, Áine.  In a lot of ways, I now measure the years by her growth.  It’s been fun to line her up with the well-traveled bass case and see the changes.  And, so far, she has been willing to cooperate with these yearly pictures.  I don’t know how it will go when she turns 13. 

The big change this year for Áine has been preschool.  Preschool did not exist when I was a kid, and so it was sort of an odd thing to have to enroll in it to begin with.  Growing up, kindergarten (what was considered formal education) did not start until age 6.  In our family, the years of three to five were spent doing things that made sense, like eating and learning how to flush the toilet. 

Mom had courses for us, like Diaper Folding 101, which was an advanced study of taking a diaper out of the dryer and folding it.  I got pretty good at it by the time I was four and so I was advanced to Sock Mating.  This course I flunked out of and still to this day am a remedial sock mater.   

So with Áine heading over to preschool, I was befuddled by having two more years of education prior to kindergarten.  And, since we enrolled her in Catholic school, two more years of tuition. But Annie and I reasoned (and our calculators confirmed) that in some ways it was more reasonable than a nanny or daycare.  

I was all for the idea of taking her on the road with Switchback and letting her education start there.  However, Annie felt that pre-K (the technical term used nowadays) was the way to go.  Brian and I do not have the best track record for keeping the Switchback van clean.  We also lose things from time to time, like microphone stands and well, whole vans.  It would be “Two Men and a Baby” meets “Dumb and Dumber.”  So, Annie won out and we enrolled Áine where she would be able to eat something other than trail mix.

She was excited to be going to school and became part of a class called the Caterpillars.  Now, anyone who has a kid born in the last 20 years would quickly recognize that this is a reference to the Eric Carle book, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”   This is staple pre-K reading.  Carle has built an empire on it, and for us parents, that translates into “Hungry Caterpillar” videos, stuffed dolls, games, and the like.  A slew of spin-off books by Carle have also become “must haves” in this weird Pre-K world.  My book is going to be called “The Empty Wallet.”

There are about 20 kids in her class and already the dynamics of personality are emerging.  Some kids are “popular,” which at almost four means that you get hugged by the other kids and asked to be a friend.  Some kids are lone wolves, hanging out by their cubby holes where the books, coats and shoes are placed.  Áine is very social and both types of kids are confusing to her.  She just wants everyone “to be my friend.”  And so tirelessly she will go around hugging kids, occasionally getting bitten or hugged in return, depending on the kid.  

Dropping her off at school last November, I was very proud when she approached a new child crying by her cubby hole.  Áine put her arm around her and said, “Don’t be scared.  I was scared too when I started here, but you will like it.”  Already an old salt in the Pre-K world. The little girl hugged Áine back, excited to have a “new friend.”

Some kids get weepy when leaving their parents.  Áine walked into the classroom and did not look back.  She is very happy to see us at the end of the day but already a streak of independence flares up, especially as I try to get her buckled into the child seat, ask her to eat dinner, go to bed, blow her nose, or say her prayers.  Already she is starting to write songs and cuts me off if I start singing with her.  “Poppa, I am singing.”  So I sort of know my place in the music business around our house.

The hardest part is seeing the child emerge from the toddler.  Pre-K is not a toddler world.  The kids are learning how to write (cursive as well, thank God) and do some simple math, read a bit, and oh, run a computer program.  So much for folding diapers. 

One thing I could not wrap my head around was being asked to attend “parent-teacher” conferences.  “C’mon,” I said to Annie. “What are we going to talk about? I am not going to discuss her macaroni and glue art!”  But sure enough, I went dutifully to meet her teacher.  I suspect this was a ruse to train me instead.  Annie and I sat in the little chairs and discussed seriously her writing skills and social skills and looked at how many stickers she had by her picture for good behavior.  That last one is a good idea for Switchback. 

Still, this veteran of Pre-K is our little girl, and so great to hold, carry and play with.  I think of how Brian talked of playing the board game “Candyland” with his daughter, Siobhan.  And now here I am, purposely losing to Áine as he did to his daughter.  

We spent the Christmas vacation building pillow forts, seeing a movie (her first), and watching with delight as she reveled in the magic of the holidays.  She was a star in the nativity play.  Literally a star, as in starry night.  I think that was less of an acting challenge than the kid who was the donkey.  But those roles, like donkeys and shepherds, are for the Butterflies, who are a year older and wiser. 

I realize as she grows and I age, the gift of now, of what time I get to spend with her is so precious.  As Bil Keane best put it, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.” 

Martin McCormack

​WayGoodMusic.com

My wife Annie sent me an interesting column, written by Kat Eschner for Smithsonian.com.  It was about none other than the fantastic military marching music maker himself, John Philip Sousa.  The inspiration of the Sousaphone (which everyone knows is the hybrid of a tuba and helicon -- what the heck a helicon is, is anybody’s guess) and known by his nickname “The March King,” Sousa created fantastic military marches.  Any lover of Monty Python has listened to his “Liberty Bell” march, which is stirring and able to make the most sedentary of humans stand up straight and start stepping.  

In an essay titled “The Menace of Mechanical Music,” which he wrote for Appleton Magazine in 1906, Sousa laments this horrible new era, the era of recorded music.  He sees that recorded music will take away the feeling of community, creativity and class.  Anyone watching a DJ gyrate at a wedding can see that his prediction has, alas, come true.  In the essay, Sousa states that mechanical music is “sweeping across the country with the speed of a transient fashion in slang or Panama hats, political war cries, or popular novels” and would form a “substitute for human skill, intelligence and soul.”  In other words: “Beware the DJ.”  He also was right about political war cries, but that is for another article.

In his essay, Sousa was railing in part about the lack of composer rights, an issue that dogs songwriters to this day.  But in a larger sense, before television and the iPhone, Sousa laments the loss of the common man playing an instrument in community.

When the essay was written, in 1906, the phonograph was just starting to take off.  Sousa was afraid that it would chip away at the unique “musical mecca” that America had become.  He testified to Congress that “these talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day.”

When I was a boy, my great Uncle Frank reminisced about his youth in 1906 Dubuque, Iowa, when neighbors would do just that, gather at homes to play the piano and sing.  Everyone learned the piano because it was a social instrument for entertainment and community.  The creation of the phonograph and later devices did not stop music.  But it did change community.

What Sousa felt was that the vital and vibrant part of our sense of “we” that centers around community participation would be laid waste by a profusion of technology, and a commercial lack of taste.

In an era when laws have to be created to fine people from texting while crossing the street, the danger of devices does lie in the elimination of community, of literally seeing our neighbor and being in the moment.   Why talk to someone when I can text anyone?  And why attend a concert when I can watch it on my phone? (Or worse, spend a concert so consumed with trying to capture it on our phones so we can share it to social media rather than actually experience communion with the artist giving their all on stage.)  We are now distressed by what is happening halfway around the globe without knowing what is happening halfway down the block.

Sousa also lamented “the general assault on personality in music.”  Just watch the CMA awards and you will see he wasn’t too far off the mark.  Like devices that are mass produced, taste trends toward vanilla in an effort to accommodate the majority.  

So what is the lesson to take away from this?  As the holidays approach, get out to see live, original music.  Start a house concert series in your home and foster community.  Learn an instrument or put the smartphone in the drawer for an hour or two.  Encourage your children and grandchildren to pick up an instrument with an eye toward mastering it.
 
I think Sousa would want us to shake things up, to break the spell that mechanical devices can give us, if we allow them to.  Sure, I am grateful for technology and the fact that even ol’ John Philip Sousa was recorded leading his band for me to hear today.  
 
But anyone who has joined Switchback in a cave concert, or jingled keys during a Christmas show, or looked over the hills of Ireland while Brian’s mandolin strums, understands that we are creatures of the moment.  
 
Those moments cannot be recorded.  One has to be there, be present and share that moment with others.  And sharing those moments together is the ultimate culmination of being alive.  

Martin McCormack

WayGoodMusic.com
 

​Dear friends of Switchback,

As I woke up on the second of October, Annie was reading her phone to catch the morning news.  Aine was already up, getting ready for school.  “There was a s-h-o-o-t-i-n-g in Las Vegas,” she said, so Aine couldn’t understand.  “Fifty-eight d-e-a-d.”  I shook my head as it was too much to comprehend.  Praying that it wasn’t some terror plot, I was relatively relieved in some odd way to know that it was a lone wolf.  While the fact that all those people died cannot affect me the way I know that relatives, loved ones, and the wounded and innocent bystanders are affected, still it made me feel empty inside, trying to get my head around the motivation to do so much evil. Once again it was attack on music and people gathering to celebrate life.  

Once again, like the Bataclan nightclub in Paris, a person chose an attack on the one place where people can be together without any politics, religious differences, or social judgment.  It is the one place in my opinion where pure joy can be created and shared. 

As the news unfolds, it has become apparent that this person deliberately plotted and stalked these people. The difference between him and the terrorists who killed in Paris rendered nil. The senselessness only magnified.  I am guessing this person, as well as the terrorists at the nightclub in Paris, are motivated by a misguided urge to be recognized as “somebody."

The one clue that I noted to motivation is that one of the shops that sold this person the means to kill and change so many lives is called “Guns and Guitars.”  The shop has the legal right to sell such weapons, and that is not the point of this article.  What is the point is what the name of the shop says about what attracts such people to these feats of evil.   

It is my opinion that our world has become a place where being “somebody” is what life is about.  And one way to be “somebody” is to clutch a guitar in one’s hands and stride across a stage in front of a lot of adoring people.  This desire to be relevant I believe transcends the reality of the work, sacrifice, and plain luck that being a rock star is all about. But that doesn’t matter as long as the allure of it is offered.  That said, it is a lot harder to master a guitar than a gun.  One can have the most expensive guitar in one’s hands and that won’t make that person a rock star.  However, one can have a gun in one’s hand and that alone can make that person feel powerful.   

And here is where the gun issue comes into play.  These guns are also misused by people wanting to be “somebody."  You cannot screen or make a background check to determine who wants to be “somebody.”  And so the quandary.  We end up with a few with the means to do a lot with a tool that makes them think they are “somebody.”  And that tool, unlike a guitar, is a hell of a lot easier to learn to use.  And like with a guitar, the glamor and allure, no matter how misguided, are just as strong.

The terrorists like to extol their minions by turning them into martyrs or “somebody."  They go as far as lauding them in magazines and videos.  They give them just enough craving, just enough adulation, to make them go out there and kill.  Not in the name of an ideology, as they would like us to believe.  But in the name of being “somebody.”  It has become a cult, a hollow religion in and of itself.  In my opinion there is enough blame to go around for the creation of this cult, this odd need to be “somebody.”  It has been around for a long time and perhaps we will always be fighting to rid our human condition of its siren call. 

Like guns, in the wrong hands guitars can cause a lot havoc.  Unlike guns, guitars cannot kill someone.  Like guns, guitars can change someone’s life or the lives of hundreds.  Where one properly used can elevate, the other improperly used can destroy.  

If my line of thinking is correct, the only alternative we have is to destroy the cult of being “somebody.”  Replace it with being “someone.”  Someone who serves and lifts others to boot.  Lincoln was “Someone.”  John Wilkes Booth wanted to be “Somebody.”   And that illustrates my point. 

We also have to take a deep breath and admit that because we haven’t eliminated the drive for these individuals to be “somebody” we need to adopt a line that “nobody” can do or have certain things until we change this.   And yes, that means that we have to eliminate the ability for the easy misuse of guns.  That is something I pray we can all agree on and start from there.  If we don’t, “somebody” will make sure there is nobody left.

​Editor's note:
Read writer Greg Palast's first-hand perspective, "I Went to School with the Vegas Shooter."

Martin McCormack
WayGoodMusic.com  ​

Dear Friends of Switchback,
 
While I nursed a cup of coffee and gazed out the kitchen window of my childhood home, a doe and her fawn grazed across the front pasture, nibbling on bluestem. I put on my boots and walked out the door and onto the dew-soaked grass. Immediately the deer were nowhere to be seen. I walked down to the barn, the scene of so many of my childhood memories, the place where I helped lambs get born, rode horses, stacked hay and milked the odd goat. My parents are now dead, not even a year since my father passed, and like that doe and fawn, their presence lingers but then the reality hits and they are nowhere to be seen.

I came out to the farm to help sort, pitch, save, recycle, donate, burn, and in some ways, put my parents to rest. The accumulation of years of farming and living that resulted in an excess of materials that now had to be determined and addressed. I was keenly aware of the devastation going on in Texas and Florida that served as a backdrop of the odd ritual in which I was now participating. Irma and Harvey left a lot of people doing the same heart-heavy process. That of delineating between “stuff” and “things.”    

When viewed on a sheet of paper, the two words seem like two sides of the same coin. But there is a difference in my opinion. Stuff are materials gathered that have no true sentimental, historical or emotional attachment. Things are just the opposite, not perhaps having financial value, but all or part of the former make them necessary to processing our existence. There are people, who in confusing the two, make a practice of gathering as much stuff as possible in the hope that they can become things. And there are people who believe in a minimalist approach, thinking that by eliminating stuff they may just be able to have things. Those people are also touched by the same desire, to create a sense of understanding of their existence.  

What to do? If you strive to surround yourself with stuff, you may never have things. If you attempt to eliminate things, you may just be left with stuff. To the archaeologist, all things become stuff and valuable in that they help to hypothesize what people must have treasured as things. That is why I don’t enjoy antique stores. So much stuff that had once been things to someone, and now are devoid of context and meaning.  

The irony of works of nature such as fire, hurricane and flood is that it doesn’t choose between stuff and things, but eliminates equally. Then you have people who look at the television camera and say “we lost every-thing, but are blessed.” Or the family, before the wildfire claims their home, deciding what things they need to quickly stash into their car. And how odd those choices can be. Pictures, books, locks of hair, grandfather clocks, guitars and family bibles. You never hear of someone putting the widescreen TV and the porch chairs in the boat. That’s stuff and expendable. But those rare things are what always make us, as humans, crane our heads toward the television to see what our fellow human beings are willing to transport. Like the Ice Man, found frozen in the Alps of Italy a decade ago, we wish to grasp what things are carried to identify us. And we ponder, what did the Ice Man deem as stuff and what, if anything, was a thing to him?

And so it is a slow process with my parents “remains.” For things may just be stuff in hiding. The clock that was there in the front parlor for decades. Do I attach false value to it?  Was it just a clock or was it something that reminds me of some-thing. It is a tough walk through a minefield of emotions. Ultimately, a decision is made. Fire curling through old picture frames and broken chairs. Or a piece of children’s art, with 40-year-old glued macaroni and painted gold, held onto like a treasure from the tomb of Tutankhamen.

Perhaps that is why I need to decide in my own life what I want my loved ones to think of as some-thing of mine. A connection to me. And how important it is to separate the stuff of my daily life, material and nonmaterial, from the things that really matter. To not, in my opinion, runs the risk of stuff overruling life itself. The peculiar havoc a disaster brings, whether manmade or natural, allows us a chance to take stock and let go of the stuff and give us the blessing to bestow things to others.  

We have a saying in Switchback, “Travel light to travel far.” Certainly when it comes to stuff that is true. And I will never forget the one great thing my best friend Dave’s dad gave him. An envelope on which he wrote, “You may open this and find nothing in it, but you would be wrong, for it is filled with my love for you.”  

Martin McCormack
WayGoodMusic.com

Dear Switchback friends, 
​
I recently saw a video in which David Letterman, the well-loved and long-time host of Late Night, was having an exchange with Al Franken, the comedian-turned-Minnesota senator.  Having come to fame in the entertainment industry, both were used to being in front of a lot of people.  And both decided at some point to turn away from the limelight to concentrate on other things.  For Franken, it was the desire to serve his country. For Letterman, the desire to serve his family, namely his young son. 
 
So, when Franken mentioned that Letterman had a lot of fans, Letterman corrected him.  They were not fans, said Letterman, and he pointed out that Johnny Carson was a celebrity with fans.  Letterman then went on to point out that he specifically asked that his show be called “Late Night with David Letterman” to emphasize that he was not a celebrity, but rather someone who hosted a show that had celebrities on it. 
 
It was a great example of Midwestern modesty, I thought, and of course it made me think about the WayGood World.  I have always struggled with the word "fan," as it meant something that did not truly fit in to what I considered the WayGood World.  
 
According to Wikipedia, a fan, or fanatic, sometimes also termed aficionado or supporter, is a person who is enthusiastically devoted to something or somebody, such as a band, a sports team, a genre, a book, a movie, or an entertainer. Collectively, the fans of a particular object or person constitute its fan base or fandom. They may show their enthusiasm in a variety of ways, such as by promoting the object of their interest, being members of a fan club, holding or participating in fan conventions, or writing fan mail. They may also engage in creative activities ("fan labor") such as creating fanzines, writing fan fiction, making memes, or drawing fan art.
 
Over the years, Brian and I have met fans of Switchback.  I remember meeting one person who took the harp from the artwork of Bolinree and made it into tattoo on her arm.  Other people have taken lyrics as tattoos.  There are people on Facebook whom we have never met following our music.  They would be considered fans.  But there is something very limited in the scope of having fans.  
 
I think the WayGood World has been an unconscious decision on the part of Brian and myself to foster a world of friends, brought together by the music of Switchback.   What I mean by unconscious is that Brian and I didn’t sit down and say “Hey, let’s make a bunch of friends.”  Rather, we played our music and met people who liked our music and because of that, came the friendships. 
 
Merriam Webster defines "friend" as 
1a:  one attached to another by affection or esteem She's my best friend.
b:  acquaintance
2a:  one that is not hostile Is he a friend or an enemy?
b:  one that is of the same nation, party, or group showbiz friends
3:  one that favors or promotes something (such as a charity) The friends of the library will host a fund-raiser.
 
To me, it seems that the value of friendship far outweighs the value of fanship.  Perhaps having fans is the luxury that comes with being a big celebrity.   Taylor Swift can afford to have fans perhaps, but Switchback needs its friends.
 
We have been blessed over the years to have people offer time, treasure and their homes to us as we have traveled around the world.   Our tours and past group gatherings (such as the Rondy and the Cave Concerts) have been the attempt to solidify that friendship, not only between Switchback and friends, but through the joy of seeing people meet each other and create friendships.  To make joyful meaning of the time we are here together on Earth.   There have been couples married, babies born, and friends we have lost through the WayGood World.  I wonder if Garth would take a fan's ashes and scatter them in Ireland.  But when our friend Wanda passed, it made sense to honor her family’s wish to bring her to where she always wanted to go with us.  
 
Perhaps the biggest blessing is that Brian and I did not “make it” in the sense of being a commercial success, like Garth Brooks or U2.   We did not become “objects of interest.”  Our path has been a path thus far of forging ties of affection.  Our friends have helped us secure shows, be our agents, contributed money for recordings, created concerts in backyards, and introduced their friends to our music, all to  make the WayGood World “a vast and ever expanding empire,” as I like to tell Brian.  And like real friendships, we have had fallings out and challenges with our friends over the years.  People who have decided that we shouldn’t be friends.  If a fan leaves, an entertainer might shrug his or her shoulders and look for the next one in line.  But the loss of friendships -- well, that hurts.  And for those who we may have hurt over the years, I am sorry.  Because friendships do matter and the loss of friends for whatever reason is sad.  
 
The WayGood World is built on affection and esteem, as Mr. Webster might say, delicately tiptoeing around the word "love."  And it takes a village of friends to raise up a band as we have found out.  So thank you, friends, for continuing to create and expand the WayGood World.  For helping Switchback make music and bring joy to a lot of people.  Thank you for helping us touch souls and allowing our own souls to be touched in return. 

Martin McCormack

WayGoodMusic.com

​Dear Switchback fans,

Some years ago, when visiting my brother Tony in Decatur, Illinois, he put Brian and me up to a dare. Having just returned from a Catholic retreat in Jackson, Wyoming, Tony noted that both Brian and I grew up playing Catholic Masses and he thought that we should consider writing one. 

This suggestion was sort of delayed and postponed, but not rebuffed, because both Brian and I owed a lot of our musical upbringing to playing those Masses.   Back in the early days, when we were playing clubs, we would finish a club around 2 a.m.  I would get home about an hour later and then wake up to drive out to Oak Park, Illinois and play the 9 a.m. Mass.  Brian would be there and we would both be bleary-eyed as we stumbled up to the choir.  I would open my bass case and out would waft the disconcerting smell of cigarette smoke from the night before.  

We played those morning Masses for a lot of reasons.  Mainly because it was good to play.  It was something that, being Irish Catholics, was sort of hot-wired into our systems.  And, it allowed us to grow musically while expiating some sins along the way. 

Eventually we took up my brother’s dare and wrote a Mass to be performed by the choir at St. Edmund’s parish in Oak Park.  It wasn't too long before we decided to write an Irish Mass after performing at the Michigan Irish Music Festival and later at the Des Moines Hibernian gathering at the Old Irish Settlement.   As musicians, we found it a bit of a challenge to write a Mass.  For one reason, there are certain parts of the service where one cannot deviate from the words.  The Gloria for example, is probably one of the most difficult assortments of words ever to which music must be applied.  The English, taken from the Latin, is not smooth and flowing.  So to create something that would feel beautiful (and accessible to a congregation) to sing, while taking care of the words, was rewarding. 

We have since written several Masses and have had them performed by choirs and done by ourselves for various churches (not all Catholic, either!) across the country (plus one performance in Pompeii, Italy in 2010).   

When my wife suggested that we go to Rome to attend a conference for Serra International, the Catholic nonprofit she works for, I was surprised to hear that there was the chance we would meet the Pope.  I basically thought that meeting the Pope would be meeting the Pope in a crowd of a lot of people.   The last Pope I saw, John Paul II, was with a million other people at Grant Park in Chicago back in 1979.  He was a minuscule and inaccessible figure from where I was standing.  And I got harassed by a policeman who in turn got lambasted by my sainted mother (that's another story for another day). 

Still, I thought that it would be amazing if Áine could see the Pope. And just in case I would be closer than a million people, I would bring along a Hibernian Mass CD. I imagined I could pass it to him through one of the Swiss guards. 

Before we came over to Italy, we had to explain to Áine who Papa Francesco is. Annie told her, "He's dressed all in white and he is sort of like a superhero and Santa Claus” which I thought was pretty funny and accurate at the same time.   

The day came for seeing the Pope and I was amazed. Still jetlagged, we got up early to board buses to Vatican City.  Around 10 a.m., we gathered for Mass in St. Peter’s behind the big altar (the iconic Altare della Cattedra by Bernini), in the area where most people do not get to go. And here I was in a place that I probably will never get to stand or sit in for the rest of my life.   It felt very strange but thrilling at the same time.  

There were 40 elite people who were selected to personally meet the Holy Father, but I was happy to be with the other 500+ people in the crowd.  

After Mass, our large group left St. Peter’s and headed over to the Aula Paolo VI, a large hall for private papal audiences.  Up ahead were two Swiss guards with halberds at their sides, marching away from us.  It felt like I had stepped back into another time.  When we entered the hall it was warm (every day in Rome during our stay was over 90 degrees F) and cheerfully lit thanks to the arched skylight that made up most of the roof. At the back of the stage was a modern, rather abstract bronze sculpture of the resurrection of Christ.  I thought it would be pretty weird for Christ to return and see what people thought He looked like.  

Once again we filed in and sat down, waiting for the Pope to arrive.  Television cameras were set up and photographers were at the ready.  Slowly some cardinals came filing in, as well as some sort of Vatican orderlies dressed in grey morning coats.  Plain-clothes as well as uniformed police mingled with some Swiss guards, but we had been screened prior to coming into St. Peter’s and the atmosphere was pretty electric. From her purse, Annie produced not only a Japanese fan but also a juice box and snack for Aine, who played with a parish musical director from Omaha who sat next to us. 

About 20 minutes after the noon appointment time, those two Swiss guards with their halberds came walking into the room.  They flanked both sides of a big chair set up in front and snapped to attention. And then, into the room walked Pope Francis.  Everyone started applauding and taking pictures. After some brief introductory remarks from the Italian president of Annie's organization, the Pope gave a short address in Italian, for which unfortunately no translation was provided to us mono-lingual Americans, but here and there, he paused and made a point.  I could sense from the tone, he was being gentle, but sincere in the address and the many Italians in the audience who could understand him politely applauded here and there.  It didn’t matter too much as it all felt fairly surreal.  
 
For me, being a Catholic, I was witnessing the most recent in an unbroken line of successors of St. Peter.  Sure, the line got wobbly and downright erratic from time to time, but still, that line remained unbroken for almost 2000 years.  And here was a pretty decent guy to boot, I thought. 

Finally, the Pope walked down from the stage to shake the hands of the selected people while the rest of us waved a bit and raised our smart devices overhead to capture some pictures.  I hoisted Áine up on my shoulder and brought her over to the barricade to get a better view. Annie stayed behind. Perhaps, I thought, the Pope might walk over to everyone else and Áine could receive a special blessing.   A guard spotted her in her bright coral dress and motioned to me.  He told me in broken English to "Get to the center of the room.”  I realized he was asking us to move to where the main aisle of the hall was, to get out of the group!  So, I started moving through the other hundreds of people crowding forward. 

I called to Annie, “Come on, I think Áine is going to get to meet the Pope!”  As we made our way to the center aisle, Annie yelled at me to adjust Áine’s dress which had migrated up over her underwear as we waded through our fellow Pope admirers.  As we threaded our way through the throng, I kept looking over at the Pontiff who was working down the line of those 40 “golden ticket” folks.  It was sort of a race of me against the Pope to see who was going to get down to the end of the line first.   I made it to the center aisle of the hall and a serious-looking guard looked at me.  
 
“You are going to meet the Pope, with baby,” he said. 
“OK,” I said. 
The guy started to undo the barrier so Áine and I could enter. 
“Wait,” another guard said as Annie caught up.  “You are the mother?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“You all go see the Pope,” the guard said.  He opened the divider and let us through. And you know, the folks who were around us were delighted for us, but mainly for Áine.  They applauded and I was totally in shock. 
​
We got in line -- we were the very end of the line, in fact -- and there, larger than life, or at least larger than St. J2P2 (as we Star Wars-struck kids called John Paul II) in Grant Park,  was my hero, the Pope I had been praying for, the Pope who was a Jesuit priest, who, like me, was educated by Jesuits, the Pope who lives in a regular apartment, wears regular shoes, and who likes to sneak out of the Vatican in regular priest garb and walk among his fellow humans.  That guy. Francis. 

He came over to where we were and I shook his hand.  I gave him the Hibernian Mass CD.
“Here is a Mass that I wrote,” I said. 
He looked at it smiling.  He then looked at me and said, “Thank you.”
 
His aide, a German cardinal, smiled and took the CD.  “Are you German?” he said, smiling at me.   “No, um, Irish American,” I stammered.
 
Pope Francis didn’t move.  He smiled and Áine smiled back at him. Despite her smile, she also seemed a bit overwhelmed.
“This is my daughter, Áine,” I said.  
Pope Francis touched and kissed her cheek. 
Then Áine leaned over and planted a big kiss on Pope Francis.

He smiled and laughed a little. Áine, usually such a gregarious toddler, remained pretty serious; much more aware, perhaps, of the gravity of having kissed a superhero Santa than her Poppa giving a CD from Uncle Brian’s and Poppa’s band. 

“My wife, Anne,” I said.  And Annie shook the Pope’s hand and said how wonderful it was to meet him.

He didn’t say too much in English.  It was mainly smiles and gestures.  Later Annie and I would discuss the things we would have liked to have said to Pope Francis but which evaporated when we, starstruck, actually met him -- something we had both fantasized about but which we didn't think would actually happen. 

He moved on to wave to the crowd before retreating once again behind the stage.

Like that, it was over. But the enormity of that minute or two in front of him came through days later. 
 
I held the Pope’s hand, I thought.  I met a real hero.  My daughter and wife met the Pope.  My daughter can tell people years from now she kissed the Pope.  She will be forever changed and it will be an awkward high school prom years from now when I pull out the Pope pictures and place them in front of her date. 

And that CD.  That representation of years of Brian and me waking up early from a late night and heading over to church.  The desire to give back something and somehow bring honor to those people who have played in the church choirs with us.  Now, I optimistically imagine it in the Pope’s CD collection.

Maybe, just maybe, he will sneak out of the Vatican on an early morning.  Fire up his tiny Fiat and go driving a bit.  As he wends his way out into the Italian countryside, far from the frenzy that is Rome, maybe he will stick that Hibernian Mass in the CD player and sing along a bit to the "Holy Saints of Ireland." 

Yeah, that’s my Francis. 

Dear Switchback fans,

​I never was a big fan of rabbits.  Even as a kid, I remember rooting for Elmer Fudd when he was up against Bugs Bunny.   There was something about Bugs that rubbed me the wrong way.  Perhaps he was too smug, too confident that he was going to get ol’ Elmer to once again shoot himself with his shotgun.    When reading Peter Rabbit, I always thought Farmer McGregor was, to some degree, in the right.  It was his garden after all! 
 
The “Hey, let me help myself to everything that’s good” mentality, to me, is embodied by the rabbit.   Even though I am not in love with squirrels, either, I do have at least some respect for them.  They eat nuts, hang out in trees and generally stay out of the way.  Even the much maligned rat is on my respect list.  The rats in our neighborhood do their thing mostly behind the taquerias that line Clark Street.  They prefer to keep out of sight. Yet, they are constantly public enemy number one.  No one goes around poisoning rabbits, but there are more rabbits than there are humans or rats in our neighborhood. 
 
When I was growing up, the pest was not rats, rabbits, or even mice, but deer.   “Rats with hooves” was what one farmer called them.  In truth, the farmer should have said “Rabbits with hooves” because both deer and rabbits think it is perfectly fine to eat things like flowers.  Purchase a creeping phlox at Home Depot?  They might as well have a calorie listing, because that is manna to the rabbit.  Or daisies, or any sort of native prairie plant.  Even the tough cup plant, with its rigid stalk and unappetizing, scratchy leaves, is on the menu.  I come home from being on the road and there it is, my “what once was a prairie flower garden.”  Sticks sticking out of a denuded plot of land and there, sitting in the middle of it, is this rabbit.  And of course, she has that “What?” look on her face as she is chewing on the last of my columbine.
 
One day, I found her eating all my tulips.  This was a female for sure because after I chased her out of my “what I thought was rabbit-proof” yard, she returned.  She hid out under the woodpile for a bit and then, decided that it was time to teach me a lesson: She delivered a litter of about 20 baby rabbits there on the spot.   I stumbled onto them the week I was desperately trying to replace all the plants that had been eaten with plants that I thought rabbits wouldn’t like -- like cactus (turns out they like cactus).  These young rabbits were fairly naive.  I caught about three in a bucket and got them to the railroad tracks where I figured they at least had a fighting chance.  The others got wise and scrammed, egged on by their mother.
 
One evening before dinner I had a "what to do about rabbits" discussion with our next door neighbor, Dave. A farm boy like me, Dave got that shovel-grabbing look on his face and said, "I know what to do about rabbits." Annie overheard us and sternly declared, said "THERE WILL BE NO BUNNICIDE ON THIS PROPERTY." Annie, a city girl and totally unaware of such things as the fact that rabbits can eat whole trees, looked at me with a look of disdain.  She didn't realize that she'd done it; she'd said the “B” word: Bunny. 
 
Now, for those of you who dislike rabbits like me, when the word "bunny" is uttered it conjures up an image of soft, cute, cuddly, friendly, non-invasive, non-denuding, big eyes almost ready to swell with tears sort of creature.   (Which reminds me that I never was into the Easter Bunny, either).
 
“We have to do something,” I pleaded, knowing that once the “B” word is uttered, these miniature rabbits were now on the protected species list at our home.  
 
“You will not do anything to those bunnies and certainly not in front of Amanita,” Annie said.  And with that, the tiny, evil rabbits laughed and ran off into the ferns and out of sight, waiting to gnaw the paint off our house.
 
So, I trudged over to the hardware store.  Never mind that Brian and I had to be on the road to a gig. This was war.  I bought 50 feet worth of chicken wire to put over the so-called rabbit-proof fence that I bought from the same store last year.  (I saw our female rabbit clear three feet of it and over to the condos to the east, thus rendering my fences de-fence-less).
 
With a steady, cold rain pouring down on me, I slowly rolled out the wire fence and hammered it into the areas of our property that had the slightest gaps in it.  I kept at it until Annie opened a second-floor window to yell at me to cut it out and get going to Iowa.  My hands were scratched and even some blood oozed onto the earth as I stood out in the pouring rain, punctuated by thunder booming and the occasional flash of lightning, raising my arms to heaven and shaking my fists at the curse that is the rabbit.  Meanwhile, the rabbits were under the yew trees, watching me as they nibbled some hosta plants just for the fun of it.
 
As of this writing, I think am now down to one “bunny.”  Yes, a cute, sweet, doe-eyed (see what I mean?) bunny.  Predators seemed to have cleared out the other rabbits, or it could be that everything that could have been eaten has now been eaten at our property.  
 
We now have coyotes in Chicago and I am all for them eating rabbits, squirrels and the odd yapping poodle.  Even a mountain lion wandered down the train tracks and made a very brief visit (until it was shot by the police) a couple years back.  That tells me one thing: rabbits are here and they are by no means going away.   And I will fruitlessly (and plantless-ly) try, but never win in my attempt to create a rabbit-free zone on my property.
 
Later this month, the peach tree will ripen and we hope to have the same number of luscious fruit as last year.  But I swear I saw the bunny and a squirrel the other day having a meeting.  They were looking at the peach tree and then at me.  I am pretty sure they both then laughed. It still is war.

Martin McCormack
WayGoodMusic.com

Dear Switchback fans,

We were in Stillwater, Minnesota last week, and as usual we chose to do some outreach programs. We were at a retirement home called The Greeley. It was an unbelievably warm day, and the residents were brought outside for a concert on the patio. The director brought out straw hats for them to wear as we set up our sound system and commenced playing. It was a great deal of fun as always, with the twists and turns that one encounters when doing outreach programs. As our “Sycamore View” song goes, every resident has some “damn claim to fame” and more often than not, it really is a bona fide claim to fame or notable accomplishment. (I feel one of the great tragedies of modern living is that our elderly and their life experiences are not appreciated, recorded, or used for knowledge by the younger generations, but that is for another article.)
 
He was sitting in a wheelchair and watching us play with an intensity that made me guess that he must be a musician. We continued on and about halfway through our concert he left, wheeling back through the door and into the residence. Usually when that happens during a senior outreach, it means one of three things: a) the person is bored with our program; b) the person has to go to the bathroom; c) both. In this case, I thought that he must need to get to the bathroom, for he was clearly enjoying himself. Sure enough, out he came about two songs later with a manila envelope in his hand. He clutched it throughout the rest of the show, and when we were finished with the program, he came up to us.  
 
“My name is Eric Sjoberd and I am a Laplander! My people came from the far north.”  
“Ok,” I said, “well, you live in the right state then.”
“I do,” he smiled. “Did you know that Sjoberd is Lapp for Sea-Mountain?”
“No,” I replied, “but that is a pretty cool name.”
“I was in music,” he said.

Brian and I naturally are curious when someone says they “were in music.” That can mean a lot of things, from playing in a high school band to sharing the stage with Dizzy Gillespie. Eric carefully opened the manila envelope and pulled out a photo. It was a scene from the late 50’s of a tour bus. Hanging out of its windows and around it were various musicians, all dressed in suits of the folk era and clutching musical instruments.

Dear Switchback fans,

Brian and I have been on a long tour that essentially started with our St. Patrick’s shows (which began around Valentine’s Day) and is now ending in Hawaii.  In the middle of all of this we took a tour group to beautiful Tuscany.  As usual, we had a great time and I have to boast that our fans make the best tourists of any band out there.   Here is a journal I kept of thoughts during the tour, and I hope you enjoy it.  I want to especially thank Michele Shubitowski, our Switchback STeam leader, for taking so many exciting pictures of the trip.  Ciao! 


Day 0
Newark, New Jersey
3/28/17

The Voice Has the Man

Brian and I had been on the road almost nonstop since February 10, with stops in Arizona, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana throughout the St. Patrick’s season.  Most days had more than one show booked as we ranged from private shows to resorts to performing arts centers.  The last week was pretty intense with us flying to Arizona, driving nine hours round trip in one day to California and playing four sets there, boarding a jet to New Jersey to play the equivalent of five sets in one day there, boarding a plane to Chicago, driving across from Midway to O’Hare Airports, and then hopping on a plane with 40 fans and flying over the ocean to Tuscany.  And so as we played our last show in the States, I could feel my voice finally telling me “enough!” 

As Brian can attest, music has a way of keeping you healthy, but the sheer amount of singing required specifically for the Irish shows had worn me down.  And so as we were leaving Arizona for New Jersey, I knew that I was developing a nasty cold to contend with. 

A long time ago, I heard my mother quote the great Caruso who asked rhetorically, Does the Man have the Voice or does the Voice have the Man?  It is a great question for any singer, because one needs to be aware of one’s health status to answer the latter affirmatively.  Unfortunately, my voice was hoarse, and for one of the few times in my life, I felt that the “voice had me” in its control.  Truthfully there was very little I could do as all it takes is an errant cold virus to knock on the vocal chords and wreak havoc.  Keeping the voice rested would be easy if it could be restricted only to singing.  But as independent musicians, we use our voices for so many other things, such as coordinating with hosts where one is staying, talking to fans during breaks, talking to supporters after shows, and negotiating with new and future venues while playing the current place.  Add the fatigued body, boosted with coffee, and throw in the odd sleeping arrangement, such as upright in economy class, and voila!  The voice has the man. One can see how some singers act antisocial, as that can be an effort to protect the voice.

So my voice is croaking and my left ear is plugged which makes flight in a pressurized cabin a thing of joy.  The goal is to be nice to my voice and allow it some rest which I hope to do while taking  in the beauty of Tuscany.

Day 1
Newark Rain to Roman Sun
3/29/17

“So,” I asked the lady sitting next to me at the Newark terminal, “what are you flying to Chicago for?”  Brian shot me a look as he saw me sip my cup of coffee, while sucking on a lemon Cold-Eeze lozenge.  My voice sounded as if I was the love child of Janis Joplin and Gollum.  

The lady took no notice of my voice. “I am heading for something sad,” she said. “My brother passed.  He was in the military for 27 years and if there is one thing worse than a regular funeral, it is a military funeral.”  I nodded.  I knew what she meant.  My own dad’s funeral had a military honor guard and the slow folding of the flag.  It tugged on the heart.  “But he had a good life,” she said. “He was 80, but that leaves just me out of all my siblings left alive.”   I tried to console her as much as I could and when she asked me what I was doing, I croaked that I was heading to Chicago to catch a flight to Tuscany.  

She smiled when she heard that.  And I had to explain that I was a musician, that I was in this band and the guy looking annoyed next to me is he guy I have worked with for thirty years and that we also take people to Ireland each year and so on.

The lady, who had a lovely Long Island accent, told me she was Irish and then asked would I like to hear a joke.  I replied that I would.

“Seamus O’Toole’s pet dog died, and beside himself in grief he went to ask Father Murphy, the parish priest, to say a funeral mass for the dog.  The good Father acted insulted.  ‘I do not say the holy Mass for some animal,’ he snarled. ‘Go find ye some other church.’  Seamus, being a humble man, took his hat off and said quietly, ‘Yes, Father, but would ye answer me this: is $5,000 too small a price to pay for a funeral Mass?’  ‘Oh,’ Father Murphy said sweetly, ‘you didn't tell me it was a Catholic dog now!’

I laughed out loud and we carried on for a bit until Brian said. “Marty, save what is left of your voice!”

We flew to Chicago and I called an Uber ride. Mahood who was from Lebanon, picked us up and we headed toward Oak Park.  I had clicked Uber Pool, which is the cheapest option and usually you end up being the only riders as there are few people who act on it.  But today, needing to get the airport, would be the day we actually had someone who wished to ride with us and our luggage.

“Why did you pick Uber Pool?” Mahood asked. “No one picks Uberpool.” We pulled up outside a brownstone, and he called the rider.  “Sarah, you should be downstairs!” 
While waiting for Sarah, Mahood asks me, “Do you ever play the Oud?”  
“What is an Oud ?” I asked.
Mahood takes his cellphone and starts searching for an Oud to show me on YouTube.
About five minutes later a young girl came down and got in the car.  I look at my phone, about three hours to flight time.  
“Here is the Oud ,” says Mahood, and he starts playing his cellphone, while looking for the right place to drop off Sarah.
The video shows a young woman on “Arabs Got Talent”  who looks a bit like Sarah McLachlan playing a very medieval looking instrument.  
Meanwhile we passed Sarah's place by two blocks.
“I think she was to be dropped off somewhere back there,” says Brian.  
Mahood turns around while the video plays this very serious, somber song, with jump cuts to delighted judges nodding and smiling approval.  She must really be tearing it up, I am thinking.
Sarah's apartment number it turns out doesn't exist.
“I am not from here,” she says. “Let me call my friend.”
She calls her friend and we spend another five minutes circling the block while “Arabs Got Talent” erupts in cheers for the serious Oud playing McLachlan lookalike.
Finally, Sarah's friend, a teenage kid, walks out to the street in his socks and stands on the sidewalk.  
“That is the wrong number!” cries an exasperated Mahood. “If I was to leave her, I could get in big trouble, but look what it does to me!” 
We manage to calm him down and get to the apartment in Oak Park.
The next fifteen minutes are spent getting all the gear shifted from the Arizona-New Jersey Tour to the Tuscany Tour.  I call Uber and request a large vehicle for four passengers as we now have Brian's wife Maggie as well.  
Five minutes later a driver in an Audi shows up and the only thing large is the fact that he has been working out.  He looks at us, our baggage and guitars.  “I got stuff in my trunk,” he says, looking at us like we are going to give in and get rid of a suitcase and guitar. “Don't know if I can squeeze you in.”  
He decides that he can't and leaves.  I now request the Uber SUV which I personally think should be called Uber-Uber, but that request would take 30 minutes to show up.
We call a cab and request a minivan.  It comes in five minutes.  We are on our way. 

We arrive at O’Hare where Annie and Áine are waiting.  Áine jumps into my arms and hugs Auntie Maggie and Uncle Brian. We sail through security, and I am impressed and relieved that TSA got its act together in Chicago. They even have an assistant to help passengers load their trays for the X-ray, which was a welcome first.  We settle into our plane for the flight to Rome and all was uneventful.  The morning came as we flew over the French Alps, covered in snow and looking majestic.  Áine hung out with Auntie Maggie and looked out the window.

Then we flew into Italy, curving out over the sea and over fields, vineyards and tiny villas with tile roofs.  Our plane gently touched down. Fiumicino Airport was awash in sun, and already my throat felt better.  

Day 2
A Beeline to Figline
3/30/17

Donatella Cerrone is the guide for our tour.   A pretty woman with dark hair and a great smile that all energized all of us tired Americans immediately, she rounded us up and walked us through customs and out into the warm air. 
She immediately passed the test as Brian teased her.
“You are our guide? This is all like a bad dream.”
Not missing a beat, Donatella shot back in her Italian accent.
“Yes, I am your worst nightmare, now get on the coach.”
We all laughed like we knew each other for years.

Testimonials from our Tuscany tour group

I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Italy especially the gorgeous Tuscan countryside, excellent pasta and wonderful Chianti. I loved the wine tasting, cooking school and re-connecting with Switchback friends from previous Ireland trips.  We've been back for a week now, and Italy still occupies my dreams! - Diane Norman

"Fabulous trip. Great mix of people - friendly and fun" - Darlene Swanson

"We just returned from the Tuscany tour and offer nothing but positive comments.  The tour was great, the tour guides were greater, and greater still was our fellow travelers....And never have we ever encountered such a wonderful group of fellow travelers united by one unique strong bond namely Marty and Brian!" - Jerry Walsh

"Great trip! My wife Diane and I signed up for all of the optional activites and excursions in Tuscany. They were really fun, educational, and arranged so well by Celtic Tours. We stayed in Tuscany for several more days and Celtic Tours helped make the arrangement for additional days at the Villa Casagrande, car rental, and train to Rome and overnight accommodations there. Thanks!" - Michael Markowski

"Great group of light, bright, interested and interesting people with a wonderful thing to bind us all, Switchback! My first trip with this group and it couldn’t have been better. Go places, or not, find a group or a few different ones to spend time with, or not, be who you are and relax and enjoy." - Lexie Nevins

"I'd like to add my two-cents worth to the epilogue of the trip to Tuscany and the several other Districts of Italy that were included.

When folks ask me about the trip, I admit it was physically challenging for me. Joe and I are in pretty good shape for a couple of old dudes, but I did find myself whining about steps, always more steps! We marveled at the others who kept going and going without complaint! Like Energizer Bunnies!

It was when we reached places like the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence and seeing, not just David, but numerous sculptures, both finished and unfinished, that I forgot my aches and pains. Unbelieveably beautiful. The same goes for the fortresses, towers, churches and basilicas in the other cities. I know this sounds corny but I was almost limping from sciatic pain when we made it to the Vatican Basilica. Surrounded by all that ancient history and beauty, I completely forgot that I had ever had an ache or pain! Maybe it was the Holy Water that I dipped my fingers in!

But the scenery and art weren't the only things that were special! We were able to reconnect with many of the good people on the tour that we had met on previous Switchback trips. We also met and made friends with the new people! Laughing together, in awe together, shopping together, having snacks on the streets of Figline with random fellow tourists!

These are the things that make Switchback Tours so very special. I hope to see many of you at upcoming concerts or in the fall, Traveling Down an Irish Road." - Jean Marie Hall

Dear Switchback fans,

​As a little kid growing up in Woodstock, I viewed my Grandpa Luke Patrick McCormack as sort of an exotic figure. 
 
First of all, he was a very quiet man.  He had deep set, dark eyes crowned with bushy dark eyebrows offset wonderfully by his white hair.  His thick brogue stood in stark contrast with the nasal Midwestern twang of his grandchildren.  His hands were big farmer's hands, though he lived most of his adult life in Chicago.  Grandpa’s life was one of adventure, though talking to him never gave a clue that he took a leap of faith that would forever change his life.
 
When he was about 19, Grandpa left Ireland.  The story was a familiar one: the farm was going to the eldest brother and he would basically be working for him there, providing for the dowry of his sisters, with no land or future of his own.  Grandpa left behind the farm, the horses, his parents, and a way of life that had changed little in over 500 years.  
 
He chose to do what a lot of Irish did: leave for America.  Ireland at the time was part of Britain, and so, leaving Ireland was also leaving the war in Europe.  Britain needed recruits and the Irish made for good soldiers. Grandpa clearly did not opt to serve in British uniform.
 
After arriving in New York, he set out for Chicago and did some odd jobs there for a time.  He did a stint as an elevator operator. He volunteered to serve in the US Army, which was mobilizing; the ugly European war followed Grandpa to America.  He enlisted in the Army at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri on July 26, 1917. 

​The earliest pictures we have of Grandpa are from 1917, with him dressed in a doughboy’s uniform.   Joining the army must have been a momentous decision for Grandpa, because he pledged to lay his life down for a country he barely knew.  On Grandpa’s military portrait card, his regiment/company number of the 9th Division (Regular Army) at Camp Sheridan, Alabama is visible on his collar.   (My cousin Ray McCormack also found out that the great writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was part of the 9th and met his future wife, Zelda Sayre, at Camp Sheridan).  Grandpa spent the war far from Ireland in the Deep South, which must have been bewildering with the heat of the summer, marching in a scratchy uniform.  Did he embrace his new life?  Did he miss Ireland?
 
The papers recording his honorable discharge give a little insight into Grandpa: he was never absent without leave (AWOL) and was “Excellent” in his character.  He was a sergeant at the time he was mustered out.  I got a chuckle when I saw the signature of the Captain who signed his papers “Robert E. Lee” of the 19th US Infantry at Camp Grant, Illinois.  
 
Headquarters, Camp Grant, Illinois 
April 25, 1919.
 
Soldiers of the United States Army, Camp Grant, Ill., 
The Army is being demobilized; you are returning to your homes and vocations of peace. If the soldiers of the American Army take up their duties as citizens, with the same zeal and devotion to duty which has characterized their military career, a bright future is assured for our nation.
 
You have not only contributed your share toward the winning of this war, but have built, at home, the physical and spiritual fortifications which will stand as long as you live. The sacrifice you have made in the defense of our institutions and the cause of LIBERTY shall be an enduring monument and a guide-post for future generations, to remind them of your noble deeds, and inspire them with the same spirit of patriotism, loyalty, self-sacrifice and love for Our Country.  I wish you, one and all, God Speed.
 
W. A. Holbrook, Commanding Genera

Dear Switchback fans,

If there is one thing that signals the onset of middle age, it is the need for reading glasses.  For myself, the one thing I always prided myself on was my eyes.  As a kid, I had amazing vision and could read in the dimmest light.  This super-human vision drove my family nuts on vacations, particularly while heading out to Wyoming when I would excitedly point out animals that nobody could see, especially at dusk when they would come out to feed closer to the highways. 

“There’s a moose!” I would yell.   
“Where?” Tony would ask.
“Over there,” I would exclaim and point. Eighteen eyes would automatically swerve to where I was pointing.
“Where?” Joe would ask, with a bit of irritation in his voice. 
“Over there, by the trees!”  I would say, pointing emphatically as our car sped by at 70 miles per hour. 
"Too late," I'd say, as everyone slid back down into their seats.
 
That I could see animals no one else could see meant that I was looked upon with deep skepticism by my siblings. This led to their development of a new Zen koan: “If a moose appears by the side of the woods, and only Marty sees it, is it really there?”  Eventually, I was looked upon as a raving hermit, pointing and muttering about the bear, coyote or moose as no one paid attention. 

In Switchback, good eyesight comes in handy when driving with Brian, who's a dead-reckoning kind of navigator. In the old days before GPS, we would have a road atlas (yes, made of PAPER) to guide us on our journeys. A turn-off that was a mile away was easy to read for me. I can still see those far-away road signs, but the tiny print on a road atlas would be worthless to my aging eyes now.   

When my wife Annie started offering to stand across the street from the restaurants where we would dine and hold up the menu just so I could read it, I knew it was time to get my eyes checked. We went to her beloved ophthalmologist in the Loop. I couldn't believe I was going to the EYE DOCTOR. I braced myself for bad news. "Yeah, let's see just how terrible your eyesight is," Annie smirked as Dr. Ortiz led me into the darkened room. "Maybe you'll need a transplant."

A few minutes later, the doctor and I emerged. "Well?" Annie asked. "His eyesight is really above average," he said. "Better than 20/20. He just needs reading glasses."  Annie, near-sighted since age 12, rolled her eyes with an expression that shimmered between disgust and admiration. 
 
I was the last of my siblings to need reading glasses and it is something that I really cannot stand. Aside from the reminder that I'm getting older, reading glasses are the latest addition to my ever-growing list of things I'm likely to lose (including gloves, toothbrushes and sunglasses; God willing, I'll at least keep my hair).

But sometimes actually finding your reading glasses is its own problem.
 
At my Dad’s funeral Mass, I found a pair of reading glasses in my bass case.  I figured that I put them there and I congratulated myself on being prepared to take them out for a song I was not too familiar with.  The time came for the song and I put on the glasses.  We started playing and I squinted at the music. Why was everything was out of focus?  People were starting to line up for Communion and I was mumbling what I thought were the lyrics while taking steps back and forward to refocus my eyes, all while playing the bass. The congregation, my siblings especially, looked from their hymnals to me, dancing and bobbing while muttering unintelligible half words among wrong words. “My God,” I thought.  “What does my Dad think of all of this?”  I could feel the heat of embarrassment seeping under my collar and that only served to fog the glasses that I couldn’t see out of anyway.

At the end of the Mass, I turned to Brian.  “These glasses!”  I said in disgust.  “I can’t read a damn thing with them!  I must be losing my mind!”  

“Hey, let me see those,” he said. He held them up in front of his face and nodded.  “I was wondering where these went.” 
 
Now I know why my mother always insisted we brothers put our initials on our underwear in permanent magic marker. 

It has been a period of adjustment.  And in some ways, I have had to surrender to the inevitable: I am aging, my eyes just aren’t what they used to be, and that from now on, I have to embrace the fact that I will have a pair of reading glasses always somewhere nearby.  That people under 30 do in fact design all labels for everything that we consume.  I find myself silently thanking the people who design street signs that are big and lighted.  That I will be the person who will have the glasses that are missing a lens or have an arm duct-taped to sort of work.   And I will have to figure that across the world, like Johnny Appleseed, I will be leaving behind me a trail of cheap reading glasses for those who wish to follow.

Martin McCormack

WayGoodMusic.com

Dear Switchback fans,

On Wednesday, January 5, I drove out to Woodstock.  Since Mom’s death, life with Dad has been quite a roller coaster ride.  For the third time since her passing, Dad was back in the hospital.  At the farm he was tended to by my brothers Robert, Joseph, and Peter, who stayed up through the nights with him, took him to the bathroom, fed him his meals, and changed his clothes.  Occasionally some of us would relieve them, but the heavy lifting was theirs.  Since July, when my Mom was admitted initially for a hip replacement she would never return from, my Dad was never alone, night or day.  

Mom’s death was a major shock for all of us, but most of all for Dad.  He did not expect Mom to precede him in death. Not long before Mom’s death,  Dad was diagnosed with stenosis of the heart, commonly known as congestive heart failure.  Two of his valves were not working properly. At the time of his diagnosis, doctors said he had anywhere from three months to two years left.  His identical twin brother Jim had died of complications related to a surgery to correct the exact same problem a couple of years earlier.  As my uncle lay dying, I couldn’t fathom what Dad was thinking as he looked at a reflection of himself, knowing he had the same condition.  Dad decided that he would aim for quality of life and spend his remaining days with Mom.  

Years before, Mom and Dad had purchased a grave plot in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, right next to Mom’s parents.  When Mom died, a burial date was carefully selected according to when our far-flung family could regroup and get out to Wyoming: October 3, two months after her passing.

But as it turns out, God had other plans.

The story begins back in 1953, when Dad had over 70 percent of his stomach removed in an attempt to control ulcers.  It was a very dangerous and life-threatening operation; he very nearly died.  Death seemed pretty certain and Mom was worried that she would be a widow after a year of marriage.

But Dad did survive.  Now, over half a century later, the warranty had run out on the operation.  It turned out his stomach had shifted over time, and he could no longer keep food down or get food out.  In October my Dad was hospitalized.  The doctors said an operation would be needed to correct the original surgery, but that chances were high that he would die on the table as his heart valves probably couldn’t take it.  But Dad was insistent to have the operation because he wanted to be there when Mom was buried.  So at age 90 he went under the knife.  It was a severe operation, and in recovery he called out in pain for Mom and prayed aloud for the pain to subside.  As it did, he reinstated his determination to get out West and see his wife laid to rest.

My Dad did get out to Wyoming.  My brothers and sister drove him out in a friend’s RV, complete with wine, a bed, and bathroom.  He loved the trip, and incredibly by November 4, with a break in the weather, he did see his wife of 63 years laid to rest.  

That a man over 90 could pull this off was incredible.  But Dad was not your average man.  He married my Mom, which was a feat in itself, and they stayed married through all the trials of 10 kids, a farm, and a career as a dentist.  But backed by his Irish Catholic faith, Dad was up to the challenge.

And Dad had this way of facing Death and saying, “Not now.”

Long before we McCormack kids were born, Dad joined the Army Air Force as a tail gunner in a B29. His basic training over, he was ready to ship to the Pacific Theater.  Life expectancy was about 30 seconds during battle for a tail gunner.  My Dad caught pneumonia, which delayed his deployment, and by the time he was en route to his unit, the war had ended.

When he was about 60, I watched him from the front window of the farmhouse.  He had just put a foot in the stirrup of our Arabian horse Arky when it bolted.  Across the yard came Dad and Arky.  Dad, with one foot in the stirrup, one hand on the saddle horn, and the other on the cantle.  No look of fear, no thought of death, just a natural born horseman as he swung into the saddle and brought the wide-eyed, nostril-flaring horse under control.

And of course there was the time he and my brothers Joe and Fran were caught in a freak storm while on a Boundary Waters fishing expedition.  Dad was in his 70’s at the time. In a canoe out on the open water, the October gale capsized them and left them treading water for over two hours.  Hypothermia had set in and death looked like it was going to take three McCormack men that day.  

They ended up washed up on an island with no belongings.  A little butane lighter found on the beach helped them create a fire.  Some packs floated in and once they were able to push back the hypothermia, they feasted on water and cake mix.   A Canadian Coast Guard boat found them the next day and took Fran back to where they got the canoe.  He came back with a bigger canoe and they finished the three week fishing expedition.   

At age 75, Dad fell two stories while painting a house we had in town.  He lay on the grass with a broken ankle, leg and other injuries. A neighbor who happened to be looking out his window when Dad fell called the paramedics.  After operations to set pins, Dad was confined to a chair at home.  My Mom lovingly cared for him, but mainly through “Irish Therapy.”  She was so mad he was up on a ladder at his age in the first place that she would thrust a rosary at him and growl “PRAY!”  After about a week of that, my Dad willed himself to walk. 

Dear Switchback fans,
 
It’s amazing to see how a box of Christmas ornaments can stir memories. I was recently in Woodstock, Illinois visiting my dad on a cold day.  The sun was out, but the wind chill was around 2 degrees Fahrenheit.  The open fields of McHenry County picked up the granules of snow and flung them into the air so that the back field sparkled in sun.  The prismatic effect carried through the fences and over the drifts before curling around and shaking the old farm house.  The house was warm and Dad was drowsing a bit and when he awakened, we would talk.  I brought out his tackle boxes and together we went through all three of them (fishermen, you can relate) and I organized each one.  One shelf had the plastic worms, Mr. Twisters, another shelf had the spinner baits and small spoons.  The next shelf, the plugs, the Shimmy Shads, and the poppers that looked like frogs.  All the while, I held them up to Dad and he peered through a magnifying glass to inspect one or another.  It was fun to talk about summers past, and just looking at the tackle boxes made me anticipate the warmth of summer, the open lake and a chance to get that fish.  It’s something that is hard to do as a full time musician, and it is even tougher to schedule that time with your parent.  
 
So while Dad took a nap, I walked into the living room.  My brother Robert had brought up the boxes of Christmas decorations from the basement.  There was the Allied Van Lines box that contained all the glass ornaments for the tree. That cardboard box had been part of the family since 1967 or earlier.  It was amazing to see that even a cardboard box would stir memories of Christmases past.  
 
In our family, we had a lot of traditions for Christmas and they all came out of cardboard boxes.  Decorating the tree took place about a week before Christmas.  Dad would bring the tree and it would sit out on the porch for a day or two until we were ready to get at it.  Nevermind if it snowed on it.  In it would come and the snow and cold would drop off onto newspapers set on the floor.  We had an old, metal tree stand that had three sockets for full sized light bulbs.  The sockets had long ago burnt out, but the stand was sturdy and could take an 8 foot tall tree.  We would anchor that tree into the dull, green metal stand, twisting the bolts and making sure it was secure.  And then we would bring out the lights.  Not these LED, dainty lights we now have, but thick cords, wrapped in cloth, with a good sized blue, red or green bulb.  A wooden red ball would be around the cord near the bulb so you could get it on the branch.  You always had to work from the inside of the tree out and from the bottom of the tree up.  The bulbs would get hot and slowly, the glowing bulbs would help the tree fill out by their sheer weight.   
 
Next would be the tinsel.  Yes, remember tinsel?  Tinsel was what separated the men from the boys when it came to Christmas trees.  And you could not cheat when putting it up on the tree.  Again, from the inside out, one strand at a time.  Inevitably Peter or Colin would take two or three of these strands, and licking them, would put them on the front hall antique mirror.  Calling Mom over, they would point and say, “Mom, David broke the front hall mirror!” And my Mom would then would scream and it would take about 15 minutes to convince her that indeed, it was only tinsel and not really a crack.  She would then forget about the trick until it was repeated a year later.  If you really wanted to get Mom mad, you would carelessly throw tinsel in the air and see if the branches would just catch it and have gravity do the rest.  That was not allowed and tantamount to desecration of the Christmas tree.
 
Finally, lit and tinseled, out would come the ornaments.  Beautiful German ornaments that had winter scenes hand painted on their hand blown surfaces. Delicate Italian metal ornaments of miniature nativity scenes.  Wooden cut outs, again hand painted, of all the Peanuts characters from “Merry Christmas Charlie Brown” taking residence next to antique frosted pine cones.  Hundreds of ornaments gathered over the years, each having a unique story.
 
Mom would have the Firestone Christmas album on the phonograph and in spite of its soothing tones and joyous melodies, there was always time for shenanigans to ruin another attempt at a peaceful family moment.  Like the horrible day that Peter took the box that had the “piece de la resistance,” a hand blown, painted star that had been in the family for generations. Thinking the box was empty, he went over to David and cracked it over his head to shock everyone into thinking he had broken the star.  He did not realize that the star had actually been placed back into the box to keep it from being broken.  That was as close as we ever got to seeing Mom go thermonuclear.  And of course “Joy to the World” would be playing.  And for each year after that, the broken star remained in its original box, kept with the ornaments, the albatross of the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" for our family.  That and the bad plastic star from Hornsby's that replaced it with intermittent Italian lights.  The goal was to find another antique star, but alas, that was impossible.
 
Out of another old cardboard box (from Reebie Movers of Chicago and featuring a rather solemn Sphinx on the front) would come the hand-carved nativity set from Italy.  This was something that one would never mess with.  Each were in smaller cardboard boxes, some from old toys that had been opened and destroyed twenty Christmases earlier.  Metal race cars and supersonic passenger jets stamped into metal from Japan (if you tore those toys apart, you could see Japanese characters!) that by now were antiques and the boxes themselves probably collectables on American Pickers.
 
We would read the story of Christ’s birth and as it unfolded, we would set up the nativity set.  Shepherds in the field would bring out the carved sheep and the Italian shepherd, with his felt hat glued firmly in his one hand, a miniature shepherd’s crook in the other.  A wonderfully carved cow lying down and looking like it was chewing its cud, and a tired donkey with half closed eyes looking like it was still recovering from the long journey to Bethlehem.  Tall stately camels for the three wise men who were resplendent in thick, laced-trimmed cloaks, each bent low to look on in wonder at Jesus in the manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes and with the most beatific smile. 
 
And of course Mary, looking none the worse for wear after her virgin birth, her arms outstretched in a protective pose and Joseph, standing a bit behind her and gazing at the scene with a look of “what did I get myself into?” on his carved face.  Above it all an angel, beautiful in its flowing robes and wooden, delicate wings.  It would bear a banner “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” that would sum up the whole miracle of Christmas.
 
Over the years, as a joke, one of the brothers might put the porcelain monkey that was dressed as a doctor (a gag gift from medical school), with its hands behind his back holding a big hypodermic needle, peering over the shepherd. Or the carved tarantula that was brought from Venezuela by Aunt Nancy and Uncle Jim, penned in with the donkey and cow.  Just a test to see if Mom or anyone else was paying attention to the nativity scene.  These would be removed by the Nativity Police, only to be replaced by other strange knick-knacks that existed in the house. 
 
Mother had a massive Santa collection that would come out and dominate the mantelpiece over the fireplace.  Soap Santas, wooden Santas, a porcelain Santa from Japan, with his hands on his hips and a smile on his Asian features.  Santas taken out of more cardboard boxes, wrapped in old wrapping paper, newspaper or gauze.  And each unfolding, each opening of the box would bring out memories of Christmases past.  Tiny little Santas made of bone china and plastic Santas that could survive a shot from a cannon.  Each would take their rightful place over the fireplace mantel. 
And in these little boxes would be bits of pine needles from trees past, or a twisted piece of tinsel from when each would be taken away and placed back in the box until another Christmas.
 
And still more cardboard boxes, with plastic wreaths that were older than me and still would be ready to hang in each window of the house.  A big plastic holly wreath for the front door.  A pink frosted fiberglass wreath festooned with silver ornaments for the other.  
 
There they all sat.  In the boxes.  Memories of Christmas past. 
 
On Christmas morning, we would come into the living room (always blocked from view by a sheet from a bed) and witness what Santa had brought.  When we were really little, Dad would film us with a super 8 camera and a row of bright light bulbs that would blind you as you entered the room.  And all the gifts that came in boxes.  All the toys.  Eventually Mom got tired of boxes and changed to big plastic contractor bags. We would go around, each kid closing his or her eyes, and pull out a gift. As we grew older, we knew that the sweater vest Joseph just received would be duplicated for Tony, for Fran, for David, myself, Peter, Colin, Robby and even Celia.  Or the Christmas of the Morris Flow-Ball pens.  Everyone got one and it became a joke to exclaim, “Oh, a Morris Flow-Ball Pen” as each kid pulled it out of their bag. 
 
It was amazing how my Mother could gather gifts and store them for future Christmases.  It was not unusual to get a shirt from a defunct store, circa 1980, twelve years later.  Such was the power of the room at the end of the hall that contained all of Mom’s purchases, and called “The Little End Bedroom Store.”  Even with Mom's passing, the Little End Bedroom Store probably has enough gifts to keep going until 2035.
 
I suspect all of us have these memories, these cardboard boxes. I chuckle as I see the boxes I am starting to fill for Áine.
 
Such memories are the heart of Christmas, those wonderful time capsules, those benign ghosts of Christmases past that conjure that one moment when the earth truly seems in reach of “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men.”   All the memories are passed on to future generations, unless broken when smashed over the head of a sibling. Those that survive secure the bonds of love, of family, that are in our grasp at Christmas.  But the important note to me is that it takes the cardboard box to keep safe the delicate memories.  Each one of us is like that box, and we all have the delicate beauty of the true meaning of Christmas to hold sacred and keep safe for the next generation to treasure.  In time, they too will have their cardboard boxes, their memories, and on and on it goes.  So, my holiday wish to you, dear Switchback fans, is that all your memories be special, delicate, and beautiful, and may all your boxes be of sturdy cardboard.

Martin McCormack

WayGoodMusic.com

Dear Switchback Fans,
 
For someone living in another solar system, perhaps it would come as news that one of the most divisive and cacophonous elections in American history just took place. For those fans outside the US, it probably seems strange, even dangerous, to see America, well, so vulnerable. 
 
And it seemed weird to me as I sat at the Bob Evans restaurant in Kokomo, Indiana, eavesdropping on the folks at the tables around me.  People were nervous with this election, and to me it sounded like winners and losers alike shared an uncertainty about tomorrow. People spoke in hushed tones, with heads bent forward and hands nervously kneaded before grabbing their cups of coffee.
 
I looked around thinking, "There must be some sign that things will be OK." 
 
Then I saw it. It was silhouetted against the rising sun of the morning. And I had to smile as I realized what a reassuring sign it was.  It was the American flag, slowly waving in the breeze over the parking lot of the Bob Evans restaurant. I looked at it and realized in the flag there was a poignant message to all Americans and in turn to the world. 
 
One cannot point to a star on the flag and say, "That's the star of Illinois.”  There's no way of telling which star is which. Same for the stripes. I can't tell which white stripe or which red stripe represents which original colony. Which one sits above the other.
 
I can't tell what percentage of the flag is made up for African-Americans or Irish Americans or Italian Americans or Jewish Americans or Mexican Americans. I can't tell if it's a flag for gays, for Catholics or Muslims.  I can't tell if I'm looking at a Republican flag, a Democratic flag, or an independent flag. 
 
The irony here is clear to me. By its anonymity, the American flag represents everybody. The marchers on the street carry this flag, carrying with them the representation of the very people they march against. The Republicans waving it at their rallies and the Democrats waving it at theirs wave a representation of the very people they campaign against.
 
There is a tendency to look at the world through an "us versus them" mentality. In this day and age it seems continually easier to become polarized even though we have at our disposal technology to bring people together.  Perhaps it's fitting to look on our flag as a wonderful creation that reminds us that we cannot succeed through division. That our very willingness to live under the flag means that we must be willing to live as one people. And just as taking a star away or ripping a stripe renders the flag no longer the flag, so too the country.
 
Yes, it is a tumultuous time, and yes, we walk in uncertainty, but if we look at the flag, even one waving over a chain restaurant, there is hope. And that we as neighbors have the responsibility to continue to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Martin McCormack

WayGoodMusic.com

Dear Switchback fans,
​
David Bowie’s song “We Can Be Heroes” touches on the idea that all of us have the capacity for doing something large in our lives.   Some of us do that without ever realizing that we are.  More than any other celebrity or notable figure of the past, I have found my own everyday heroes.
 
According to Wikipedia the word hero comes from the Greek ἥρως (hērōs) meaning "hero, warrior."   I would like to add that I consider a hero one who obtains a doctorate degree from Adversity University.  They manage to triumph, though they might not necessarily win.
 
The first hero that I want to laud is my father.  Within a month of my mother’s death, my dad was in the hospital.  It turned out that he had complications that arose from a stomach operation 62 years earlier.  And, of course, just when he is reeling from the death of his partner, adversity comes to pay a visit.  So my father spent over three weeks in the hospital, unable to eat solid food.  His weight dwindled to 109 pounds.  While I would have been an angry, whining man, my father was patiently enduring the slow process of determining just was wrong with him.  Then the word came from the doctor that he had a choice to make.  He could either have a surgery that had a 50-50 chance of his dying on the table or palliative care.  He could have taken the easy way out and gone into hospice.  He chose to fight and underwent the surgery.  The recovery has been painfully slow.  Our family had to go through the eerie familiarity of being in the ICU where Mom had died just weeks before.  My dad, who has cheated death several times in his life, managed to succeed with the operation.  He is now recovering, gaining weight and beginning to get his strength back.

Annie and I wish to thank everyone who responded with beautiful notes of support and sympathy at the passing of “Mini-mom.”  It has been wonderfully overwhelming, and in the course of reading cards and emails, the intention of personally responding to each has given way to this general “thank you” from the bottom of my heart.  Thank you for such inspirational insights and in some cases, sage advice about the steps of dealing with the loss of a mother.   It is a WayGood World that we all have created through The Music and it is deeply comforting to find that world supporting myself and my family through this sad time. 
​
The hard part for our family has begun and that is the adjustment to life without a loved one.  A long time ago, Brian and I wrote the song “Loneliest Road” which described a widow adjusting to life without her soldier husband.   I am now able to watch first-hand my own father adjusting to the loss of his wife of 64 years.   It is hard to see a man I hardly ever saw cry during my whole life, weep.  
 
And it is hard to see how a two-and-a-half-year-old adjusts to losing her grandmother.  The other night Annie put Áine to bed and told her about wishing on stars, a new concept.  Aine looked up at the one star that can make it through the Chicago glare and said, “I wish... I wish Mimi could come back.”   
 
And yet, in spite of all the sadness, the love and support from the WayGood World has been a mainstay in keeping my spirit afloat and focused on the triumph my mom’s life has been. My continuing mission of touching people’s souls through music is part of her legacy.   
 
Thank you for being my musical family. 
 
Marty McCormack

WayGoodMusic.com

Dear Switchback fans,
 
I was five years old.  My mother and I were sitting at the piano.  The room was dark except for the light of the lamp that illuminated the music.   As mother to 10 children, she didn’t have a lot of time to play, so it was a rare moment; one of the only moments, in fact, that I can recall when I alone was with her.   As she played, I watched her delicate, small hands move over the keys.
 
Suddenly, I was moved to tears as a thought that I had never had before came into my head: I blurted out, “Mom, I don’t want you to die.”   She stopped playing, surprised to see me crying and let out a little laugh.  “Oh, Marty, I don’t either.”  She then held me there, comforting me.  That moment haunted me for years, for I knew that inevitably, like Grampy, Grammy, Uncle Frank, Aunt Margaret, Aunt Ida, Uncle Bill, Grandma and Grandpa and countless other people I loved, my mother, too, would die one day. 
 
Two major gifts my mother gave me were the love of music and the love of the Grand Tetons of Wyoming.  My siblings and I spent many summers out in Wyoming and it has placed an indelible mark on all of us McCormacks.  Our family might have grown up in Woodstock, but Wyoming was the spiritual hub, the Vatican of the family soul.  When I wanted to propose to Annie, I knew that the best place would be in Wyoming.  When I needed to get somewhere to be grounded, there was no better place than standing on the foothills of Sheep Mountain, looking across the valley at the grandeur of the Tetons.  If I was to die today, I would have to be cremated and spread part in Wyoming, part in Ireland, and probably a teaspoon sprinkled in Brian’s food when he isn’t looking.  And so, Wyoming has always been part of that “inevitable.”  My grandparents rest in Aspen Cemetery, the headstone in line with the Grand Tetons.  This autumn, my mother will rest next to them.  Someday, my father will join them.
 
Perhaps I should have taken note of all the signs that her passing was coming.  Being Irish, I have an almost primal need to be affirmed by signs -- a year of great people exiting the world stage, a young woman in Sweden sporting a tattoo of the state of Wyoming at our last show there, followed by the appearance of a moose.
 
There is also synchronicity -- that my dad was hospitalized right before I left for Europe and I was able to see him recover, then return to the States to be at my mother’s side for her passing.  And of course, the text message from my brother Peter right before our show in Herefordshire, England, that he was with Mom and Dad and they wanted to wish me a happy birthday.  I was able to call and have a great conversation with them and thank my Mother once again for bringing me into the world.   I described for them the beautiful countryside and of course, Mom threw in some advice about my music for me. In a lot of ways, things could not have progressed more perfectly in the passing of my Mom.  We parted as always, with a lot of unspoken love.   
 
The time leading up to her death was unfair.  Prepping for her operation on her hip, Mom had to stay at a rehab center.  It had an outbreak of the scabies and so was quarantined, which stripped us of the chance to visit her.  Luckily her physician was able to get her out for appointments and we used those times so she could visit with Dad.   That last time I saw Mom alive was prior to heading to Europe.  I drove Dad to the Woodstock City Park and set up a chair so he could sit with Mom for a while. My sister Cecilia, driving Mom to her appointment, drove to the park.  Probably one of the most tender moments was seeing my Dad, leaning on his cane, bend over and gently kiss my mother sitting there in Celia’s car.  Like forbidden lovers, my parents were denied that chance to be together for the last two months of her life.  
 
And perhaps, her final passing was also so unfair. Those who have lost a partner or a parent, and been there to witness death -- I know you know.  And in spite of years of preparing for this separation, the thought that, as a traveling musician, I could easily die first in my family from a road accident, my mother's death caught me totally off guard. 
 
My mother was a fighter and though she was scared, I knew she would fight.  When I arrived with Áine last Tuesday, all seemed OK.  Mom’s signs were stable.  I spent the day with Dad, having Áine distract both of us.  My brother Tony, a physician, arrived as word came that they had to intubate my mother.  “You better get here to see Mom,” Tony said.  And so, Áine and I came over. “What’s wrong with Mimi?” Áine asked. Her Aunt Cecilia and Uncle Robert, my two youngest siblings, explained.  It was good for them to explain to a two-and-a-half-year-old the reality.  “She may go to heaven,” Cecilia said.  Áine seemed to understand.  “Mimi is sick and may go to heaven,” she said.  We drove home. 
 
I was still feeling jetlagged from Europe and woke up at 5 a.m. to texts from my family urging me to head back to Woodstock.  I woke up Annie.  “Mom is dying,” I said.  Annie hugged me and asked if she and the baby should come along.  But I said I should just get out there as quickly as possible.
 
Miraculously, Interstate 90 was light of traffic and construction.  I arrived in Woodstock in under an hour.  The mood had changed.  My brothers Fran, Joseph, and Peter were there.  Tony was home with Dad, who had visited Mom during the night to say goodbye.  
 
She was still hooked up to all the gadgetry to keep one alive.  The fluids and medicines had swollen her, made her look not herself.  She was not “herself” anymore.  “Let’s try to make this beautiful.”  I suggested.  I reached down to her and started to sing some of the songs she taught us as children.  Fran joined me and we wept as we sang.
 
When your hair has turned to silver,
I will love you just the same
I will only call you sweetheart
That will always be your name
Through a garden filled with roses
Down the sunset trail we’ll stray
When your hair has turned to silver
I will love you as today.
 
The Irish also need humor.  It is a weapon we have in our arsenal, perhaps put there from all the grief that has been pounded into the DNA through the centuries.  We teased Mom that we might have to bury her with Sheevra, the goat who was buried out on the back hill at the farm.  It was a longstanding joke that Dad started years ago.  One of us noticed that another patient was in the ICU alone in his room.  “What if we all walked over and stood around his bed?” my eldest brother Joseph said.  Little jabs of humor to ease the pain.  
 
Finally, it was obvious we needed to say farewell.  We all told Mom, “Go and be with Grampy, Grammy, Uncle Frank, Aunt Margaret, Aunt Ida and all your friends.  We are OK.  We will take care of Dad.”   I said, “Mom, if you wish to stay, that’s fine too.  But the decision is yours.  We will miss you.”
 
At 7:40, the nurse said to my brother Fran, “Her eyes are not reacting to light.”  Fran took out his doctor penlight and flashed it by Mom’s eyes.  I pulled back her lids and looked as well.  Empty.  Gone.
 
“This is not Mom,” I said.  “This is now just her shell.”  We all joined hands around her and took her hands as well and prayed.  We wept.  We apologized that she had to die this way, when everything looked like it was going well just two days ago.  The “would’ve, should’ve, could’ve” talk started.  We stepped out of the room and allowed the nurses to take the tubes and needles and gadgetry away.  Finally, we stepped back in as more family arrived.  It still wasn’t Mom.  It was just what was left of Mom.  That wonderful shell that had carried us and still had those delicate little fingers, the elfin ears, the grey curling hair with bits of black that she would never go to the hairdresser for.  We cut some of the locks.  Joined hands again and prayed.  Good solid Catholic prayers that are like salvos out of a battleship.  
 
It was time to head back to the farmhouse and to see Dad.  I looked one last time at Mom and walked out firmly believing that Mom made her choice and left.  
 
From there, it has been a walk in pain, remembrance, laughter, meetings on the funeral, obituaries, taking in flowers, taking calls from friends, trying to reach the extended family and the flurry of activity that helps bury the loss. The house was filled at Rose Farm with grandkids running around, in-laws and the sort of activity Mom would have reveled in and would have ruled over.  “It’s as if she’s in the next room,” Annie said.   And she is.  
 
Now, 48 years from that evening at the piano, I think about my mother and myself.  In life, she was dubious at best when it came to her approval of my career.  “If only” would be the preface to a lot her conversations with me.  In many ways, her familiarity with me, (for she was responsible for starting my path in music), clouded her ability to accept that perhaps when one is acting to the best of his ability, the rest is up to a higher power to decide on what being successful looks like.
 
There is no sure-fire path to “the top” in music.  And I personally reject what society considers “the top” in the music business.   Mom could have been a performer and she had the goods to be one.  Her mother and she were both models at points in their lives.  She could have pursued the path.  But her calling was to be a mother and for that she succeeded wonderfully.
 
But music, unlike all of the other arts, is not a business, after all.  It is a calling.  Success in music means a complete surrender to music.  Although we both loved music, we didn’t share a common language of the practice of being a musician.  So, Mom didn’t want me to be Bono, but the blonde haired “Rolf” from the Sound of Music Stage Tour?  Yes, that would have been OK for Mary McCormack.
 
If I have any regret over our relationship, it would be that she could have seen that in so many ways, I did meet her expectations.  Her own doubts about herself, I had to subdue and not claim as my own.  My own embracing of the calling and surrender was reward in and of itself.  Still, it would have meant the world to have heard that she understood and approved. 
 
My mother was the inspiration behind the Switchback song "The Fire that Burns."  The refrain goes, “The fire that keeps me warm, is the fire that burns.”  And in the end, I was able to let go of that burning and embrace the warmth.  And that is the part of my mother that truly shined, not only for us kids, but for so many people as well.  And that is why she is and will continue to be an amazing, living, guiding force. 
 
Two days after Mom died, Brian and I had to play an outreach performance in Evanston.  At the end, I asked if there were any requests.  A man waved his hand, stood up and waved frantically.  “Wyoming!” he said.  “Play something from Wyoming.”   
 
Immediately, Brian said, "That's a sign from your mom."  We played "Why Oh Why Did I Ever Leave Wyoming" for the gentleman, who hailed from that great state that my mother so loved.  A sign indeed.  Mom, your requests from the audience will always go straight to the top of the list.

Martin McCormack

WayGoodMusic.com

Dear Switchback fans,

I brought Áine to the St. Louis Center for Head Injury a couple of weeks ago. This is a place that serves the metro area of St. Louis and its collar counties.  They are there to help rehabilitate, encourage, and nurture people who have suffered injury to the brain. The reasons for injury are myriad but unique to the individuals there. The clients of the facility are of all walks of life, all colors and creeds, united in a common reality that they are in need of care, the ability to heal and embrace their challenges. The brain injuries are from mild to severe. I was curious to see what Áine as a two and a half year old would do and how the people would react to her being there. Would she be aware that these folks had such injuries?  Would it matter?
 
When I carried Áine through the door, both she and the group lit up. Áine did her “I am so shy” wave routine that she does when she sees unfamiliar people for the first time. One client came over in her wheelchair right away and reached out for her. Áine backed off at first, but then allowed her to shake hands and be hugged by the lady. The staff was equally beautiful, making sure Áine was safe while we played and really winning her over with some Sweet Tarts.
 
Brian and I started playing our song Swingin’, Rockin’, Rollin’, and Áine began to dance in front of the band. I have loved her spontaneity to music, that fantastic subliminal soul-driving reaction that I believe all of us have. The group at the Center quickly followed suit and soon we had a nice party going on, with dancing, hand clapping, and shouts of laughter and joy. Áine was happy to be in the midst of it all, stopping occasionally to head back to some of the staff for more Sweet Tarts.
 
Later that day, Áine came along to Friendship Village. This was the second of our outreach programs that day, this time for a group of independent living seniors. It was Áine’s first show of this kind. Again, she took to the stage and waved to the audience. “Hi, I’m Áine,” was what she said. She gestured to me. “That’s my Poppa.” And then she looked at Brian. “That’s my Uncle Brian.” The audience loved that introduction, and they really started clapping when she began step dancing to our Irish music.
 
I also learned that the old showbiz adage never to have kids or pets on stage can ring true as well. Áine ​was getting tired. She decided to stop dancing and go through my bass case at one point. ​Out of the case she pulled a thin screwdriver needed for repairs. Of course, it was in the middle of a song. She started to wave it like the baton she has seen on her favorite cartoon, “Little Einsteins.” However, to Uncle Brian and Poppa, it was she was going to take on one of the Jets in West Side Story.​ We quickly wrapped up the tune and I took the screwdriver and locked the case. “Good thing that wasn’t a Bowie knife,” I nervously chuckled to the audience.
 
Uncle Brian came to the rescue with a huge coloring book.  Brian raised his daughter Siobhan, now 20, on shows and she was able to quietly work on coloring while he and Maggie entertained.  Not Áine. She indifferently whipped (and ripped) through the coloring book.  ​All the crayons were examined and then dropped on a little table we set up for her. And then Áine put her head down on it.
 
​A full day of playing at parks, dancing and hanging out with Poppa and Uncle Brian had taken their toll, but there was still 15 minutes left in the performance. ​Áine got up and walked over to me. "Poppa, we go home now?"

And soon Brian and I were “two men and a baby.”  Áine broke into crying so I put down the bass and picked up my little daughter.  We did the rest of the show with her resting on my shoulder.
​She punctuated some of the more tender parts of “Danny Boy” with her tired sobs.  Fitfully, she fell asleep.
 
At this point, I thought folks would be fairly put out by a crying kid during a concert. But it was just the opposite. A lot of folks came up and commented on how much they enjoyed having her there and that it made them think of their own families. One lady came back after the show was over and it was just Poppa, Uncle Brian and Aine in the room. “I want you to know how wonderful it was to see how much love you have for your daughter,” she said. ​"It was amazing to see how you showed so much grace under pressure." ​ I laughed and thanked her.  
 
It was always my hope that my daughter would have the chance to meet people throughout the WayGood World. And it is nice to be reminded that in a child’s eyes, we are all the same. That the world is a great place. Music is meant to be danced to with as much gusto as possible.​ And that 7:45 p.m. is pushing it for bedtime. 

Marty McCormack

WayGoodMusic.com

Dear Switchback fans,

2016 has turned out to be a strange year thus far for our tours. While we had a blast in Costa Rica back in January, we have decided to wait a while and see what happens with the Zika virus before planning for next year. Seems to be the prudent thing to do as our experts cope with a strange new disease. 

However, Ireland has become something completely different. For the first time in a long time, we may not have enough fans joining us to justify a tour. And that, I think, has more to do with a more threatening element than any virus-laden mosquito can offer. One family that withdrew from the tour was honest enough to say that they were afraid. Terrorism was the reason they gave, the idea being that away from home they might be more exposed.

And I suspect their fear is probably something that we all have to some degree. And it might be making people hesitate about traveling.

As a traveling musician and one that has to travel outside the United States, the odds of something happening ramp up. The odds of getting hit by a semi-truck are equally enhanced in our business. Or electrocuted on stage. We've dodged three tornados in our career. Bad things happen.

The point I am making is that this year is one of great uncertainty. The election cycle in the United States isn't at all reassuring for anyone it seems. The violence that just devastated Orlando, the vacation mecca of the United States, certainly makes one think it might be better to hunker down on the farm. And the senseless killing of a young musician is just that, senseless and beyond the capacity of understanding. Can one come out to a show and not have to dodge bullets? It makes the mind reel. 

And so it seems that Ireland, one of the most benign places in the world, might even be giving people a chance for pause this year.   

Franklin Roosevelt said, "The only thing we need to fear is fear itself.” And ultimately he was right. As someone explained to me, the people of Lockerbie, Scotland, probably thought they were in the safest place in the world until one night a terrorist act brought a whole plane crashing down on the village. 

Nowhere is completely safe. And our thought that things were safer in the past might be just as illusory. Things have always been dangerous, probably not just as well-covered and excessively detailed as in today's media-hyped world. 

So what to do? We can stop traveling, stop going out to shows and just order in, but again, that doesn't make things any safer or really lessen fear.  

As much as I am afraid of dying, I know that I have to keep on living. As much as I am afraid of the bad guys, I know I have to be a good guy and continue to give joy to the world. And Brian and I offer you, our fans, an opportunity to celebrate life by joining us in Ireland this October. We are running out of time to make this trip a reality, but my hope is that our fans will rally and truly help us keep it a WayGood World.

Martin McCormack
WayGoodMusic.com

Dear Switchback Fans,
 
2016 seems to be God’s idea of a clearinghouse for musicians. David Bowie, Prince, Glenn Frey, Merle Haggard, Paul Kanter, Maurice White, and Phife Dawg have all exited the stage, and we’re not even half way through the year. And who was going to tell me that Frank Sinatra, Jr. died?  Who have I missed?  As someone said to us, “Just wait, we aren’t over yet.”   Indeed.  It is enough to make a bass player a bit nervous.
 
Now in the case of about half of these guys, they lived to a ripe old age for the type of lifestyle that musicians have typically led.   Aside from the Stones, with whatever Faustian bargain they have made with the guy they have sympathy for, and Willie, who shows proof in the efficacy of the medicinal qualities of a certain organic substance, all these guys did have their moments in the sun and we are all the better for it.  But one can imagine that they all had one heck of a rodeo ride in the process. The life of a musician, especially an independent musician, is filled with a lot of temptation, pitfalls, and setbacks.  Then there is the bad stuff that can happen as well.
 
In the case of several of these musicians, I can, like most people, take a song and remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard it.   “1999” was being blasted on WLS AM through a radio (boom boxes had not been invented yet) as we detasseled corn out in the back fields of Hughes Hybrids.   We would dance to it as best as we could in our metal baskets, our faces wet with sweat and flecked with corn pollen.  The beat of the song pulsed with the grinding noise of the power steering as the behemoth of a detasseling rig lumbered its way over the swells of corn.   A long way from what Prince had in mind, I guess.   And 1999 seemed so far away at the time.  Like I had all the time in the world to reach it, too.
 
With “Take it Easy,” well, I was being chased around the Woodstock City Pool by Suzy Draffkorn.  I was just nine years old and Suzy had a crush on me, I think.  She would run after me and try to pull my swim trunks down.  Since the trunks were hand-me-downs, I am sure they had a head start already, and Suzy was determined. I was afraid of the deep end, and so I would seek refuge in the three foot deep section of the pool and dog paddle like crazy to escape.  I never had any other woman chase me like that since, even when I became a musician.  (One would think all these famous guys would have lived a lot longer if they were being chased all the time.  Good for the heart!)   Suzy’s affection always comes back to me as soon as I hear those first three chords of the song.  Yes, I only got as far as Pollywog in my swim class, but I did go downstate in Cross Country.  So thanks, Suzy.
 
“Let’s Dance” was one of two big Bowie moments in my life.  That song came along as I was in college.  I was totally taken by the guitar solo, and it was little wonder that the player was some young guy named Stevie Ray Vaughan.  It was spring and the smelt fishermen were lined up along the breakwater of Lake Michigan.  I was dating a girl named Maria at the time, and we walked along the water at night and the fishermen would have their lamps out, pulling in the fish and grilling them right there on the concrete.  School was coming to an end, and life seemed wide open and frightening at the same time.  “Space Oddity” was a 45 we would listen to over and over again when we were out in Wyoming.  My brothers and sister would do interpretive dance to the song, play-acting Major Tom “floating on my tin can.”  It was a song that a five year old could easily memorize.  The funny part would be that the cut would fade out on side one.  One of us would flip it to side two and back into the song.   Those were the late 60’s and early 70’s and not one of us ever stopped and said, “Hey, that’s lame!”  You just accepted the limitations of the technology.  I miss those limits, too.  The sharing of a song was so important.  Today, we can plug in our earbuds and tune out everyone around us.  
 
“September” was one of those songs that even the melody was happy.  To this day, I can’t repeat all the words.  It was one of those songs I would think I knew all the words to, but didn’t.  I would start in singing it with the radio and end up mumbling happily along to the chorus.  I knew the inflections, the chorus, the joy that was Earth, Wind and Fire.  
 
And Merle?  “Okie from Muskogee” was in the bar in Pell Lake when Dave Heuvelman and I were treated to our first beer by his grandpa.  Um, we were 14 at the time, but that day Grandpa decided Dave and I were men.  We had been out on the farm, working hard to help him put up his shortwave radio antennae.  Part of the wire had to cross a two acre pond.  I had capsized a boat filled with the wire spool in the process, resulting in an aquatic salvage operation, but finally got the wire across, strung up on telephone poles and the shortwave working.  Grandpa saw something: he saw us work like young men and felt we deserved a beer.  So we got in his big Cadillac and drove to Pell Lake, over the border in Wisconsin.  The bar was a tiny building, with several good deer heads on the knotty pine walls.  Smoke from cigarettes filled the air and tinged it a hazy grey color.   It was magical, sitting at the bar on the cracked deep red vinyl stools, with the music playing, lights dim, a burger on the plate and a beer sitting in a tall frosted mug in my hand.  My life had changed.
 
Yes, we all die.  And really, it is not about a famous musician dying.  With musicians, especially songwriters, the song is what matters.   And for all of us music becomes something very personal.  Prince, Bowie, Lennon, Rodgers and Hart, Carmichael -- it doesn’t matter.  They were just the vehicles to deliver the goods.  The songs make our lives, who we are.  The song for the first kiss, the birth, the death.  It is an honor when the Good Lord allows us to write a good one.
 
And yes, big successful musicians who are lucky enough to get the airwaves and their songs pounded into our heads have a good chance of having their songs remembered.  The music business is not a level playing field.  It is more like a minefield.  It is a rarity when a songwriter is lauded before his or her death.  Carole King comes to mind as an exception.  She has a musical out about her life and she deserves it.  But there are lot of Caroles out there, juggling a kid and a part time job while pursuing a full-time dream.

There are a lot of songs to take and make your own.  A lot of beautiful songwriters out there.  We should remember, appreciate, and honor those songwriters who have died, but do us living songwriters a favor too.  Get out there and enjoy us while we are around.  Allow us the honor of you taking one of our songs and making it your own.  And let us know about it.  I have a feeling Prince would have appreciated feeling all that love while he could still smile and savor it.  No amount of fame or money can take the place of love.  


Marty McCormack
waygoodmusic.com

Dear Switchback fans,
 
With Mother’s Day approaching in just a few weeks, I thought I would focus on writing about my Moms. That’s right, my many moms.  Of course I have one mother and that is Mary Virginia Lang McCormack or “Mini-Mom” as I like to call her.  She is only five feet tall and now that she is approaching the age of 90, she seems to be shrinking, but her personality seems to grow.     
 
My mother was the one who inspired me to explore music.  At our house out in Woodstock, there was a vast collection of records.  Probably the most important to me were the 78s that came along with an old Victrola record player.  My mother would allow me to play these and the other LPs of her collection.  It was a way of finding out who my mother was, because although she wasn’t a musician, she was musical.  And her musicality, her deep love of music, was something that resonated with me. My mother was not one to be on stage, although she could sing and play the piano.  She recognized that I had an ability to sing and play.  So, in spite of having nine other kids to look after, my mom began my career by bringing me to a nursing home at the age of four to sing “Silent Night.”  I was so small, that I was placed on top of a table so that the residents could see me.  That was my first stage.  
 
My mother wasn’t a stage mom.  She did not hover over any of us and push us toward music. However, we were a musical family.  We did enjoy singing and ultimately that led us to performing as a family singing group.  We sang for various functions around McHenry County and usually would perform for retirement homes as well.  It was not that we did this with an eye toward being famous or even the idea of it being a career.  There was a sense of service and the idea “to whom much is given, much is expected.”  We did rehearse a bit for these shows and the rehearsals themselves would be a tedious affair, as most of us kids would rather be anywhere but working on songs over and over. Eventually, everyone in my family had a call to become something other than a musician, while it became clearer to me that I needed to pursue music.   
 
And over time, I started to meet my musical mothers, the women who helped shape my career.  The first was my guitar teacher, Eunice Mast.  She was part of “folk royalty” and was close friends with Pete Seeger.  She and her husband, Don, lived in Woodstock and converted their home into “a house of music,” literally opening up their second floor in the living room into a balcony and having visiting musicians present shows.  I would visit her every week to learn a guitar song. Eunice taught me the importance of accepting that just being a musician was enough.  I didn’t have to obsess about becoming famous.  Her own joy at being a musician and creating joy was enough.  She showed me how to take matters into my own hands when it came to creating a musical show.  Over a bubbling pot of potatoes she was cooking for a dinner concert at the Masthouse (the name folkies gave their home), she explained how the business end of music worked…that the playing field was not level and instead of waiting for permission from others, take the power to make your music available in the present. When Eunice was diagnosed with cancer, she showed the same determination in how she wanted to live her remaining days.  She participated in her own farewell party, surrounded by musicians who were nurtured and encouraged by her.  
 
When I had graduated from college, I knew I had to find a good voice teacher.  And somehow, I connected with Wilma Osheim.  Wilma was an “Iowegian” (a Norwegian-Iowan) who did not learn English until high school, her town speaking the native tongue with English the second language. She went on to become one of the best voice teachers in the Midwest, teaching at the American Conservatory of Music.  With Wilma, she taught me to see my voice as an instrument and to use it to master all styles of music.  She would tell me how the singer is like a ship at sea, from the outside it looks like it is one complete majestic entity, serenely sailing along.  But if one was to see what was going on inside, one could see all the work that was being done to propel the vessel forward.   So, under her guidance, I developed my voice.  She would have me dissect songs, breaking down lines and phrases so that I could sing with meaning and in the moment physically and mentally.  She was a great drill sergeant, pushing me to be the best and use my ability to go from Irish ballads to rock originals to opera.  When Wilma passed, I felt I lost the person who turned my voice into an instrument.

It would be a while later when I found another musical mother.  Her name is Sheryl Rak and she probably is the best known musical teacher and coach in the Chicago area.  I came to Sheryl to further my voice studies, but I found that what I really was seeking was the spiritual connection to why I was called to do music.  Sheryl helped me fine tune the instrument, with exercises and a self-awareness in delivery that Brian and I still use today.  But it was the time I spent with her, talking about music being a calling and how it directly applied to my life that I will always treasure with her.  To visit Sheryl’s studio on Irving Park Road in Chicago was akin to entering a Himalayan shaman’s mountain temple.  Everything was decorated in purple, her favorite color, including her clothes.  Sitting next to the piano, Buddha-like, Sheryl pushed the spiritual training of the musician through affirmations.  Her affirmations about singing, about accepting the musician’s path, helped me through some pretty rocky times.   “I am music, I am flexible and flowing,” still comes into my mind when I step onto a stage.  Now retired from teaching, Sheryl still has many musicians around Chicago who owe their survival and sanity to her wisdom.  Brian and I are two musicians who directly benefited from her teaching.
 
There are many people who come into our lives that have an impact.  But each of these women in many ways took me and brought my music to a deeper level.  As only a mother can, they created, nurtured and weaned me when the time was right.  I don’t know if I will come across another musical mother in my career.  But I am grateful for the ones I have been blessed enough to receive.  Happy Mother’s Day, Moms.

Martin McCormack

WayGoodMusic.com ​

​One of the amazing things in our line of work as musicians is that by the nature of this work, we have the opportunity to rub shoulders with all sorts of people.  And if you embrace the concept that there are no coincidences in life, then almost all the people you meet are there because the good Lord wanted you to meet them.
 
That seemed to be the case for us when we were out in Arizona this week.  We were staying with our friend and keeper of WayGood Southwest, Norm Weitzman.   We had several St. Patrick's shows to perform and with a small window of free time, we debated on whether we should run to the Grand Canyon and get some video of us playing or stay around Scottsdale and rehearse some new songs.  We decided on the latter and spent a good day working on music.
 
"I know a good place nearby to shoot video," said Norm.  "Let's head up to Cave Creek.  It's a cowboy town and I am sure we could get some great shots there." 
 
So that evening we drove down Scottsdale Road and past some beautiful scenery to the town of Cave Creek.  The town itself is an interesting tourist trap town full of curio shops, hamburger joints, biker bars and, well, cowboys.  One place, Hogs and Horses, caught my eye as it had some longhorn steers in a rodeo pen behind the bar.  We walked into the establishment.  Inside were several folks in cowboy gear and a table of happy people who turned out to be the band for that night.
 
"Hey!" they called out to us. "Glad to see you here!" 
 
We got to talking and when they found out we were musicians from Chicago, they insisted we get up on stage and play. There was no bass guitar so I made do with an acoustic guitar and pulled up the low frequency on it.  There was also no guitar strap and so I had to hoist my leg over a bar stool and I realized that in my shorts I must have looked pretty stupid.  Brian grabbed a guitar and Joey settled in to the drums.  There were no sticks for Joey, so the band, who were feeling pretty happy with their beers, improvised and broke two pool cues into a rough approximation of sticks.  And with that, we launched into several numbers, culminating with "Pour Me."  The band went wild and soon we had some new friends.
 
We then listened to the band get up and play and one woman leaned over to me.  "Just want you to know that that man on stage is Elvis Presley's son."  Now, when a lady tells you that you are looking at Elvis Presley's son, you start squinting your eyes to see if there is any kind of resemblance.  So I was doing that as he sang.  Son or not, I thought he had a pretty good voice.

​Afterward, we all talked for a while. One of the group, Jay, motioned over to the longhorns. "These are part of the bar.  We have bull riding twice a week here.  And here comes the owner of the place, T.C."   In walked this lanky man wearing a baseball cap and in one look I could tell that this guy was the genuine article when it came to cowboying.   Turned out that he was none other than T.C. Thorstenson, the famous buffalo rider.
 
If anyone knows anything about me, they know I have this connection with the West.  My grandmother was born in a log cabin in Lothrop, Montana.  All of us McCormack family kids spent our childhood summers out West.  And out West there are buffalo.  After moose, the buffalo is one of my favorite animals and truly embodies the spirit of the West. 
 
T.C. started riding his first bison up in South Dakota when he was nine.  He trained the famous bison, Harvey Wallbanger, who not only could beat racehorses, but was part of movies,  commercials and even the latest buffalo design for the nickel.  Along with Harvey, T.C. appeared in two of my favorite Westerns, "Dances with Wolves" and "Lonesome Dove," along with Harvey and several wolves he raised from pups.  Remember the flying buffalo in the Buffalo Wildwings commercials? Yep, T.C. and Harvey.  (Click here to see video of the great Harvey Wallbanger and T.C. Thorstenson).
 
T.C. told us of all the injuries that he had received from riding buffalo as well as handling wolves and longhorns.  One longhorn actually gored him through the nose, tearing off part of his face; he lost an eye.  A great plastic surgeon sewed him up after the trauma doc gave him one look.  Brian said, "You must have a high threshold for pain."   "Yeah, I guess so," said T.C. dryly.
 
This was turning out better than the Grand Canyon at this point.  With Elvis's son and a cowboy who rides buffalo, how could it get any better?
 
"C'mon," said Jay, pointing to a big black tour bus out back.  "Want to see one of Madonna's tour buses?"  Norm went off to check it out.  Brian, Joey and I turned to T.C. and asked almost in unison, "Any chance we can see the buffalo?"  T.C. agreed and we set up a time to meet his new three-year-old bison-in-training, Harley, the next day.
 
After a tour of the tour bus, which incidentally was my first time on one, we bade our goodbyes, shaking hands, handing out Switchback stickers and promising to meet at the bar the next morning.
 
We pulled up at the bar the next day around 10 a.m. and there was T.C. sitting at the bar wearing a straw cowboy hat.  Next to him was another cowboy, with big grin and a quick wit, named Keith.  They were laughing and drinking Coors in the Switchback beer koozies we gave out the night before.  Keith told a joke in honor of St. Patrick's Day: 
 
A Mexican and an Irishman are sitting at the pub, each describing their culture to the other. 
 
"In Mexico, we take life easy.  Whenever something needs to get done, we just say 'mañana' and that way nothing happens."
 
He leans in to the Irishman. "Do you have such a word?"
 
"Eh, we might," says the Irishman. "However we would never be so urgent as ye."
 
We hopped in our van and followed T.C., his girlfriend Holly, and Keith and a dog in their white pickup truck.  Passing two life-sized sculptures of buffalo, we drove down a saguaro-lined drive up to T.C.'s ranch house.  There, waiting out in the shed next to a white buffalo and some beautiful horses (several of which belonged to T.C.'s friend Steven Seagal), was Harley. 
 
At three years old, he was already pretty big, weighing over 1700 pounds.  He looked like any other kind of buffalo that I had seen in Wyoming, but this time it was different.  T.C. got into the pen with Harley.  I noted the three-inch steel pipe that made up the corral and was grateful to have that between myself and Harley.  T.C. grabbed Harley's halter and proceeded to snap on a lead.  He tethered Harley onto a steel post and Harley did as most bison like to do when tethered to a post: untether himself by trying to pull down the corral.  With some quick commands Harley was back up and a variation of a rodeo saddle was fitted around him.  Into his mouth went a snaffle bit and bridle.  T.C. unhooked the halter. 
 
While T.C. was getting ready to mount Harley, Keith whispered to me, "You know, T.C. lost his dad to a bison.  Gored him and he bled to death before they could make it to the hospital." 
 
T.C. started riding around the pen, his head barely clearing the steel girders that made up the roof.  Later I found out that bison don't rear up like horses can.  But at the time, I was thinking that I was witnessing either the bravest man in the world or the craziest man in the world.
 
T.C. calmly rode Harley in some tight circles and Harley would every so often see us and charge the gate.  It took all of T.C.'s strength, it seemed, to rein him in. We all found ourselves involuntarily jumping back about three feet every time this happened.  T.C. got Harley to kneel and then roll down on his side, just as if he were a trained dog.  We all marveled at it, as T.C. gently scratched Harley's head.  But quick as a flash, all 1700 pounds of Harley was on his feet and bolting away to the end of the pen, T.C. getting yanked along on the lead reins.  "Down! Down!" yelled T.C.  And Harley, grunting and snorting, finally kneeled back down again.
 
While this was going on I thought about walking down to pet the friendly white bison down in the other pen.  He looked much more docile than Harley.  I was about to make my move when T.C. invited us to all head over to see him. 
 
The white buffalo was six years old and he sort of bellowed and grunted as we all approached.  "I just couldn't get him to ride," T.C. said. "Turned out that he was just too mean." 
 
The bison's horns curved way high in evil arcs, almost as tall as his head and he shook this shaggy mass right at us as if to say, "If only that fence wasn't here."
 
I tried to act nonchalant, summing up all my "Aw shucks, just another day at the bison ranch" swagger and leaned in to get a picture of the white buffalo. 
 
"He likes to reach through and try to hook you," T.C. said.  "Better not lean too close." 
 
And sure enough, the bull quickly cocked his horn right through the fence and went for my nose.
 
We talked about how fast bison can run and how, for all their size, they are more agile than a cat.  Bison carry most of their weight in their massive skull and shoulders.  T.C. explained how unlike a rodeo bull that swivels its shoulders and spins its back haunches, a buffalo can spin 360 degrees on his front hooves.  They can use that speed and mass to knock a competitor from here to eternity.  Humans a bit farther.
 
"Once I had some bison here that got out of the pen," T.C. said. "My father-in-law at the time decided to come outside the house after I told everyone to stay in.  He wanted to see me round up the bison.  Well, he placed himself between the bison and a dumpster, thinking he would be safe.  I was trying to pen one when the other saw him and went right after him.  He got between him and the dumpster and swung his back haunch on him knocking him seven feet.  As my father-in-law got up the bull was right back and this time knocked him 20 feet in the air leaving his shoes behind.  He met him as he hit the ground and danced on him for about six seconds before I could even reach him.  We had to Medevac him out and he was in critical care for about three months and rehab for about six.  He still likes me though."  
 
The whole time T.C. told this story, Harley was grunting and looking at us three rubes from Chicago.
 
We decided that we wanted to be photographed with Harley and at least get some video of T.C. riding him.  We scouted out a good location and figured that Harley could be posted to an ironwood tree and we would sit with our instruments in front of him.   We decided to reconvene at "Hogs and Horses" and head over to do the shoot at the ranch the next day.
 
Norm had missed out on the exploits from the day before, but shaking his head, he agreed to accompany us to be the staff photographer.  We brought along some video cameras and some tripods and set up the shot at the ranch, pulling a rustic bench out in front of the tree and situating our instruments for the shoot.  Keith pulled up in his pickup and he sauntered over to where we were. We cracked some jokes as T.C. went to get Harley. 
 
In the meantime, Harley was peering down on all of us from on top of a trailer that attached to a ramp in his cage.  Norm took some video of Joey playing the washboard as Harley ate some hay and eyed us with a look of disdain.  We headed down to where the pen was and T.C. led Harley out.
 
We stood a safe distance when Harley took one look at the set up and decided to make a run for it.  He took off and now we had three musicians, one photographer and two cowboys versus one upset bison.  We all started heading toward a stack of hay that was high enough to get us up on the roof.  Harley, snorting wildly, bolted past us with T.C. in pursuit.  The father-in-law story came to mind and we all realized that Harley had a lot more targets. 
 
"I'm going on the roof!" said Joey, and started climbing up the stack.  Norm took refuge in a golf cart. "Norm!" yelled Joey, "You can't hide on a golf cart, that bison is going to get you!"  Brian and Keith were also looking for places to hide as now all the animals were racing around the pen, cheering Harley on.
 
Harley ran to a back pasture, T.C. patiently following him.  The bison squared on him and T.C. calmly reached again for the lead.  Harley bolted again and Keith, sizing up the situation wisely, said, "I think we all should lock ourselves in the corral."  So all of us scurried into an open pen and locked ourselves in next to the horses and Mr.-Angry-Gore-You-When-You-Least-Expect-It white buffalo.
 
T.C. yelled, "Ya better move that tripod and bass guitar."  I looked over at Harley, who seemed like he had the better of the fight at this point.  I figured if I moved fast enough I could grab the bass at least.  Visions of Harley running around with half the guitar on his head went through my mind. 
 
T.C. had managed to now trap Harley and was not messing around.  "Keith, get the pickup truck," he said and grabbed a stout rope from the shed.  We were back in the pen, me having run out to get everything out of the way and then running back.
 
"Harley 3, Switchback 0," I joked to Joey and Brian as Keith turned the truck around and T.C. tethered Harley to it.  Slowly Keith let the truck out in first gear and Harley reluctantly left his brief bid for freedom and was led to the tree.
 
At this point T.C. finally had Harley tied and called us over.  We walked up and stared at the bull who now was only a few feet from us. 
 
"Let's move the chairs closer," said T.C. and so we dragged them to within a foot of the bison.  I took a quiet breath and exhaled, thinking to myself that this could be one of the dumbest things I had ever done in my life. 

​We all sat down, our backs to Harley.  Joey jumped when Harley turned his head and breathed on him in big panting snorts.  "Look ahead, Joey," said Norm, taking pictures as we sat rigidly for the camera.  We proceeded to take a bunch more, eventually moving the chairs and getting close to Harley. 
 
At this point he seemed to mellow a tiny bit.  I reached over to touch his horn.  "Don't do that," said T.C. "That is like pulling on a kid's ear.  He don't like that."  I left the horn alone.  Harley looked at me with one eye and decided to slime me, reaching out with his purple Jabba-the-Hutt-Licks -Princess-Leia tongue.  I had about the same reaction she did.
 
We next set up some shots of T.C. riding Harley.  T.C. changed into a cowboy shirt, untethered Harley and led him to the shed.  We were still setting up when out he came riding.  There was something about seeing a man on a bison that is both jaw-dropping and bizarre at the same time.  Comical never entered my mind as I knew what risks T.C. took. 
 
Harley appeared in the 4th of July parade the year before with T.C. and everyone loved it.  However, they did not know that earlier Harley had rolled on T.C. and had broken his foot.  Riding through the pain with a great sense of caution and showmanship, I admired T.C. 
 
"He's the modern day Buffalo Bill," said Brian. 
 
"No," said Joey. "He's Evel Knievel on a buffalo!"  They were both right.
 
Harley would obey most of the commands from T.C., but every so often, he would decide to go his own way.  T.C. was amazing at controlling Harley and in spite of my earlier fear, I slowly gained cautious confidence around the bull.  We finished our shots and T.C. rode Harley into a paddock.  There, he put Harley through his paces. For such a huge animal, I could not get over how graceful both man and bison appeared.  It seemed natural to me and almost as familiar as a cowboy on a paint horse. 
 
The corral piping clanged when Harley's horn hit it.  He was trying to rub T.C. out of the saddle.  But the cowboy was able to get him to obey, kneel and lie down.  T.C. turned and doffed his cowboy hat to us all.
 
We took final shots with Harley and I planted a big kiss on his nose for his hard work.  And he looked like a young juvenile bison at that point, unsure of his strength and a bit played out.  Perhaps he knew the shoot was over. 
 
T.C. traded stories from the road with us and we talked about him heading to Ireland with us and our setting up some sort of show at Hogs and Horses.  We gave him, Holly, Keith and some others some CDs and t-shirts.  T.C. gave Joey his straw hat, which was a real honor.  I decided I would keep the bison slime on my boots to get me through St. Patrick's Day.
 
We all have a calling in life.  That calling, I believe, is our responsibility to the Creator to mirror back to Him the image of Himself.  Therefore, we are all called to do different things and once we choose our role, we pursue it with passion, patience and in almost every case, pain.  Ultimately it is to bring joy to people and get us in touch with the Divine.  Some are musicians, some are garbage collectors, some ride jet fighters and some sail around the world. 
 
But one and only one rides a buffalo.  And I am honored to have met him.

​~ Martin McCormack