Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Katy is represented by
Greg Johnson at
WordServe Literary
Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net
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- Becoming Brenda Starr
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- Scattered
- That’s It
- So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What?
- The Spoon
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- A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose
- However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time
- After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices.
- As with everything in life, balance is key.
- Slow down, you move too fast…
- Yeah, I know. I have issues.
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Twenty-Five Years And Ten Thousand Harmonies Later
When you grow up surrounded by brogues, you lose so much when your loved ones die.
Because for those of us who are first-generation Americans, there’s always the sense that the Old Country is at least as much home as the New. The brogues our parents and aunts and uncles never lose remind us daily, while they live, that our roots here are tenuous, that we are not quite like our friends whose families came over during the potato famine and helped to weave the very fabric of this nation.
At one time, here in Kansas City, I had my dad and his siblings—-Aunt Cathy, Aunt Mary, Uncle Bernard, Uncle Eddy, and Uncle Francis—-all thick with Scottish brogues that infused me with an identity I’ve never shaken off. Nor have I ever wanted to.
The first song I ever learned besides, I guess, “Happy Birthday to You,” was a song Bing Crosby recorded called “Dear Old Donegal.” My father taught it to me like this:
Some years ago this very day
I left the Port of Cork
And on my trip I took a ship
And landed in New York.
Without a friend to greet me there,
A stranger on the shore,
But I wore a great big Irish smile
And my fortune came galore.
I could sing this song in its entirety by the time I was four. In fact, my little sister Liz and I performed it on a Kansas City children’s television program, much to my father’s delight. We never did get the brogues right, though.
When Dad and his siblings had a gathering of the clan for a wedding or a funeral (my father insisted wryly that these were essentially the same event), you can bet the booze flowed freely. And when they’d each had a few drinks, their brogues thickened to the point that singing was the only thing left to do.
My dad and his siblings, on these occasions, would pull Scottish and Irish songs out of their repertoires and we kids couldn’t understand a single word they sang. It was fantastic and mysterious, the way the six of them could become one unit as they crooned “My Heart Belongs To Glasgow.” I didn’t drink, but they could make me cry like a baby with the heartfelt way they belted out, “There’s something the matter with Glasgow, ‘cause it’s spinning roond and roond….” I’m such an easy mark.
And then there was this McKenna family favorite:
Just a wee doch an doris
Just a wee drap that’s a
Just a wee doch an doris
Before you gang awa
There’s a wee wifey waitin
In a wee But ‘n Ben
If you can say
“It’s a braw bricht moonlicht nicht”
Then you’re a richt ye ken.
My father sang his way into and through my life, and today I hear him singing yet again. Besides drinking songs and nostalgic songs fondly recalling the Auld Sod, Dad loved American show tunes, and the way he infused even these with a beautiful brogue improved them in a way most kids never experienced. Dad had come from such a disadvantaged background that I found it inspiring the way he took to lyrics like “To Dream the Impossible Dream” and managed to convince the listener, at least for a moment, that any circumstances could be overcome.
He’d get in a Sound of Music mood and stroll through the house exhorting us to “Climb Every Mountain” until we believed we actually could. If he thought one of us might be feeling a bit left out of the action, he’d launch into a stirring version of “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” I always got a huge kick out of him singing “What Kind of Fool Am I?” The next lines are “who never fell in love, It seems that I’m the only one that I have been thinking of….” This cracked me up because he and my mother were married for 33 years, and as far as I could tell, never had eyes for anyone else.
This one made me tear up a bit, because it seems he sang it more toward the end of his life, perhaps as he realized his own personal party was winding down. “The party’s over. It’s time to call it a day. They’ve burst your pretty balloon, and taken the moon away….”
The hymns my father loved to sing in church, when I would stand next to him and sing melody to his harmony, mean the most to me these days. I cannot sing “Crown Him With Many Crowns” without hearing a brogue supplying the harmony, even when I sing alone. I am left here with only memories of his music and of his life. I am glad I stood near him for all those years, though, our voices blending and our faith building as we worshipped our God side by side.
My father died twenty-five years ago today. I miss him so much, and his beautiful singing, and all the brogues that are now forever gone from my life.
- Lovely tribute to him, Katy. I could almost hear those brogues myself. Blessings to you today.
Posted by D'Ann Mateer on 05/04/09 at 11:38 AM
- I remember my Dad's voice, too - not because he had a lovely brogue, but because his singing voice was so bad - a deep, loud, gravelly monotone. Being in a small church in a small town, Dad was the song-leader as well as the preacher - it was up to the pianist and organist to set the tempo and play out the melody. Every week he visited people in the hospital and even if they were in a coma (maybe especially if they were in a coma) he would sing to them. If that didn't bring someone out of a coma, nothing would. In spite of his singing voice, Dad's preaching, praying and poetry voice was fantastic. I've heard so many of those poems so often that I too have them memorized. Dad is gone 13 years now, the Sunday after Easter, but we still think about him often, as you do yours, and imagine him finally singing on-key.
Posted by alison on 05/14/09 at 09:29 PM
- katy really really a nice post. heart full tribute.
Posted by Fire science on 09/14/09 at 09:53 AM
- Such a wonderful post. I can't imagine myself losing my dad. I've been always proud of him. I still remember, all the things he taught me to be a better person.
Posted by Nicolas on 09/22/09 at 03:06 AM
- Great Post. I know losing close family members is very difficult. I know this first hand. I believe it makes one stronger.
Posted by Baby Toddler Dresses on 09/26/09 at 01:02 AM
- It is difficult to forget the death of one's father. But i always regret one thing. We are often least careful to our father when they are living. We cannot understand their value until we lose our father.
Posted by life cover on 09/27/09 at 05:05 AM
- I know losing close family members is very difficult. I know this first hand. I believe it makes one stronger.
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