Que Es Shamrock?

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day, but I only became aware of it the day before, when I saw a flyer taped to the crew bar wall. Basically the flyer said “come on in and get smashed on St. Patrick’s Night. Wear some green if you can find it anywhere.”

This was an abrupt intrusion into the trance that I sometimes walk in around here. The arrival of March should have brought St. Patrick’s Day to mind, but it didn’t. As a 4th -generation Irishman raised in the New York City area, March 17 has always been a fairly big day for me, both as a marker of seasonal change and a cultural event. Typically I would feel it many weeks prior -- the upcoming big parade in Manhattan, Kelly green decorations all around, advertised events in restaurants and pubs all over the metropolitan area…..

….and my annual immersion into Irish music. Despite my shaky “Irish” qualifications, I’ve managed to get a St. Pat’s gig in the NYC area almost every year since 1990. As the gig approached, there would be a flurry of activity as I learned a new Irish tune, or re-learned what I forgot from the previous year, or maybe tweaked the Green Wardrobe.

My qualifications are shaky because, well, I’m not really an Irishman or a serious “Irish musician”. The Real Irish musicians of New York have a ton of repertoire, play it all year long, and would scoff at my meager 2-hour Green Songlist. Which is fine, because I would go nuts if I had to specialize in that genre.

These musicians have brogues and direct connections to the Homeland, which I’ve never known. Although my mother could put on a good Irish brogue if asked, it was done by remembering some dear departed uncle who got off the boat in 1910, and off the planet in 1940. My folks were assimilated New Yawkers, and never went too crazy with the tribal Irish thing, thank goodness.

But I’m Irish enough, or maybe “New York” enough, or maybe simply old enough, to expect, enjoy, and be comforted by March 17 and every cheery thing that comes with it, including the first day of spring a few days later. So today I have a distinct feeling of pretty much having missed, not so much the day itself, but the familiar ritual of its approach.

There were certainly no cardboard leprechauns or shamrocks to be found anywhere on the ship. Also, yesterday the ship was in Montevideo, Uruguay, which is not exactly noted for its big St. Patty’s Parade. The ship will not be visiting Montevideo again, so yesterday I went for one last stroll in the downtown shopping area. And, since I left my Green Wardrobe back home, I kept an eye out for something green or “Irish” I might wear on the job. Quite futile. One chat with a local storeowner resulted in him saying “No Senor. Que es Shamrock” ? I tend to remember sentences like that.

But it didn’t matter, as it turned out. No piano bar patron wore green last night, so I would have felt uncomfortable being the only one. There was one request for Irish tunes, so we had a little singalong of When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Danny Boy, Irish Lullaby, Molly Malone, and my favorite, MacNamara’s Band. I skipped the crew bar bash later on, but this morning I heard that the only green worn were some lime-green “Antarctica” sweatshirts.

So the Northern spring is a few days away, and I hear I’ve missed a particularly brutal winter up in the NYC area. Well I hope it comes to a sudden end. In the meantime, seasonality has been pretty distorted on this ship the past few months, with Antarctica one week, 90 degrees in Rio the next, constant changes in latitude. This plus the general fact that seasons are reversed down here, for instance March 21 marks the change from the Southern summer to the Southern autumn.

And in one month all of this will get flipped around as the ship heads north toward the Caribbean, then to New York. I’m at the three-quarter point now of this 6-month contract, with the May 1 end date looming large. I’m looking forward to a Northern spring and summer, something far different than that of the past 4 ½ weird months, a warm season full of Mets baseball, barbeques, Oldies on the radio, and red, white and blue colors.