WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn. - Growing up Irish was a big deal in my house. Not to my mom so much (her maiden name was Lawrence, which is a fine English name), as she could never quite grasp her children’s fascination with the Irish side of the family. I believe the term I heard her use more than once, was “shanty Irish” (kindly described as “less fortunate”) when describing the McNiffs.
Of course, if you believed my Uncle Joe, McNiff wasn’t really our last name at all. According to Joe, our clan were actually horse thieves named Duffy who only took the name McNiff to stay one step ahead of the law. But NOBODY EVER believed my uncle Joe as he was an unceasing teaser who was forever trying to put one over on us. Imagine my surprise when years later I hear one of my siblings recounting the Duffy horse thief fairy tale to some poor victim who I’m sure couldn’t have been less impressed.
Good job Uncle Joe, mission accomplished hook, line and sinker.
When it came to being proud of our Irish heritage I don’t think we ever really had a choice in the matter. My father, the late, great Myles Patrick McNiff, (son of Myles Patrick McNiff, second son of a second son) was forever telling us how lucky we were to be Irish. According to my dad, “there are really only two kinds of people in the world; the Irish, and those who WISH they were.” It literally took me years to find out how poor my father’s family had actually been, and by that time it didn’t matter. Thanks to my dad’s stories I believed that we were somehow Irish royalty. Again, I bought it, hook, line and sinker.
My feelings were only confirmed when I sat in front of the television on Saturday afternoons in the fall. My formative years passed with me never seeing a single University of Minnesota football game, or even a regional broadcast, but rarely a Saturday went by where I couldn’t watch the “Fighting Irish” of Notre Dame (which they told me was located in a magical place called South Bend, Indiana).
I ask you, what further confirmation did I need? None, really. But just for good measure, there was one event that happened every year that really sealed the deal.
St. Patrick’s Day.
When I was a kid of no more than six or seven my father (a transplant from Brooklyn) somehow talked my mom (a grudging refugee from Long Island) into loading the five kids into the car and driving us from White Bear Lake into downtown St. Paul for the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade.
I can’t remember what I was wearing, but, I do remember that everybody else was decked-out in green from head-to-toe. There was music blaring and people marching with banners that proclaimed their family name. There were noisemakers, pretty women waving to the crowd from convertibles, and I remember, more than anything else, everybody seemed to be really, REALLY happy!
As a matter of fact, I couldn’t recall ever seeing so many happy (albeit staggering and stumbling) people in my whole life. Everybody seemed to be having the time of their life. Except my mom, of course. She seemed to be faintly horrified by the entire experience, and couldn’t wait to get herself and her children back to the car and sleepy White Bear.
“Mom? Can I get one of those plastic, green derbys?” “No.”
“Ok, can I get one of those long, green horns?” “Ye GODS NO!”
Got it. No more questions.
I can’t really remember how long we stayed but I do know this, we never went back. Never. And it killed me.
Every year St. Patrick’s Day would come and I would get dressed in green. OK, I went to St. Pius X Catholic elementary school, so EVERYBODY was dressed in green. Every, Day. That said, I still WOULD have dressed in green if I had been given the choice.
Every year I would ask if we could go back to the parade. And, every year the answer was “no.”
I finally got back to the parade in 1981, but it was without my mom and dad. I was 18-years old and as such, was able to write myself a note to get out of school, and that’s exactly what I did. I drove down to St. Paul with friends and we discovered for ourselves why everybody was so happy... and of course, why they tended to stagger and stumble.
That was my last time at St. Paul’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade until the late 1990’s, when my wife Amy (Marie Bridget O’Rourke – isn’t that beautiful?) and I took our girls down there and I was struck with a thought.
At that time I had been at KARE for about five or six years and had become fairly well known in the community. I had attended many charitable events, been the emcee at many others and at the time was on the board of Special Olympics Minnesota. I wondered... was there any way they might ever ask me to be the Grand Marshall of the St. Patrick’s Day parade?
Being a native Minnesotan I couldn’t just ASK for such an honor, so I thought I would do my best to get on the radar and EARN it. To do that I started helping out with groups that were raising money for an Irish heritage center in St. Paul. And every year I made sure we booked Irish bands and dancers for KARE 11 Sunrise.
I was pretty sure I finally had it on the bag by 2006, when that November I once again emcee'd a fund-raiser that required me to leave what was, at the time, the “college football game of the century” (a barn-burner between Michigan and Ohio State). But I figured it was worth it, as I had ingratiated myself with my Irish brethren and was cementing my invitation to finally serve as.... yes... parade Grand Marshall.
Imagine my surprise when I found out in early 2007 that I had once again been passed-over. What made it even more painful is that the honor went to one of my co-workers, the noted Irishman Sven Sundgaaard.
At the time Sven was 26-years old, and while a native of nearby Cottage Grove, he had been at KARE 11 for all of a year. “I was surprised that they asked me,” says Sven. “I told them, 'you do know that I don’t have an ounce of Irish in me?' I just thought that they’d asked everybody else and it was just my turn.”
Not 'everybody', Sven old pal.
Says Sven, “It was a lot of fun, my grandparents got a kick out of it. My Grandpa thought, 'we’re Norwegian and we pulled another fast one on the Irish.'”
The TV station sent out a camera and there was Sven, all over the news, smiling and waving and having the time of his life. And that was my breaking point.
In the words of that noted philosopher Popeye the Sailor Man, “I had all I can stands I can’t stands it no more!” I quietly quit helping to raise funds for the Irish Heritage center. I stopped emceeing their events. I pretty much cut-off all communication. (Hey, I never said I wasn’t a sore loser)
Funny thing is, I did finally get the call to serve as Celebrity Grand Marshall the very next year. Not in St. Paul, of course, but rather in Minneapolis. They were trying to get a St. Patrick’s Day parade off the ground and they held it at night. Long after the event in St. Paul had ended.
Somehow KARE failed to send a photographer and there was no coverage on the news. And the parade organizers, while extremely nice, promised to send photos from the event that never arrived and I went home that night sober as a judge.
So, while my children, Bridget ("Strong Woman” in Gaelic) and Haley (“Ingenious”) carry on the tradition of the O’Rourkes and McNiffs, I’ll proudly wear green on Saturday, and if somebody were to twist my arm I’ll probably have a Guiness... or three.
For me, St. Patrick’s Day is now just one more day to be Irish, and darn proud of it. As for the St. Paul St. Patrick’s Day parade? It will go on without me.
Erin Go Bragh! (Ireland Forever!)