A Fluttering Heart

While thumbing through boxes of old photographs recently (several of which are randomly included in this essay), I contemplated their future. And it didn’t look bright! I hope, at least, that when their time comes the individual snapshots are properly recycled. Shortly thereafter, I came upon a story with an accompanying picture of actor Jack Nicholson at a basketball game with his son. It has been speculated that old Jack may be losing it, and that we would all be we wise not to count on any future Nicholson movie. In my opinion, the best “meaning of life” film ever is About Schmidt starring the aforementioned. Relatively soon, I will die. Maybe in twenty years…maybe tomorrow…it doesn’t matter. You have got to see the film—and the aging Nicholson at his best—to appreciate the sentiment.

One thought couldn’t help but lead to another here. I recalled my father’s rather eclectic LP collection in an age when people bought vinyl records—because that’s all there was. It ran the gamut from Frank Sinatra to Doris Day to the Clancy Brothers. Tucked away in an old cabinet with a sliding door—in a front room known affectionately to all of us as the “porch”—I would periodically thumb through them as a boy. From my youthful perspective, the aforesaid recording artists—and others like Al Martino, Kate Smith, and Mantovani—seemed the exclusive province of old people. With the notable exception of the Christmas albums in the extensive mix, I never desired playing or ever played one of his albums on the family record player.

Fast-forward a quarter of a century and I personally owned Frank Sinatra and Clancy Brothers CDs, which had replaced the cassette tapes that had earlier replaced LPs. I also saw Ol’ Blue Eyes live at Radio City Music Hall when he was nearing the end of his illustrious performing career in the 1990s. With a noble assist from Shirley MacLaine, Sinatra—all things considered—put on an acceptable show. After that night, however, the Chairman of the Board’s remaining scheduled performances were canceled for health reasons. 

I also attended two Clancy Brothers’ concerts at the Cape Cod Melody Tent. The brothers Paddy, Bobby, and Liam were getting a little long in the tooth by then. Original member Tom Clancy had passed away a few years earlier. Hardly packing the Melody Tent on both occasions, the Clancy Brothers—with nephew Robbie McConnell—nevertheless gave everybody their money’s worth and then some.

Prior to seeing them live, I watched the documentary, The Story of the Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem. It debuted in 1984, which coincided with a series of reunion concerts of the original group. At that moment in time, they hadn’t performed together in fifteen years. In the documentary, oldest brother Paddy Clancy movingly speaks of coming to North America with brother Tom for the first time. He describes what bare essentials—like toothbrushes and whiskey—accompanied them on the trip. “But most of all,” he hastens to add, you bring a “fluttering heart.” Considering that when the siblings got off a boat somewhere on the shores of Canada—and hadn’t a clue what their next move was going to be—the fluttering heart thing makes a whole lot of sense to me. Turn left, turn right, or go straight ahead into the vast unknown were—as Paddy describes—their three options. 

So, what exactly happened to them after the fluttering heart adventure? A series of odd jobs, a lot of hard work, and eventual success and notoriety—beyond even their wildest imaginations, I’d say. In the documentary, Tom Clancy declares, “This has been a wonderful life for me.” He further adds that he has no life regrets and “wouldn’t change a thing!” Now, that’s a nice place to be in the sunset years! Still, when Paddy Clancy passed away in 1998, I read that he and his younger brother, Liam, had previously fallen out over some money matter. Happily, they had reconciled at the very end. The lesson: Never lose sight of the fluttering heart days.

This past year, too, an old friend passed away. The man was a one-of-a-kind oddball whose likes will never be seen again. Not everyone’s cup of tea—when young or when old—he was nonetheless at his most interesting in his salad days, when he wore nothing but old clothes and had a never-ending stream of new ideas. That is, dreams on how he was going to make his mark and fortune in life. Well, my friend turned out to be quite a monetary success, which was his ultimate goal. He achieved what he ostensibly so desired, but he wasn’t quite the same man at the end. I guess that’s typically how things work. We, though, would all be wise—no matter our individual pursuits—to never let go of the best of us. To never let go of that mind-set when we were most free of life’s baggage and when our fluttering hearts were not a medical condition.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)