I am and have for many years been a big fan of traditional Irish music. The Chieftains, the Dubliners and the Pogues are my favorites. When my sons and I go hiking and I’m singing songs walking down the trail, it’s The Irish Rover, Whiskey in the Jar and On Raglan Road that I belt out (not for the enjoyment of the children because I have an awful singing voice, but to keep the bears away).

I’m also quite a fan of Arthur Guinness and the work he did at St. James’s Gate.

I have little in the way of Irish ancestry – a little Scotch Irish, and I don’t know that that counts – but nevertheless my tastes in music and drink combine to make me love St. Patrick’s Day. Today is the day that seemingly all the world decides that the stuff I like is good.

Even, it seems, one of the music channels available through the cable company decided to treat me with some Irish music.

“Daddy!” Robert said, rushing in to my bedroom. “Put it on Sounds of the Season!”

I had only just retreated from the living room where the kids and Jean were flipping through some of the music channels. They were listening to all sorts of bad music on the channels – old R&B that I didn’t care for, new hip-hop that I can’t abide, I think there was even some Bee Gees in there. I absolutely cherish my wife and have immense respect for both her intellect and her charm, but how that woman can stand to listen to the Bee Gees is completely beyond my understanding.

So I fled to my bedroom where I decided to try out the music channels for myself. On one channel, Young MC was singing Bust a Move. Not really quality music, but it does remind me of younger days.

And that’s when Robert came running in.

“Sounds of the Season!” He repeated, all breathless and excited.

I don’t spend enough time on these music channels to know that there is one called “Sounds of the Season.”

“I don’t know what channel it was,” Robert said again. “Go up a channel!”

“It’s Young MC,” I said. “In the city, ladies look pretty; guys tell jokes so they can seem witty,” I told him. He stared blankly at me. “Just bust a move.”

Robert was unimpressed. Honestly, if my singing is bad, you should hear me rap.

“No!” Robert commanded. “Just put it on Sounds of the Season!”

At 9-years-old, Robert is not to be argued with. He will win any argument simply by wearing you down. So beginning at Young MC, I started changing the channel by hitting the up button on the remote. On each channel Robert would say, “This isn’t it!” and demand that I speed up my channel changing.

As we skipped on to the next channel, we would hear the music before we got the display on the screen telling us the genre associated with the channel – light classical, classic classical, light hip-hop, hip-hop from the 80s, alternative alternative.

But then we hit a channel where we heard no music. I waited a moment for the display to tell me what genre of music it was. Perhaps the Sounds of the Season was between songs and that explained the silence.

And then I read the title that popped up on the display. There was a moment, a half second, when I couldn’t process what I was reading.

“What an odd title for a song,” I thought to myself. “Explicit and vulgar, this must be the gangsta rap channel.”

But then comprehension broke over me, and I sprung into action. I admit, I failed entirely. I covered Robert’s eyes, attempting to shield him from the explicit and vulgar title of the pay-per-view adult channel we’d wandered onto. We couldn’t see what was taking place on that channel, but the display was telling us the title of the movie, and that was more than enough. And here is where I failed: In a bid to get off the channel and away from the title, I reflexively hit the button my thumb was on. Again and again I hit the channel up button, taking us only deeper into the explicitly titled movies.

At last, sense took hold and I punched in some numbers to take us back to the music channels.

And from the other room, I realized my wife had the same traumatic experience. “Nathan! Cover your eyes!” I heard Jean exclaim while our 11-year-old son and our 15-year-old son both laughed hysterically at the explicit title and their mother’s embarrassment.

Eventually, by hitting the channel down button, Robert and I found the Sounds of the Season channel. St. Patrick’s Day is the season, so the sounds were good wholesome Irish tunes about drinking.

“There’s a neat little still at the foot of the hill where the smoke curls up to the sky, by a whiff of the smell you can plainly tell that there’s poteen, boys, close by. For it fills the air with a perfume rare, and betwixt both me and you, as home we roll we can drink a bowl or a bucketful of mountain dew.”

Rob Peecher is editor of The Oconee Leader and is now learning how to block channels from his television.

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