Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Top of the day to ya!



Until I graduated from high school and yondered beyond my life in Butte, Mt., I didn't realize that most of the rest of the world had no idea what an important holiday St. Patrick's Day was. After all, I was in the center of an almost completely dominated Irish Catholic community. I thought St. Patrick's Day was holy. Seriously.

Over the years, my enthusiasm for this day has lessened quite a bit but for some reason a few memories hit me today. Here are a few:

*Green mayonaise on my bolgona sandwich, hand prepared by my ever celebratory mother. Just a side note here - I always tried to hide my sandwich from the others at my table. As much as I loved that my mother made things fun, I felt embarrassed too.

*Overcrowded streets all over town. Every corner bar sold green beer and most of the town had the day off or took the day off. It made for quite the town party.

*Having half days of school since we all needed to attend the annual St. Patrick's Day parade.

*Learning to draw shamrocks by connecting three hearts together. I drew shamrocks on everything. Today, I drew one on my chalkboard wall. Old habits die hard.

*The smell of corned beef and cabbage cooking. I don't think we ever ate anything else for supper on this day. The smell was always a little unnerving, but the food tasted very Irish.
I made corned beef and cabbage today for my family. Corbin and Christiana darted for Burger King upon my announcement of "what's for supper?"

*The word blarney stone. Eating something that looked like a blarney stone from our local bakery.

*Hoping I would never forget to wear green because I did not want to be pinched. Checking everything I did wear for any hint of orange because that was a cardinal sin and you got punched. Yes, I am serious.

*My senior year, I left school early (we no longer were let out early for the parade) and went home quickly before the parade. It was going to be such a fun day until I realized I was covered head to toe with hives. I felt horrible in just a few hours and I spent the day in bed. I am allergic to codeine. I happened to take some cough syrup that day. Bummer!

*People walking all over with big green hats on. Like the one in the picture above.

*Making shamrocks out of green pipe cleaners.

Funny how different this day is for me now. My kids hardly even know it is a holiday. I don't even think they wore green today. Joe really loved the corned beef and cabbage though. He wants it every year. Now I just need to teach him how to draw those shamrocks!






1 comment:

Jeanie said...

Wearing green to school was our only big deal as kids. I think I heard Denver has the second biggest St Pat's parade in the nation, but I have never wanted wanted to be around a bunch of drunken Irish, no offense!

My favorite celebration of the holiday is to watch the classic and very important movie "The Quiet Man" with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. SO GOOD!

But I was out of town on the 17th. Is it too late, I wonder??