The Wearin' Of the Green - not so much

Here it is, only March 14th and St. Patrick's Day and the official celebrations are just about done.  Ever since I was a little girl, this granddaughter of 4 Polish immigrants was celebrating.  I learned the Irish Jig before I learned to Polka.  Must have something to do with my mother's family who grew up in a highly diversified immigrant community where the Dempsey and  Corcoran names were as plentiful as  Stachurski and Birofka and Fuschetti and Manganello. Also why most of my maternal uncles and aunts are either Italian or Irish.  It is also why everyone had to learn English to communicate - another subject for another day.

 I went to St. Patrick School - so that's a no-brainer for why we celebrated.  Later we moved to Chicago to St. Luke parish  - where my Irish American husband grew up.  When we first moved to River Forest I described it in a letter to my mother as an Irish Catholic ghetto - but with better houses.  Yet again, another no brainer.

Chicago has always taken St. Patty's day seriously.  The parade used to be on the actual date, March 17th, and it was an unofficial day off for those of us lucky enough to  be able to skip work.  We'd head down to State Street and line the sidewalks where we were thisclose to to marchers, horses,  floats and of course, the bagpipes and politicians.  Our kids, who thought we didn't know they played hooky from high school, probably spent most of the day trying to dodge us. Joe always wore a green tie and I had my bright green cable knit wool sweater. That sweater lasted forever - as I only wore it once a year - and it was real wool.

Some years ago the mayor decided that it wasn't good to have a million mainly adult drunks on the streets of Chicago on a weekday.  He moved it to the last Saturday before the actual date -  to make it a family affair. There's some kind of convoluted thinking  behind the notion that kids are better off watching a million adult drunks with their parents.  That wasn't bad enough.  He moved all the parades to Columbus Drive which makes more sense traffic -wise, because it is wide and off the beaten track.  But it also cut down the crowds because the casual watchers - who may have been downtown shopping  or working might not even know where it is.  It also means you are   t  h  i  s    f  a  r   from the actual parade participants.  And.... don't throw candy at the parade watchers because someone might sue the city if you hit them.

When  the elbows of my green sweater finally became threadbare from toasting and leaning on overcrowded, noisy  bars - I threw it out.  I didn't replace it.  I have some green Mardi Gras beads that I'd throw on over whatever I was wearing.  Joe probably doesn't know what he did with his green tie, as he never wears one anymore and he's lost interest in the whole mob scene. 

My Dooley brother-in-law was  here three years ago and we walked over to watch them dye the river green. My friend Lorraine and I marched in the parade a few years ago with Brendan Reilly's 42nd ward contingent.  My daughter Colleen surprised me for my birthday last year and  she and I watched the dying and part of the parade.

The 2011 parade is over.  The South Side Irish parade was cancelled because of too much rowdiness. The burbs all had their celebrations earlier in March.  I hung my hokey green velvet bow on our door, mainly to amuse the two little boys across the hall.  So its over. I skipped it. I didn't miss it.  On Thursday I'll be at the library with my writing group and hopefully a couple of us will stop for a beer at Kitty O'Shea's on the way home.

Color me..... anything but green