You're gonna need it.
Today is the day we eat corned beef and cabbage and drink green beer. I always find it fascinating that, no matter what year it is, St. Patrick's Day always falls somewhere in the Lent season. For those of you unfamiliar with Lent, let me sum up. Lent represents the time Jesus spent in the desert in vigilance to a challenge put to him by Satan. It lasted 40 days and Jesus emerged victorious and ready to face the crowds on Palm Sunday. You can fill in the blanks as to what happened afterward.
What fascinates me is that Northern Ireland - the part of Ireland still governed by Great Britain - is predominantly Catholic. So most of the Irish immigrants that found their way to the shores of the US were and are Catholic. And St. Patrick's Day has become this huge drinking holiday celebrated all over the states (I don't know about Ireland so I can't speak to it.) All during the Lent season where it is traditional in the Catholic religion to give up something you enjoy for 40 days to remember all that Jesus gave up. A kind of homage, if you will.
Now, St. Patrick was a man who chased the snakes, toads, and frogs (the man must have had a severe phobia of reptiles and amphibians) from Erin. Some historians have postulated this to mean he drove out the pagan and druids - the naturalist folk - that lived on the Emerald Isle. Most likely this means he converted a bunch of folk and this new religion spread. I believe we can agree that the reptile expulsion is colorful imagery to get the point across in stories.
So the hero of the Irish people who rescued them from the eternal damnation of being holistic has been transformed into a brew peddling drunk. Kind of like Santa for the bar set. And all during the most holy and important seasons of Catholicism - Lent. It is the season of atonement unlike Advent, which is the season of anticipation and last minute goodness for the kiddies that don't want coal instead of presents.
I can speak on the drunks aspect of the holiday as one of my memories is being in eighth grade in Murphy's Bar on St. Pat's, after school (St. Patrick's School - can we draw a conclusion?) Several parents and educators from the school met in the bar to drink green beer for a couple of hours after school. And I was with them, drinking Pepsis. No one else brought an impressionable teenage kid. I was allowed because all of these people considered me a younger adult. A couple of times someone tried to buy me a round, which I didn't want. Have you seen green beer? Yuck! Don't get me wrong; I remember the day fondly and, in fact, felt kind of special to be the only one in my school and class to be included with the adults. Maybe they knew I wouldn't say a word to anyone the next day (which I didn't.)
My other real knowledge of drunks comes from my Alma Mater (college.) I went to an engineering school and the patron Saint of Engineers is, you guessed it, good ol' St. Pat. They had a beautiful, huge statue of him in the lobby of the library. Which did nothing to foreshadow the events to come in March. For starters our school had Spring Break and St. Pat's Break - which threw off the calendars for all the other state schools. St. Pat's started on Wednesday - right after the last class though many, many students just didn't bother to show up. All but one year I, like half the students in the school, evacuated town. This worked out as leaving students were replaced by students from other schools that easily doubled the school's population. One year I had the misfortune of staying. I had to work that weekend on a project that was due the next week.
There is nothing like trying to dodge drunks for four days. Daytime activities were okay, a parade, some games, and contests. Then they brought out Alice, a tank of muck made up by the St. Pat board reps (all Greek.) Baby reps (first year board members) were thrown into this pool of puke, beer, and god knows what else. I have researched this and Alice is apparently NOT a regular feature of other St. Patrick celebrations. There was the snake hunt (I saved one), in which pledges spent a semester and a half carving beautiful shillelaghs only to destroy them while some fraternity jerk throws rubber, yes, RUBBER snakes onto the carefully kept lawns of the courtyard and instructs him to, “Get the snake FRESHMAN. GET IT. GET IT. BEAT IT TO DEATH. HIT IT. HIT IT. PICK IT UP. NOW BITE IT’S HEAD OFF.”
ANIMAL HOUSE antics had nothing on our St. Pat’s holiday. The members of Delta House wouldn’t have survived. They stopped measuring our school’s drinking by kegs and started counting beer trucks. And no, I don’t say this with pride, which is why I am not stating the school name.
So now St. Pat’s is upon us, again, this time on a Friday, which means about noon, or beer-thirty, some workers will be leaving work early to immerse themselves in celebration. And I get to dodge them in traffic on the way home. Fun times will be had by all. And all this during Lent, well, probably as a break from Lent. After all atonement is a bitch and we are all only human.