St. Pats

St. Patrick's Day this year came and went and I did nothing sepcial, but I can't blame that on the pandemic. Starting when I was a child it was never, at least in my family, a holiday where you went out in the evening like New Years Eve. About 10 years ago on March 17th I went to an Irish pub in Alexandria where there was a celebration as if the Irish should be celebrated for nothing more than their association with alcohol. I noticed starting sometime in the 1980's that it was becoming a frat boy drinking holiday for those right at both borders of minimum age. I think I understand now how Mexicans feel about how the gringos have turned Cinco de Mayo into Margartia Day. But St. Pats is supposed to a fun and not a somber holiday. We laughed as a family at the notion of beer dyed green and that figure of the Erin Go Bragh fighting leprechaun. More often than not my grandmother would be staying with us and she and I would leave early in the morning on the bus from our apt. in Queens to catch the parade on Fifth Avenue. We never took the subway because she had a fear of escalators. After the parade we would catch a late lunch at a Horn and Hardhats, and maybe stop at Ederbahls for ice cream back in Queens. Or we would go straight home for dinner. That was always corned beef, boiled potaoes and cabbage, with a side of apple sauce. My mother might have made Irish coffee; essentially coffee with Irish whiskey. I was allowed to take a good sip, but it was only the sweet cream that floated on top that I cared for.