My entire yearly allotment of exclamation marks, wasted in a single header.
I concede that it’s been a good while since I wrote about St. Patrick’s Day entirely from scratch.
There is little new to say, and past efforts are readily available for quick and easy remixing, thus sparing me the need to yet again squeeze my brain until it yelps.
In my line of work, reruns are absolutely essential; don’t allow anyone to tell you differently. There’s also the matter of lesson plans.
Consider that retiring elementary school teachers can look back on careers spent repeating themselves on a daily basis.
Each year a new crop of kiddos in desperate need of foundational instruction arrives, and they’re taught the same fundamental lessons as before — that is, until a school board, televangelist or tinhorn dictator scatters the chess pieces.
Consequently, let’s start at the beginning, and work our way toward the inevitable greatest hits playlist embodying St. Patrick’s Day, the most Irish of American holidays.
As the DNA evidence validates, only a tiny portion of me is Irish. The rest is English, German and even a bit Swedish, which is probably a legacy of wild Viking oats being sowed amid the British Isles way back when, before golden lager existed for adulteration with food coloring.
Of course, my passport is oblivious, plainly asserting that I’m 100% American, but then again, unless one’s heritage is Native American, we Americans all came from somewhere else, voluntarily or otherwise. Duly assimilated, we’re all born on the 4th of July, unless it’s time for another “heritage” holiday: Kwanzaa, Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo, Oktoberfest, Burns Night — or St. Patrick’s Day.
Then we’re eager to share in the experience of past arrivals to our collective aerie of a nation-state, even while clamoring loudly about whatever contemporary immigration situation is currently prompting the most distemper on social media (and in the process, accomplishing absolutely nothing in terms of resolving the issue).
If I’m to be honest, it never made very much sense to me that I’d choose to honor the Irish experience in America (or the Uruguayan, Eritrean or Indonesian) without trying to learn something about the people in question.
I readily concede that serious-mindedness is an innate, personalized response, because for me “fun” tends to be neither frivolous nor spontaneous, and certainly...Read more
