Green

Past a certain age and in a certain stage of life, how do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? I’m wearing green to work but I’m not going to a bar and certainly not going to a pub crawl. I might have a drink tonight but that’s about it.

But how do you mark this day and this heritage? I can think about my Grandmom and wish I’d asked her more questions about Ireland. I can wish I’d met Grandpop at all, since he died before I was born. I can think about the courage it must have taken them to leave their country for a new life. I can think about all the other immigrants who struck out for a new life in an America that didn’t always welcome them with open arms. I can think about my ancestors in Ireland in the 1840s who died in the famine and be grateful that some of them survived and I exist.

I can play some Irish music, traditional stuff like “The Unicorn” and "The Orange and the Green" and “Black Velvet Band.” My Dad liked that stuff, and we always heard it around the house, so it reminds me of him. Of course, I can eat some corned beef. I know it’s not really Irish, more Irish-American, but eating that on St. Patrick’s Day is what we always did, and “what we always did” has a lot of power.