St. Patrick's Day

We Americans celebrate St. Patrick (sorta). We celebrate the Irish. Good humor, a touch o’ Irish brogue, street parades, corned beef and cabbage (and the requisite boiled potatoes) for dinner, green beer and a wee bit o’ madness and mayhem burst forth this day. The City of Chicago dyed its river green today (as it does every year). It’s actually kinda cool to see. The streets and taverns overflow with revelers.

Erin go bragh!

Funny (but not really), I feel as if some exile standing outside, alone in the rain...looking on with empty eyes. I honestly delight in Irish culture. I’m an absolute sucker for films about the trials, tribulations and amorous doings in Irish hamlets (and there have been many).
In fact, I actually studied Irish culture in a social anthropology class decades ago. I like the Irish. I do.

The thing is, though, two of my grandest of grand passions were Irish colleens. Surprising that a Lithuanian boy would say this, I suppose, but it’s true. It was probably mere coincidence, nothing at all to do with the Irish per se. I guess I was fated (ill or otherwise) to fall in love with these two most fascinating women (decades apart) who sent me soaring higher than I had ever soared...and sent me crashing back to earth harder than I could have ever imagined. Hard enough to almost kill me.

There’ll be no green beer for me. No green derby. No four-leaf clover.

I’m swilling straight, crystal-clear vodka.

Alone

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