In the United States of America, many of us do silly things on Saint Patrick’s Day to pretend we are Irish and that we know Irish ways. We drink green beer or “Irish coffee” (it is laced with Jameson and Bailey’s Irish Cream) to a disgusting state of intoxication, and/or sing “Danny Boy” (written by an Englishman) or recite dirty limericks (Edward Lear, the “Father of Limericks,” was also an Englishman, and never used the term “limerick” to describe what he wrote). So often in human history, history itself is falsified and the perception of Reality is warped. Perhaps we Americans ought to rename this holiday “Glorious Excuse to Get Drunk and Silly Day.”

We also wear green. I had a wonderful green Hawaiian shirt that I liked to wear on Saint Patrick’s Day, but about ten years ago I gave it to a homeless man who said “Nice shirt. Can I have it? I’ll trade you for some socks and swim trunks.”

Today, green-clad or not, I intend to be Green in spirit, walking rather than driving, celebrating the remnants of youthful enthusiasm and imminent Springtime. I have signed up for a ceramics studio session and while there I’ll buy a lemonade and raise it in a toast to James Joyce, whose Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man subtly changed the course of my life about fifty years ago.

Friends, Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, and may you celebrate joyfully and non-destructively.

Note: my “Featured Image” is a screenshot of my Olympian hero Joan Benoit, her arms raised in triumph after winning the first Olympic Women’s Marathon on August 5, 1984, exactly two weeks before I did my own first marathon. I post it to get my Green on. 🙂