Whack fol de diddle

I have said before I am not much for Ste. Patrick's Day & there is a good reason. I am actually of Irish decent & before I married A, my name was, well lets say it stops just short of being an ethnic joke. Upon hearing it you would never guess I could be anything else. & 364 days a year I am fine with that. Proud even.

But too much crap happens in the name of that day: everyone is not Irish on Ste. Patrick's Day, no matter how much green beer you pour down your gullet. Then there is the banning of some of Irish decent from marching in celebration under their own banner because, well I have never been clear why. I am also more than a little sick of Cardinal Law. I realize he may very well not be Irish but being the church-honcho of Boston meant I had to look at him every Ste. Pats Day I spent near a television.

& so instead I have decided for myself that Irish heritage day is actually today, August 17th which every good connoisseur of Irish music knows is the day of the Galway Races. Most Irish music is about career criminals & the British (or just career criminals depending on your opinion of the British), but this one is about tolerance. & how, because of tolerance we can get down to the important business of drinking & gambling & dancing & every vice imaginable including but not limited to salted, pickled, boiled or grilled pigs feet. MMMM-mmm.

If you must have an actual saint, I give you Saint Drithelm. He may not seem like much but he got up every morning & did what he did, & did it decently enough that when they thought he had died his family was sorry. When he rose from the table they had laid the body out upon, he gave them quite a shock. In the usual saintly manner, he decided his life was to take on a new purpose so he divided his worldly goods into three equal parts: one for his wife, one for his children & one for the poor. Then he went on his way. It is hard not to admire a guy who decides to clean up his act but not at the cost of the people he leaves behind. Cardinal Law could take a page...