St. Pat's Day!!

[aeronca65t]

Patrick is my middle name. Also, my Dad's first name plus endless relatives.
So St. Pat's is a HUGE weekends in my family (yes, I know it's really on Monday).

We'll be taking our little right-hand drive, wire-wheel roadster out for a spin in the parade today.

This is our 1902 Olds "replica" and the parade is the Morristown St. Patrick's Day parade; the oldest St. Patrick's Day parade in NJ. Last year we had 70,000 people in attendance.

My #1 grand daughter (6 weeks old) will be coming. My daughter said we need to get her to know "her culture". My daughter's husband (who is Swiss/Italian) has already embraced our Celtic culture...just like me, he likes green beer!

Afterwards, we're taking Lin's folk's out for their 60th anniversary (and it'll be the first time for them to see the new baby). And tomorrow we'll visit my folks for another St. Pat's party with about 30 relatives. Good times...

~Our St. Pat's Buggy Video-2007~

Parade 2007

 

[Sherlock]

Here in Calgary not much happens on St. Patrick's Day, other than people getting drunk on green beer...

We don't have a civic parade like so many elsewhere get, I've gone downtown on St. Patrick's in previous years to see if I could capture the spirit of the day (to photograph) and really come up with pretty much nothing except for the occasional person wearing their green and heading to the pub.

I did spot this two years ago though...

 

[vagt6]

Nial, that looks like a ton of fun! Your wife is lovely!

This is somewhat strange, so don't take it seriously, but my family on my Mom's side are descended from proud Scots (the Keith clan). As my Mom grew up, and later as an adult, she and her family refused to observe St. Patrick's day!

Some of her clan were the "Scot's Irish", thrown from Scotland by the British Crown on entirely trumped-up charges of "treason" for practicing their Methodist faith, and all assets seized (the Keith name goes back to before the <span style="font-style: italic">Domesday Chronicles</span> in 1066, they were prominent landowners).

Some Keiths were temporarily posted in Ireland (e.g., Scot's Irish) while they earned enough to travel to America. While languishing in Ireland, some very ugly stuff occurred to the ousted Scots by the Irish, including murder.

Thusly, no Irish lovers in my Mom's family. Still, after 266 years (ousted 1742), her family continues to ignore St. Paddy's day. And here in SW VA where it's hard to turn a corner without bumping into someone with Irish ancestry, it's quite funny, actually!

I love St. Patrick's day and practically all other ethnic celebrations. But, I <span style="text-decoration: underline">never</span> mention it at the Keith family reunions!

People are strange, no??

 

[aeronca65t]

New Pix!--St. Pat's Day!!

New Pictures and videos.

Shelock: That's a funny picture of the two old lads...that'll be me, someday soon.

Mark: The funny thing is that we *never* did much in Ireland for St. Pat's.
It was a church holiday and that was about it.
No great celebrations or anything like that.
Nowadays, thanks to the reverse cultural migration, St. Pat's is big in Ireland too, but it's bigger in the USA.

And while there are many sad parts of Irish history as evidenced by your family's story, there are also many episodes of cooperation. A good one being the *original* concept of the United Irishmen under Wolf Tone. Lots of other positive stories, some directly related to my family. But I'll avoid comment on them, since it could move to a political discussion.

Anyway, glad you liked the picture.

Yeah, Linda's great.
And she has an identical twin. It's always fun to get the two of them together.

We had a great time at the '08 parade.

I drove the "buggy" and my older daughter and the new grand child rode with me.
Linda, my younger daughter and the fellows marched with us (and Lin did a lot of photo shots).
We were followed by the hyper-enthusiastic Morristown Junior Colonial Cheerleader Squad.
Saw lots of my friends and students...had a great time.

Afterwards, we went to Linda's folk's house (1/2 mile from the end of the parade).
Her Dad (a WW II vet) regailed the fellows with war stories of Europe (my older daughter's husband had just come back from Normandy, France on business).
Later we took the two old folks (plus Linda's twin and her hubby) out for dinner, since it was the old folk's 60th wedding anniversary.
The next day, we went to my folk's house for another St. Pat's party.


~Here's a video of the beginning of the parade~

~Here's a video of the end of the parade~

#1 Daughter (with baby in carry-pouch)

#2 Daughter at the wheel (her normal wheels are a 5-speed Jaguar X-Type)