by Kai Deniri

Created on: March 21, 2010

I hail from Scranton, Pennsylvania, which designates the 17th of February as "St. Practice Day." Celebrating St. Patrick's Day is my area of expertise. For sure you can celebrate St. Patty's day all year, if you come from where I come from. (Which isn't even Ireland, lately). A pub I waitressed in has Countdown to St. Patty's Day events upon the 17th day of all 12 months, even April. Then one morning during college, I heard a commotion out my 3rd floor window and peered out upon the neighboring Alpha Chi Rho brothers clothed in green, partying it up on their roof. I called out, "What are you doing?" Somebody answered, "It's St. Patrick's Day!" I recall it was a September weekday - and I joined them at the keg in total agreement of their calendar. But nothing compares to the anticipation of the real one. For that happy day, my house is scrubbed top to bottom, my wallet is emptied, my friends are rallied, my iPod playlists are overrun with my grandparents' music, and my whole town turns greener than the wild mountain thyme. Parade Day is upon us, and that is the hallowed day on which we celebrate the feast of St. Patrick.

It's not ALL about getting drunk. The specifics of your St. Patrick's Day celebration must take into account your location on your life's particular path. In preschool, for instance, we celebrated by being piled into a wooden red wagon and pulled over the bridge to meet our cousins. Any chance to hang out with our cousins before we all had cars, Facebook, and cell phones was mind-blowingly thrilling. Then we'd all eat green bagels and sit on the curb with green balloons, catching the candy thrown from the floats, buried in blankets and blowing souvenir plastic horns until our ears rang for weeks. Our parents might take us to eat or to run wild under the pool tables of one of the many out-of-the-way, not-terribly-crowded bars or parties where they'd know everyone who would be there. My father would celebrate by running the annual St. Patrick's Day 5K and getting involved as a security guy for the local bagpipers. When we were old enough to sit still for a few minutes, the celebration included going to see Irish stepdancers and bagpipers who traveled through all the crowded places, performing for everyone before and after they performed in the parade. We never even missed the beer.

In high school we loved just to be able to walk anywhere in town wild and unsupervised, loud and disorderly with our friends, making fun of all the stupid drunks.

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