Leprechaun Traps

"What if we could catch a leprechaun, Mommy?" My youngest daughter asks with a twinkle in her eye that only believing in pots of gold at the end of rainbows can bring.

"Why don't we try?" I ask, taking her hand.

Together we rummage through dusty garage shelves. I pull down one shoebox, she finds another, a third box for her sister completes the set and our Saint Patty's day tradition is born.

Wrapping the boxes in aluminum foil and propping them open with jagged sticks helps to attract leprechauns. But we know the shinny coins placed inside the traps are what will truly lure the little green men. The traps sit on our back porch overnight and by the wee hours of St. Patty's Day morn' they are sprung. The crafty leprechaun steals the coins and leaves a small likeness of himself in exchange for our treasure, so it's not really stealing to be sure.

Of all my St. Patty's day memories, this is my favorite. Now that my girls are in college Ieprechaun-trap-making has taken a back seat this day, I'm afraid. Leprechaun Traps revealed to my family the hidden treasure of leprechaun dreaming, the notion that we might trap one if clever enough, and imagining our coins in his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. This St. Patty's day I'm doing a fair amount of looking backward.
There is many a fine thing to do on a St. Patty's Day. The Chicago parade has been a fond favorite for many years. And truly, ditching school to go made the watching that year that much sweeter. Pizza at Unos after was a must do, as was carving our names in the wall there. And although the wearing of the green has a special place in most people's hearts, my mother used to like to send us to school in orange on St. Patty's Day when we were too young to really understand that the smile on her face had to do with what the color symbolized, we were protestant.

My grandmother, Olive Marie O'Brien never drank and we all know the reason why. Grandaddy O'Brien hit the drink hard. Of grandma I really remember only a few simple things. She lost her mother at 12, she married at 17 and took her younger sister to raise as a daughter. She built torpedoes during WWII. She worked as a telephone operator. On Tuesdays, shopping day, she'd clean out her purse. I loved, absolutely loved, watching her clean out her purse. And each week on Tuesday she would give all us kids an allowance of 50 cents. She had an amazing clock that foretold the weather with a witch that would come out when it would rain. I thought witches made it rain for much too long a time. Cuddly Duddly, a huge stuffed animal, lived in her attic, a more enchanting than our own. Her basement was pretty awesome too. And in the fall my cousins, brothers and sister and I would go over to Grandpa's and Grandma's and rake their leaves then burn them down by the river. I don't remember spending a St. Patty's day with Grandma specifically, but she is my tie to Ireland. Her and our family that left County Cork, oh so many years ago now.

You might wonder what exactly I've got planned for tonight. Well, there I'm not sure. Me and my husband will probably head to our local pub, drink a few black-and-tans [that's a pint, half Guinness and half Harp] and drink to my Grandmother, my daughters, leprechauns, and my Aunt Dora, one of ten children, who lived a long happy life and attributed it to the pint of Guinness she drank every night before bed.

Learn more about this author, Laura Elliott.
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