Yeah, it’s Green Day in America, as in “wearin’ o’ the.” The resident Irish lass on the team, who has red hair and has an Irish surname AND maiden name (and was married at Old St Pat’s, a Chicago landmark) is wearing o’ the green. Various people who aren’t Irish are a wearin’ o’ the green. Since we’re at work, nobody has started in on the pukin’ o’ the green, but it’s early yet.
I’m in the “vague family connections to Ireland” camp, myself. Oddly enough, my vaguely Irish background isn’t that different from Joey DeVilla’s – my great-grandfather lived in Ireland for a while before emigrating to America (in Joey’s ancestor’s case, that was another stop on the way to the Philippines). My ancestor was a stonemason (of English extraction) who lived or was born in Ireland and eventually emigrated to Utah as a convert to the Charch – it was a special program called “perpetual emigration” to bring in skilled workers.
Strangely enough, although I grew up in Salt Lake, surrounded by sisters and cousins, it wasn’t because of my ancestor. He eventually gave up on trying to repay his emigration debt (also, I think he made better money doing skilled stonework on the silver baron’s mansions than he did doing working on the Temple). So he moved most of his large and growing family to Colorado Springs (another bastion of funnymentalism) where there were a whole bunch more silver barons’ mansions to work on, and reverted to something more mainline Protestant. Some of his older kids stayed on in Salt Lake and became a very distant connection (they appeared out of the blue at Pop’s funeral). We had ended up in Salt Lake because my uncle moved his family there in the 50’s to start a film developing business, and then Pop started working there, and then my adult sisters moved there to be close to Mom after they were widowed or divorced, and so that’s why they’re all there now. And none of us really Irish, except with this vague connection… and my mother’s memories of her little “Irish” grandfather’s brogue (I think that’s how she described him).
She keeps his stonemason’s hammer (a big round block of …oak?… with a centered handle polished smooth by years of use) on the mantle. If you hold it right, your knuckles slide into grooves worn into the wood and is thus somewhat ergonomic, but low-tech.
And apparently in Chicago, what with all the green beer served in the last few days (especially over the previous weekend, since the holiday is midweek this year), rivers of green puke are inevitable. That’s in addition to dying the Chicago River green, mind you.
