Sun over yardarm in Éire
Saturday, 15 March 2014
Atlanta does “Black Irish” differently than Ireland (although WikiPee says in Ireland they don’t use the term much). Lining up the porta-potties at the top of the hill made sense for the delivery truck, even if it meant users had to climb a steep slope to reach that particular Promised Land. Gave the security guy at the far end of the lineup (in black) a good chance to see who was having a hard time scaling the grassy slope…easier to pick out the over-imbibed.
The sun did duck in and out a bit, however most of the time I wandered the park, it was out—and glorious. The standard uniform of the day (not mine) was a green t-shirt. I liked the one that said stroke me to get some Irish luck—on a well-over-six-foot black guy who lifts weight at least several times a week. Often the shirt was paired with garish green headwear, sometimes made with pipe-cleaners.
As I understand Catholicism and its holidays, saint’s days are on a particular day, so that babies may be named for the saint upon whose day they were born. It is or it isn’t that saint’s day.
Soooo, I find it interesting that these many (probably non-Catholic) celebrants have “moved” the celebration from days-away 17 March to this fine Saturday. Across the old world, having a major holiday midweek was desirable—it meant shorter work hours that week! In this modern world, however, we do the opposite, and move our celebrations to the weekend, or celebrate on the weekend whatever the irony of that….