Although I come from a land much closer to Ireland than it is here, St Patrick’s Day is a much bigger deal in the United States than it is in England. We never ate corned beef and cabbage, turned our rivers green or attended parades. But it’s a tradition I’ve embraced since moving to Naperville.
My first encounter with St. Patrick was when I was child. Back in the 1960s, you didn’t have to attend schools like Hogwarts to be divided up into houses. In my very ordinary little primary school, our houses were named after various patron saints around Great Britain. George was red for England, Andrew blue for Scotland, David yellow for Wales and Patrick green for Ireland.
I was in Patrick and always motivated to receive house points for doing well in class. But all these years later, the main thing I remember is wearing a green sash for sports day and my Brownie uniform on my saint’s day, March 17.
Here in Naperville, we try to attend the St. Patrick’s Day parade not because the day is of any particular importance to us, but because it’s the first parade of the year and a good opportunity to come out of hibernation after what is usually a long, hard winter. This year’s may have been as mild as a British summer, but it’s still fun to line the streets and wave at all the people for whom you won’t be voting.
Our parade tradition always starts the same way, with Grumpy complaining about the weather, parking and road closures. I swear if someone appointed him grand marshal, he’d insist on having a team of people carry him in a sedan chair with a thick blanket.
One thing he will usually do is buy the current year’s scarf being sold by volunteers from St. Baldrick’s raing money for child cancer research.
“Does it come in blue?” he said this year, totally confusing the young seller who didn’t understand his dad joke.
Turning his attention to me, he complained it was my fault he hadn’t brought a hat and gloves because I had said the weather was mild.
“I meant comparatively,” I said. “We’ve stood out in snow before. This year is a little chilly, but the sun is shining and there’s not a drop of rain in the forecast. Good old global warming.”
The family member who probably enjoys the parade the most is our dog, Daisy. Sporting her green hair rosettes, she loves the attention she receives from passersby. She really had the luck of the Irish with her this year because we set up camp next to a family desperate for a dog of their own.
“Oh, Dad, please can we have a dog,” said the oldest daughter, stroking Daisy’s ears.
“You know what I said,” Dad said. “We have to wait for the cat to kick the bucket first.”
“That’s a little harsh,” I replied, but the girls nodded as if they knew the rules but were just impatient.
I left Grumpy nursing a Starbucks while I walked Daisy up and down the street. I suspect she was more excited by the smells of the fire hydrants than the impending parade, but she was gracious to those who stopped to admire her.
To be honest, I think I’d probably walk more regularly myself if people constantly stopped to tell me how much they liked my outfit or how cute I am. It’s not that my dog has a big ego. She’s just a people pleaser and feels she’s brightening their day by allowing them to pet her. Fortunately, she was suitably tired and happy to snuggle into Grumpy’s lap as things got underway.
We all have our favorites in the parade. Grumpy enjoys watching the Shriners spinning around in their tiny cars, I like St. Patrick and naturally Daisy keeps a keen eye out for fellow dogs. None of us are under any illusion that she harbors a secret desire to participate — it takes her 30 minutes to sniff her way up our cul-de-sac — but I have seen her give cursory nods of approval to the noble dogs walking alongside the floats. She’s secretly thinking, “Who has the better job here? You walking down the street or me sitting in cozy comfort watching the parade pass by?”
We all enjoy the young Irish dancers and bagpipers. To me they are the entrants who most bring a bit of Ireland to the proceedings.
To me, this is a perfect slice of Americana. Very little changes over the years, which is comforting given all that’s going on around the world. And during a St. Patrick’s Day parade, it’s not just Irish eyes that are smiling. Turns out, sometimes it’s pretty easy being green.
Hilary Decent is a freelance journalist who moved from England to Naperville in 2007. She can be reached at hilarydecent@gmail.com.
