I grew up in a St. Patty’s neighborhood. I didn’t know until I was grown that those guys that used to tie me to a clothesline post and cut my pockets off were Irish. My neighborhood was so Irish I got my first paddling in school, because I wasn’t Irish!
My sister ( four years older) and my mother sit in our living room night after night writing a fight song for sis’s school. My mother was pretty good at rhyming (you’ve been bad and I’m gonna tell your dad was a favorite) and ultimately they came up with the following fight song:
Cheer, cheer for Taft Junior High, Let’s raise our anthems up to the sky, For the school we love so well, Loud in her praise our voices swell. Whether we win of whether we lose, Taft Junior High’s the school that we choose, Come and sing her praise tonight, And cheer for the green and white! Mom’s and Sue’s fight song was accepted and sung by hundreds and thousands of Wildcats until the school closed a few years ago. Wow.
Four years later it was my turn to attend that school. It was the first week of the 7th grade. My music teacher (a former linebacker) sit at her piano. I sit in a half circle of chairs with 28 other students I had never seen before. She began to play Taft’s Fight Song. We began to sing the words from a sheet she had handed out. When it was all over and the room was done rockin‘, she asked if anybody knew who had written that song. My hand shot up into the air like a missile. I was the only kid in class who knew. I was so proud of my famous mother and glad to be her son. It was going to be a great year! “My mom”, I answered.
Oh, oh. I didn’t cry. Not in front of all those girls. But my butt hurt for a week after that, and I’ve steered clear of piano playing female linebackers since. Who knew that my mother and sister were writing words to the Notre Dame Fight Song. Whoever heard of Notre Dame until that day. Who would have guessed that the Irish kids in my neighborhood had never told me about Notre Dame. Never even sung the Notre Dame song. Who would have guessed they would let me down the way they did after I snuck them meat on Fridays week after week. Thank goodness Mom didn’t write the words to “Irish I was In Dixie” or I might have been shot!
Being Irish one day a year is a fun thing for those of us who aren‘t. I used to love finding some chick in school who forgot to wear green so I could pinch her (my second paddling in school)! I like putting that 98-cent plastic fire hazard of a derby on my head and drinking green beer, especially when it‘s supposed to be green! What other time of year can a mischievous senior citizen be a Leprechaun instead of a dirty old man. On St. Patty’s eve my family sits down to a dinner of green eggs and ham and, later, we gather together to watch a Frosty The Leprechaun video. Wouldn’t it be fun if all of us had an annual holiday to celebrate the folklore of our heritage. One day we’re wearing sombreros, next day turbans. One day we’re drinking sake, next day river water. I had green sake in Japan, but it was just another day. Not St. Sake Day or anything like that.
Here’s a blockbuster. The Irish lucky charm is a shamrock. A shamrock is a three-leaf clover. That’s right. A three-leaf clover! After spending my entire life mowing, raking and throwing away three-leaf clovers in search of four-leaf clovers I find out that the three-leaf clovers are the good luck clovers! Blarney, baby. I’ve found enough three-leaf clovers in my time to win the lottery, get a date with Miss America and not get caught smoking in a restaurant.
Leave it to the Leprechauns lovers, though, to give us good luck, good times, good football, good neighbors, good schools, green beer, and a great America!
Go Irish!
