Celebrating St Patrick's Day

The Gateway, the complex where our condo is located, holds celebration events free of charge for the community. On Saturday March 15, they hosted the local St. Patrick's Day Parade. Unfortunately, Wayne needed to be at work, but at about 10:15 AM I left my condo and went out on the roof courtyard of our building (on the 5th floor which is one floor below our condo). With my camera in hand I found a good location against the courtyard wall and looked down on Rio Grande Dr. lined with people bundled up in blankets while sitting on chairs or the curb. The watchers were dressed in all sorts of crazy green attire and were cheerfully waiting the start of the parade even though the temperature hovered near 30 degrees (cold for SLC) and there was a bit of a wind from the NW.

We didn't have to wait long before police on motorcycles opened the parade at 10:30. Unfortunately that's when my camera flashed that my memory card was full so no more pictures for me. I thought about running back upstairs, down-loading the pictures, and then deleting, but I knew Wayne liked to back them up somewhere else and that I didn't know how to do. Besides that would mean I would miss the parade! So I stayed where I was and enjoyed every moment of the 2 hour long parade.

There were the usual things you expect in a parade: local high school marching bands, politicians running for office, Police and firemen in their vehicles, floats made by local businesses and organizations, cars holding important people and a few horse-drawn carriages. (One horse left a mess right below me and I was entertained the rest of the parade watching marchers try to avoid stepping in it.) There were stilt-walkers, Shriner's in little cars, Scouting groups and lots and lots of candy thrown by everybody passing by.

There were a few things unique to St.Paddy's Day parades: family clans marching behind banners, Irish dog breeders walking their dogs, representatives from every local Roman Catholic school marching with their banners, bagpipers and Scottish clubs (I guess they don't get their own parade.)

And then there were things new to me in parades: a Civil War re-enactment group with foot soldiers from both sides marching and carrying their respective flags, followed by their women in period costumes, and finally their officers on horseback; what looked like a mini-car driving in circles that was actually a bright green coffin with a giant shamrock on the cover, followed by a 1950' s hearse and then a modern hearse with signs saying they were sponsored by a local mortuary; and a stuck float (the very first float tried to fit under a pedestrian bridge over the road and got stuck. It had tried to go under the tallest part of the bridge which luckily was way to the west side, and there it sat for the rest of the parade with the riders waving at other floats who squeezed past. Some of the floats were pulled by Semi-truck cabs and they really had to slow and squeeze over to fit in the space left free by the float.) I was going to go down after the parade finished to see the stuck float up close, but they backed it out before I had a chance just as the parade finished.

Because Wayne had missed all the excitement of the parade, we decided to go out for an Irish supper to celebrate. The day had rapidly deteriorated after the parade and it was sleeting pretty hard when we left to go to Murphy's Bar and Grill. So instead of walking we hopped on the TRAX and only had to walk a few blocks through the sleet and hail.

We had to buy a 3 week membership in order to enter the pub, but didn't have to wait to be seated. Another thing about private clubs; they all seem to be smokey. We were seated where we could watch a TV that had on basketball. They didn't have a regular menu, just a card sitting on the table with 3 choices of Irish fare. Wayne had Corn Beef and Cabbage with an Irish Stout and I had Irish Stew in a bread bowl with a Killian's. The place was crowded with 20-30 year olds, most of whom were smoking so we didn't stick around after our food and beers were gone.

The sleet had changed to giant snowflakes but we still took the TRAX home where we watched the movie, My Dog Skip, and then an episode of the Irish RM before heading to bed.

Wayne had a test on the night of the 17th, but was able to leave early, after the intro, as I had bought tickets to see Garrison Keiller at Abravanel Hall and the show started at 7:30 PM. Wayne picked up Mexican take-out on his way home, which wasn't exactly Irish but we could eat it fast and still get to the Hall on time. The Hall was designed by the same architect who designed Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis so when we entered the performance hall it felt like coming home. We had good seats on the main floor and enjoyed one and a half hours of his humorous stories, poems and songs. He was dressed as he does for his radio show, in black suit with red tie, red socks and red high-top tennis shoes. The stage held only a stool and microphone and the only action was watching as he changed from standing to sitting to standing again. We enjoyed it very much but noted that although he had many references to Holy Week, he never mentioned that it was St. Patrick's Day! This seemed odd to me as most of the audience were dressed in green.

After the performance we walked home in a round-about way so we could go by Lumpy's, another club that was having live music, special Irish drinks and karaoke. We peeked in but decided it wasn't what we were interested in tonight, and instead headed home where we made mint tea and added Bailey's Mint Irish Creme to warm us up while we did a crossword puzzle. It was a very nice ending for our celebration of St. Patrick's Day!