We Get A Lot Wrong About St. Patrick’s Day
How you celebrate may have nothing to do with luck or truth
St. Patrick’s Day comes around each March 17th.
As a kid, I looked forward to figuring out how to wear green to avoid getting pinched by friends.
The idea was quite the opposite of “Pinch me, I’m Irish.” The thought was more along the lines of: Don’t pinch me; I’m wearing green, even if I’m not Irish.
I also enjoyed pinching others who forgot to wear the color we’ve come to know as synonymous with St. Patrick’s Day.
Whether we had any Irish blood flowing through our veins didn’t really matter. In actuality, there’s at least a thimble’s worth of Irish blood in the family somewhere.
Grandma would tell tales of St. Patrick, how he drove snakes out of Ireland, and say that the day honored him.
It turns out the legend has some historical basis, although a wee bit misguided. St. Patrick is said to have given a sermon that drove snakes from the Island.
While the Emerald Isle is relatively snake-free, it has little to do with a sermon and more to do with the island being surrounded by water and cooler temperatures that have the cold-blooded serpents seeking warmer locations.
