I wish my St Patrick's Day could be happy as others people's. I'm live near the jammed-packed Westport bar district, and I'm not going anywhere.

The only year I went to the parade, I saw more drunks and more men pissing in public than I ever had in my life. After that I avoided the parade. A few years ago, some people were shooting guns at each other at the parade, and that finally led our civic leaders to do something. They moved the time from 2 pm to 11 am in the hopes that the general public would be more sober. It has seemed to help.

However, the rowdy drunkenness, the accidents and the fights continue. There's a hospital, St Luke's, a couple blocks from the bars, and St Luke's girds its loins every year for a stream of broken noses, head injuries, etc.

The year before last, a young guy, drunk, managed to go off an upper storey of a parking garage. He landed on his back, paralyzing himself forever. Last year, a high school (high school!) football player got drunk and smashed the family SUV at high speed, killing a buddy (or was it two buddies?) and seriously injuring himself.

This is considered normal in my home town.

As for my family and friends, we'll mark the feast on the 19th, with food and music. There will be twelve of us. A six pack might get drunk, just to show we can do it, but that will be all.

And it will be a very happy occasion.   
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Walkie, I must confess I never thought of you as a golfer. Do you have a niblick or a mashie? (I love those old names for clubs.)

There was a Chicago socialite in the 1920's who named her son Niblick.