Now that March is almost behind us I have two issues I’d like to bring up about the month. I’m going to start with St. Patrick’s Day. If you’re now thinking who has a beef with St. Patrick’s Day? Just hear me out.
I feel like I can speak on this because I’ve been told I’m a “mostly” Irish on my mother’s side. There is no evidence of this except family lore that is robust with a lot of fables. As in tales have been woven and passed on as fact.
Yes, I know I could take a DNA test to find out the truth but where’s the fun in that? I’d rather hold on to the fairy tale that at one point in my family’s history we were Irish royalty in the 14th century.
Other fun fables I’ve been told are that we had a family member on the Mayflower and that my father’s side of the family hailed from the Cherokee tribe. Again, there is absolutely zero proof of any of this unless you count the passing of tall tales usually told by inebriated kin at family reunions as being factual.
Sorry for that faux family tree detour now getting back to St. Patrick’s Day and my beef which is the varied level of participation in the day. Depending on where you live it can be quite the celebration or just a reason to wear green. I feel like we should all lean into the day more.
When I lived in Boston as a child even the water in the toilets would be green on St. Patrick’s Day and in school you would make leprechaun homes out of boxes of Lucky Charms cereal.
One year I “wall papered” the “home” with all the “magical” marshmallows from the cereal. I’m not bragging when I tell you it was quite the tour de force in leprechaun home design.
My second beef is about March spring breaks. I’m all in on having school spring breaks but I hated the pressure as a parent to feel like you had to have a grand vacation. I’m wondering if this is a Midwest thing.
When my family lived on the West Coast almost no one left town for spring break. But that could be because everybody just drove 30 minutes and hit the ski slopes all week. Even in Texas it seemed like most people stayed home or at least remained in the state to go to the beach which is what I did as a teenager.
In the annals of bad parenting or parenting in 1979 I, along with three of my high school girlfriends, all of us were a mere 17-years-old, drove my mother’s Oldsmobile Cutlass 500 miles to South Padre Island (armed with a Rand McNally Road Atlas) and spent a week by ourselves in a condo at the beach.
We only talked to one parent, one time, when upon arrival I called my mom “collect” to let her know we made it to Padre and then she called all the other parents.
Can you imagine letting your high school daughter do that today? Now add in no cell phone and it’s like you’re sending your child out to be the star in a Dateline episode.
I get chills just thinking about it but at the time it was a well-mannered, rule-following fun. Of course, it probably helped that three out of the four girls went on to attend Ivy League colleges. I’ll let you guess the person who did not.
Actually, the fact that I just had two beefs with March is quite the compliment. Now April, that month is usually all drama. But I’ll save those stories for later.
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Snarky in the Suburbs 