This week, when I arrived at the Learning Center for my regular
Thursday morning volunteer work, I stepped into a sea of green.
Children wore green top hats, headbands with plastic shamrocks
bobbing
on
springs,
lucky Irish T-shirts, and green striped socks. Not paying any
attention to my blue jeans and purple shirt, they busied themselves
checking the leprechaun traps they'd designed and built earlier in
the week. Gold glitter, broken traps, and half-inch, green poster
paint footprints messed up classroom floors. Children grinned,
chattered, and cleaned.
I left the Learning Center to run errands and pick up my friend
Cindy for an afternoon Deep Water Fitness class at the YMCA. No one
wore green in the pool. We flutter kicked, crunched abs, and pressed
flotation boards under the water. When I drove Cindy back to her
house, though, she said, “You'd better hurry home and put on some
green before someone pinches you.”
“I'm wearing green underpants,” I said. “If anyone
threatens to pinch me, I'll just pull down my jeans.”
My daughter Ellen also celebrated St. Patrick's Day with
students and no green–no green beer that is. She'd accompanied a
group of thirty-one Purdue undergrads on a spring break tour of Great
Britain and Ireland. They spent St. Patrick's Day in Dublin. From the
back of a crowd, Ellen caught snippets of the parade and a St.
Patrick character chasing away inflatable, floating snakes. She
trusted the students to manage Dublin on their own in the evening
while she stayed at the
hotel for an Irish themed dinner,
music, and step-dancing.
In
the evening, I wished
Spence a St. Patrick's Day blessing which triggered his
memories of
him and his brother Bruce
sliding down the stairs on their butts.
Bump, bump, bump, bump.
The noise and giggling upset
their grandmother Mimi. She fussed. “You'll
get cancer if you keep doing that!”
However you celebrate, I offer you the same St. Patrick's Day
blessing:
Oh, the ending was too, too funny! LOL
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