Today is St. Patrick's day, a whole lot of people will most likely proceed to
the nearest pub (or bar) and promptly drink themselves to oblivion.
Most likely a good portion of these drunks will paint some part of
their body, hair or something else bright green. Hmmmm...I wonder where
the history goes on this one.
WikiPedia on the topic seems to indicate that Saint Patrick was actually a poor Englishman,
living sometime around 400AD who spent some year's in slavery, escaped,
became a Bishop, travelled to Ireland and spent time there as a
missionary. I guess he was pretty successful at it, because they made
him the Patron Saint of Ireland. However, no where in the text does it
talk about St. Patrick painting part of his body green or him drinking
to excess once a year.
The holiday was kicked up in the 17th century by a Franciscan guy
called Luke Wadding (another Englishman) who somewhat randomly started
an Irish college in Salamanca, Spain and then promptly retired to
Italy.
This particular holiday as steadily evolved from a day of feasting to a day of complete drunken stupidity with parades, painting yourself and things like the rivers being coloured green.
On a separate but possibly related note, I was traveling on business this week and while out to dinner with a couple of folks, we were regaled with tales of their local parties down at the beach houses. This is where I heard of an interesting concept that I have not been exposed to before, The Drunk Dial. Apparently this occurs after copious amounts of alcohol have been consumed and at ridiculous hours of the morning.
Some research on this topic reveals that it's a widespread phenomenon and it even has it's own web site Drunk Dial . ORG where people can report tails of their drunk dialing exploits. These guys are even running a (St. Patricks Day contest).
The closest I have ever come to something like this is the "Emergency Room Dial" where I have called people to explain why their boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse is now being repaired after having gotten drunk and breaking themselves. Perhaps I should have let the drunk one call, then it would have been a drunk-dial.
So to summarize, a couple of really well intentioned Englishmen did some really good things, resulting in a national holiday, that now results in millions of people drinking way too much (often covered in green paint) of which probably a good proportion will go home and drunk-dial someone else. Kinda weird how things turn out...
Happy St. Patricks everyone...don't call me after 10pm unless your in the emergency room that is, everyone else call (800) 734 0880 and leave your drunk dial there.
TC.
It seems the use of the word "Paddy" and the stereotypical "drunk"
Irishman should be going the way of other ethnic references in this PC
world. Of course I would never suggest changing anything, but I'm sure
your other "Comrades" would.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 19, 2007 at 10:00 AM