Chicago Day 4 – Happy St. Josephs Day

They Are Among Us

“The sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea.”
James Joyce, Ulysses

 “Happy St. Joseph’s Day” I hear as I’m sitting in an Italian bar in an Italian neighborhood.  It’s St. Patrick’s Day and I don’t know what St. Joseph’s Day is.

 Saint Joseph’s Day, I find out, is the feast day of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s spouse and Jesus’ step-father that is taking place on March 19^th this year.  Unlike St. Patrick’s Day where the Lenten prohibitions on meat and alcohol are lifted for the day, St. Joseph’s Day is a more subdued celebration.  A Catholic tradition with strong roots in the Italian community it isn’t unusual for the Italian’s to avoid the debauchery of St. Patrick’s Day and even look down on it.  I’m glad for this.

 St. Patrick is attributed with bringing Christianity to the polytheistic Irish in the 5^th Century.  There is also the myth that he drove the snakes out of Ireland.  It is true that there are no snakes in Ireland.  And there never have been snakes in Ireland.  Ireland is surrounded by an icy cold sea which is much too cold for snakes to migrate.

 I have a theory of what these “snakes” in Ireland might be.  The story of St. Patrick goes that he was kidnapped in Britain at the age of 16 and taken as a slave to Ireland.  He was tortured and mistreated forced to tend sheep for his captors.  I’m sure there were some Irish folks that were not too high on his list of favorite people.  He escaped and when he came back to Ireland with the power of the Lord upon him, he had some ass kicking to do.  I think he did get rid of the snakes.

 The current celebration of wearing green and drinking yourself stupid is an unfortunate misrepresentation of the original intent. 

 At the time, Patrick’s idea was to get them drunk, paint them green so they were easily identifiable, put a bag over their heads, and ship them off to the Middle Ages equivalent of Nebraska. This started a tradition where once a year the douchebags would be cleared out.

But now we only do it half way.  We get them drunk, paint them green, but that is it.  We let them go on with their happy douchey lives!