St. Patrick's Day

We went to a St. Patrick's Day parade here on Sunday. Just like our Mardi Gras parades the festivity was unorthodox and the float riders tossed goodies. In keeping with the Irish theme we caught enough onions, cabbage, potatoes and carrots to make a few decent Irish stews. At parade's end we had about 50 pounds worth of that stuff, in addition to the usual non edible throws.
The parade was late, some kind of problem getting started, I think. But that gave me plenty of time to people watch (not just the pretty ladies in shorts and halters.....I know you probably think that's all I saw...but I did look and leer a little). The color green was evident everywhere- green, dresses, shirts and pants; green vests and hats decorated with St Patty colors and slogans, a dog dressed in a bright green sweater, even a man dressed as St Patrick himself strolled down the parade route near us. That one looked like an Irish pope, dressed in full papal regalia- all in green , including the miter on top of his head and the green staff he walked with. This was quite a family atmosphere, people in great moods enjoying the New Orleans tradition of parading. Since Friday is St. Patrick's Day I will write something about the holiday. My mother's mother was from Country Cork , Ireland, the one Irish link in my background..so you may call me "Irish Jim" on friday. Haha I may be too tall and fat to be a leprechaun, but being Irish for a day sounds like too much fun to pass up.
My grandmother was quite a sweet irish lady. I remember she never lost her Irish ways, always quoting Irish homilies. One of her favorites was "May you be in heaven 5 minutes before the devil knows you died" or "Better both fish and mend your nets". This grandmother was the one who favored me, and the one I spent the most time with. She still had her Irish culture which included wonderful baking skills (The Irish are great bakers). I can still remember her iced box cookie recipe, a traditional Irish favorite (I may still have that because I have a box of my grandmother's recipes).
My grandmother, Melissa Ryan, infused me with respect for not only the Irish culture , but for all others. She was a sweet lady who embraced every person and every culture. I remember she would celebrate and decorate for practically every holiday.
The story of St. Patrick is one both of myth and reality. There was a Saint Patrick who did live in Ireland. he was actually a native of wales, and name Maewyn. The future St., Patrick was in fact a pagan son of wealth who was captured by irish bandits who raided his village. During his captivity he converted to religion. he escaped, studied theology and began a crusade to convert pagans of Ireland to Christianity.
He stayed there for 30 years until his death. The myth that I always heard from my grandmother, and that is commonly repeated is that St. Patrick "chased all the snaked from Ireland with a sermon". But snakes were never native to Ireland. That myth probably came to us as a metaphor to St. Patrick chasing the pagans to Christianity- converting them, that is. Anyway, given I have good imagination, I choose to believe the myth of the snakes (at least for St. Patty Day). I thank that grandmother for passing it on. So hoist a green beer, some Irish soda bread and nibble your lamb stew on March 17th. Happy St. Patrick's Day!
There are so many strange customs in the world. Well, they seem strange to me because I don't see them here or in many other places in the world. One I just read about is common in Pakistan. It's kite flying....but not normal kite flying as found nearly everywhere. In Pakistan some kite flyers actually reinforce the normal kite string with wire or glass, because they compete and bet on which kite wins races. When the strings cross in the congested sky one opponent can cut the others' kites to help him win the race.
But that also means the kite is a dangerous object for the people on the ground, who also could be cut by this wire or glass coating on the strings. It happens too frequently. Recently, a 4 year old boy had his throat slit by a low flying kite string that was coated with glass, the 7th person killed by those kites in the city of Lahore in the past two weeks. The government has now banned all kite flying there.
How crazy is it to fly kites that way? What are some of the strange customs in Canada?