A Short Story

In happier times ...

This is a story about a woman friend. She was second generation Irish ... who chose health care as a profession and while practicing this calling in Germany, met and married her husband ... moved back to the US ...  had five rambunctious boys (who were good friends with my children) ... with German first names and Irish middle ones ... continued as a clinician and nurse in the New York City public school system ... saw to it all five boys got well educated and became successful adults ... got divorced ... and retired to a condo in Florida. 

In March, at the age of 80, the NYC public school system called and asked her help with the virus outbreak. Despite warning her boys not to travel, took a plane to New York to resume her long ago nursing duties while staying with her brother ... started not feeling up to par ... couldn’t keep up the grind ... flew back to Florida ... got quite sick ... entered the hospital when diagnosed with COVID-19 ... and died yesterday.

RIP Rosemary!

St. Patrick's Day

This post was originally placed on this blog site seven years ago.  However, it originally appeared even earlier on my Purple Prose blog site. It really is about St.Patrick's day here in Massachusetts and how this day is honored. Enjoy (and please don;t take the slightest offense as none is intended.)  Have a happy day!

Evacuation Day

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts they celebrate one obscure holiday which is conveniently concurrent with St. Patrick’s Day. It is called “Evacuation Day.” On this day, the state government closes down ... allowing its many pols and solons to gather at their favorite watering holes to celebrate the banishing of snakes from the ole sod. Once there, they donate a parcel of liquor taxes back to the treasury from which they draw their sustenance. Incidentally, the reason Massachusetts is called a “commonwealth” is that the Pilgrims believed “from each according to his ability and to each according to his need” ... a tradition that lives on in this state unto this day.

Evacuation Day was named to honor the purging that supposedly saved the life of Paul Revere’s mother when she had come down with the croup the night before her son’s famous ride. Her doctor, Elias DeBakey, gave her a double dose of ipecac and prune juice. Then he bled her with leaches; sweated her in a log-cabin sauna; gave her a soapy water enema; and finally, had her down a triple dose of bromide expectorant. She was “evacuated” so completely that she dropped nearly a third of her body weight. But, despite all this bad medicine, she survived ... and the people of the Bay State chose to honor this miracle by declaring this day an annual holiday.

The Irish, when they are not blowing each other up, spend a good deal of their time writing blue-ribbon prose; and, as already noted, have an affinity for amber liquids. On Evacuation Day this tropism becomes an obsession. Brass-railed bars with names like “Galway Bay” and “Glacamora” fill with corpulent-visaged Celts downing tuns of Harp lager and Guinness stout. And, at the tables, sit hoards of green-tie trenchermen devouring nitrided corned beef, bilious cabbage, boiled Bliss potatoes, and Irish soda bread. In the more radical of these establishments, Erse is spoken to cover the intrigues and cabals being planned, abetted by the bravado of booze.

These Sons of Erin, having sated and slaked themselves, finish the day with some sort of melee. On this day, a bloody nose or a broken tooth is a badge of honor. But the belligerents know it’s time to go home when they start seeing leprechauns prancing among the pots of shamrocks on the bar top. Then, after everyone has left, the leprechauns really do emerge, belt down the bar spitsies ... and, invariably, start their own brouhaha. But when in turn, these elves start seeing even littler people hidden among the mosses and detritus of the clover pots, even the leprechauns call it a day.

Enlightenment

Guru

King Kong died for our sins -- Old American Proverb

You can't play ping pong in a kangaroo's pouch -- Old Australian Adage

The hills are alive with the sound of Musak -- Old Austrian Saying

The sun never sets on a British umpire -- Old British Proverb

Icing the puck is preferable to pucking the ice -- Old Canadian Adage

It is better to sleep standing up than have a cricket crawl in your ear -- Old Chinese Proverb

The road to Hellas is paved -- Old Greek Proverb

Kissing the Blarney Stone won't make you any taller -- Old Irish Proverb

Walk softly and carry a big schtick -- Old Jewish Adage

The way to a man's heart is through his sternum -- Old Muslim Proverb

Never eat a kielbasa at a Warsaw bordello -- Old Polish Adage

I would rather that you spill my blood than my vodka -- Old Russian Adage

Blond jokes don't apply to Swedes -- Old Swedish Adage