Heavy Drinking, Not Thinking

This was a newspaper article I wrote in high school, which was than butchered by the editing staff. Here is the draft that was meant to be read:

From the rolling hills of Dublin to the prairie flats of Kansas, people will be celebrating their favorite 4th century British Christian saint on March 17. That day, of course, being St. Patrick’s Day, also known as Paddy’s Day.

St. Patrick’s Day is an Irish national holiday, though not actually an official American holiday. In fact, last Saturday Aggieville was festively green in celebration. The fun times were held a week before the actual holiday because this year St. Patrick’s Day falls on the first Saturday of spring. But there will still be Irish-related entertainment in Manhattan tomorrow.

“I’ll probably go to the parade,” senior Peter Tatarko said, referring to the town parade on Pontz Avenue.

Brought to America in the 1730s, St. Patrick’s Day is a Christian festival celebrating the title saint. The story goes that St. Patrick was kidnapped by Irish raiders at young age and was forced to work for six years before escaping back home to England. A couple years later, he became a Catholic bishop and went back to Ireland to convert people to Catholicism.

Now legend has it, St. Patrick got rid of all the snakes on the island of Ireland when he went back. Some people believe this literally, while modern scientists give the ice glaciers that covered Ireland thousands of years ago credit for clearing out the snakes. In either case, St. Patrick did go to Ireland and tried to get rid of the metaphorical snakes of sinfulness.

But St. Patrick’s Day isn’t all about Christian conversion and snake killing, it’s also about wearing green to bring out the Irish-ness in everyone. Failure to wear a green article of clothing isn’t tolerated and results in pinching galore.

“It’s traditional. A custom, cultural thing to wear green,” senior Felix Wang said.

Other students feel wearing green goes past embracing Irish culture for a day.

“I wear green because it’s the law,” senior Stuart Watts said.

But there’s several ways people have celebrated March 17, the supposed day St. Patrick died. New York City has a parade watched annually by about 2 million people. The city of Chicago actually dyes the Chicago River green. And in 1780, General George Washington let his troops have a holiday break on March 17.

Whatever the motivations and actions of celebration, it’s good to celebrate Irish heritage in America because of the rich history they’ve had in our country’s development and the inevitable existence they’ll always have in American cinema.