Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Plus, Life Its Ownself drives the national conversation about Daylight Savings Time.

(Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. If you enjoy reading it, please let me know by hitting the Like button at the bottom, subscribing to this newsletter, and recommending it to others. Also, feel free to comment below.)

         1. Sure and Begorrah, It’s St. Paddy’s Day!

         Happy St. Patrick’s Day!. The Chicago River has already been dyed green for the festivities – which isn’t the environmental disaster you’d imagine. As estimated thirteen million pints of Guinness will be consumed around the world. Since there are 16 ounces in a pint, that would be … a lot of ounces. Around the world on this day, hundreds of nondescript bars will call themselves “pubs” and serve bad food.

         For years, Fado Irish Pub on 4th Street was the place to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Austin. It grew big enough that they closed the street in front of the pub in the early afternoon as the crowd of revelers spilled beyond the bar. But alas, Fado closed in 2018. I’m sure St. Paddy’s Day will be celebrated somewhere in Austin today (B.D. Riley’s?), but I will not be there.

         In addition to all the alcohol and bad pub food, we also think of parades on St. Patrick’s Day. The St. Patrick’s Day parade was invented in America, before it was the United States. The first known St. Patrick’s Day parade was held in San Augustine, Florida, in 1601. By the mid-1700s, St. Patrick’s Day parades were an annual feature in cities like Boston and New York, long before they occurred in Ireland. In fact, parades were not part of Irish St. Patrick’s Day celebrations until 1903.

         St. Patrick’s Day was always a big day in my family. My sainted mother was Irish, and very proud of it. Her ancestors had emigrated from Ireland in the late 19th Century. My sisters and I were steeped in her Irish Catholicism. (It helped that the parish I grew up in – St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, in San Antonio – and its attached school were thick with the Irish. The priests had names like Boyle, O’Brien, Flanagan, and McNamara, and the Incarnate Word sisters who taught at the grade school all had Irish brogues.)

         My Irish Catholic heritage determined two of my first independent decisions in life. By the age of 10, I’d decided that I would attend the University of Notre Dame, of which my mother was a subway alumna. And when I was 12, I chose Patrick as my confirmation name.

         Nowadays, celebrating my Irish heritage is limited to wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day. And the “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” button, which in my experience produces little of its intended effect. However, in the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day I leave you with an Irish Blessing:

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,

may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

         2.      UPDATE: Life Its Ownself Drives Passage of Permanent Daylight Savings Time Bill

         Far be it from me to suggest that our national government makes decisions based on Your Humble Scrivener. However, last Sunday I published an essay about Daylight Savings Time (DST). In it, I proposed that widespread discontent with the minimal disorientation caused by DST twice a year could be eased by moving clocks forward one hour (into Daylight Time) and then leaving them there. This idea had been proposed by President Richard Nixon in 1973 as an energy-saving measure. He implemented his plan in January 1974, and within eight months was forced to resign the presidency.

         On Tuesday the US Senate passed a bill, called the Sunshine Protection Act, that would leave DST in place year-round. The bill passed without objection, which in the curious parliamentary parlance of the Senate means no one actually voted for it. Similar legislation is pending in the US House. President Biden has not said whether he will sign it if it gets to his desk, and there are naysayers out there. Nevertheless, this is a big “spring forward” for the idea.

         You’re welcome, America.