64. A very short entry on tomorrow, St. Patrick's Day

Last Saturday Louisville held its Saint Patrick's Day Parade. Yes, last Saturday, on March 10, the date in the Catholic calendar usually reserved for the Forty Martys of Sebaste, who were frozen to death for their allegiance to Holy Mother the Catholic Church sometime around 316. Bet you've never heard of them before. Neither had I until preparing this essay. Anyway, since last week I was celebrating the Forty Martyrs and not Saint Patrick, I missed the parade. I can remember back in the day when the Saint Patrick's Parade was held down Main Street, from the Hancock Street overpass to 6th Street. There used to also be a parade from Saint Louis Bertrand Catholic Church at 6th and Saint Catherine streets down to the Cathedral of the Assumption on S. 5th Street, orchestrated by the local Ancient Order of Hibernians. Back then I used to come down and help John Kilroy paint the green stripe down the middle of Main, a line put down to serve as a guide for those who by 11:00 am had already partaken of some green beer. Kilroy, who was for years an aide to former Congressman Romano L. Mazzoli - now there's an Irish name (at least on Saint Patrick's Day) - owned and operated some sort of factory there on Main and had a little line-striping contraption that was probably only used that one day a year. The year the Humana Building was being built, at 5th and Main, they made the parade end a few blocks earlier, and thus not as much green paint was used in striping the course. The parade now follows down the Bardstown Road/Baxter Avenue corridor; no green stripes are put down.

Enjoy the weekend, the beer, the corned beef and cabbage, and the basketball games. We'll do a follow up on the brackets sometime soon. Erin Go Bragh!

By the way, although I am Catholic, the name Noble is Welsh and historically Protestant.