St. Patrick’s Day was serious fun at our house growing up. Pat and Queena Wilcox were Irish through and through, and they taught their daughters to be proud of their roots in the Emerald Isle. They made St. Patrick’s Day second only to Christmas.
Its celebration was looked forward to and planned for and undertaken with great enthusiasm. A measure of its importance was that Daddy declared it a holiday from school for us girls. Naturally, that made it special to me.
So did the fact that it was Daddy’s birthday, or at least I thought so. After he died the secret came out: He was actually born on March 16, hours before the day for the wearing of the green. But that was close enough for this one-generation-removed son of Ireland. No one ever celebrated his birthday a day late with more gusto.
Not only did he wear the green tie and leprechaun socks and host a party every year. He also armed himself at the top of the morning with a stack of green ties and leprechaun socks and handed them out all over town.
He was a politician who reveled in the spotlight, and as deputy county court clerk and, later, a city commissioner, he was often featured on the St. Patrick’s Day news. That suited him fine. But this wasn’t all about politics by any means. This was honest celebration of cultural heritage.
Mother, too, set out every March 17 equipped to rescue the poor soul who might have forgotten to don a bit of green. She carried dozens of shamrocks shaped of wire and colored with green thread, pinning one on the collar of anyone in need.
That was — and is — the beauty of St. Patrick’s Day.
For our family it was a celebration of who we are: Irish. Catholic. A part of a particular piece of the American pie colored green.
But it was also a celebration to be shared with any and all. If you’re not Irish and forgot your green, have a shamrock for your collar, or, here, share a green beer. Join the party. It’s open.
That expansive, inclusive quality of the St. Patrick’s Day celebration — and of course the fact that it’s a time for revelry — may explain why this ethnic holiday, above all others, has made such inroads in mainstream American culture.
We’ve come far from the days when Irish immigrants faced such prejudice that job discrimination was broadcast by acronym: Signs in big-city shop windows carried the letters NINA. Everyone knew it meant “No Irish Need Apply.” Other signs went beyond jobs to declare, “No Irish, no Jews, no dogs allowed within.”
But today, and for many years, Americans of all backgrounds have happily joined in the celebration of this Irish holiday. In that sense, St. Patrick’s Day is a kind of benchmark in our national journey toward real appreciation of our cultural diversity.
It’s easier with the Irish, of course. They’re not identifiable by skin color and are well melted in the American pot. Few any longer can claim more than a fraction of green blood.
But the lessons can be drawn broadly: Cultural divides are most easily bridged with celebration.
Riverbend’s annual Bessie Smith Strut is an example. Its significance lies in the unique sense of racial harmony and togetherness it creates. But its attraction is as a cross-cultural party.
In such a setting it is easy to nurture the kind of genuine appreciation for a different culture that tills a common ground. This goes beyond tolerance — which can exist along with sharp division — and draws people together in shared celebration of what they enjoy together and the glory of their distinct contributions to the patchwork quilt that is America.
On St. Patrick’s Day, the green patch of that quilt is prominent and the joy is in its celebration by many who have no ethnic claim to it. Years ago, Willard Scott captured the feeling on the “Today” show when he brought out green bagels and green cream cheese he had received from a Jewish bakery in Washington, D.C.
Daddy would have liked that.
This past March 17th, America’s first African-American president wore a green tie and a shamrock boutonniere as he spoke proudly of his own Irish heritage. His great-great-great-great-great grandfather on his mother’s side was from the County Offaly, Ireland.
Daddy would have liked that, too.
It’s not St. Patrick’s Day, of course, but when Father’s Day rolls around, I can’t help but think of my father, handsome and laughing in green tie and leprechaun socks.
So here’s to you, Daddy. Happy Father’s Day.
Pat Wilcox is a former editor of the Chattanooga Times editorial page. This column is adapted from one that ran in The Times on St. Patrick’s Day, 1994. It is reprinted it honor of all loving fathers and the daughters and sons who cherish them.