Susan took her spiked coffee and stood on the main street in her town to watch the local St. Paddy's Day parade.

There were bag pipers, cancer survivors, policemen on bicycles, green spray painted dogs, live bands on flatbeds, twirlers, girl scouts, boy scouts, teenagers with britches falling  beneath their bums, Irish dancers, multiple redheaded girls, firemen, zombies, a priest blessing the crowd, award winning cheerleaders, classic cars, youngsters driving tractors, a drunk guy who fell down and couldn't get back up and a town full of people happy to be out in the sun with their families.

Susan ran into her son and two of his friends travelling on their own and observed him to be just as well behaved on the street as he is at home.

Susan's town threw their annual St. Paddy's Day parade. There were plenty of porta pottys, bagpipers, marching bands, twirlers, national high school varsity cheerleading champs, girl scouts, policemen on bicycles, firemen in dress blues leading rows and rows of fire trucks, flags and sirens, a marine rescue unit, antique cars, bands on flatbed trucks, a NY State Senator and a very enthusiastic crowd out with their dogs including some dressed in Guinness hats.

Lovely Day For A Guinness

Arthur Guinness was an Irish brewer and father of twenty one children, Sweet Jesus!

In 1759 he left his little brother in charge of the brewery & signed a 9,000 year lease on the abandoned St. James Gate brewery in Dublin which remains the blessed home of Guinness Stout to this day.

Stout is an ale. It began as a porter, which was a dark beer popular with the fellows who humped heavy objects all over town for a living. These guys needed a drink after a long day toiling away at their careers in cheap labor.

Guinness has many beneficial qualities. Aside from being a bloody fantastic brew it contains iron, antioxidants and only 125 calories per 12 ounces. A nurse friend of Susan's used to mix it with condensed milk and serve it to her elderly mother. If that isn't a proper testiment to the medicinal properties of a wee nip o' the Guinness, well then I don't know what is, Bejesus!