St Patrick’s Day 2015 – Seein’ a little green

This is always a busy week here in Savannah. St. Patrick’s Day is like a mini-Mardi Gras for this town. For 12 years, Mrs. P and I organized, set-up and hosted a parade-watching “tailgate party” in a downtown square. This was a very intense project. When we first started doing this in 2002, the idea hadn’t caught on yet. You could show up at six or seven in the morning and settle into a prime spot. By the mid-2000’s, that changed for the worse. In recent years, it has involved getting downtown before 3 a.m. and picking a spot. We were not allowed in the square until 6 a.m. so we and other early-risers would line the perimeter of the square and negotiate with each other about where we would all set up. In a perfect world, it would be “first-come, first-served,” but the world is not perfect. Negotiating with the early risers was usually very civilized. However, there were always some folks who would roll up at 5:45, drop their stuff in the street and start pointing to one of the prime spots (on the perimeter) that someone else had claimed four hours earlier. At 6 a.m. the police blow a whistle and the rush would begin. It was usually all over in about two minutes. Then we would sit around, waiting for the sun to come up and trying to stay warm for the parade started at 10:15.

This was our party in 2013.

Last year, Mrs. P fell and broke her knee a couple of weeks before the event, which ruled out our ability to organize a party. No one else picked up the baton. Our children were both working and none of our friends had any interest. This year, Mrs. P was ready to get back in the game, but, again, we had no help. One 60+ year-old couple is simply not enough of a team to compete in the pre-dawn madness.

So, instead, Mrs. P and Poolboy put their heads together and decided we should have a parade viewing party at our house. (There is no shortage of live coverage on the local TV stations.) So that we did.

We’re not used to hosting parties that start at 10 a.m. on a weekday, but it all worked out. Everyone brought something to contribute to the food table. We had Bloody Marys and beer to drink, and a breakfast casserole, ham, fried chicken, potato salad, pasta salad, squash casserole and even green grits (a Savannah tradition.)

When the parade coverage ended around two in the afternoon, most of our guests retired to the patio (where many had spent the day anyway). The temperature was 85 degrees, which made it feel almost like summer.

Almost like a summer Sunday afternoon.

The pool water wasn’t so warm, but that didn’t stop some of the children who were there. More power to them.

A couple of crazy ones.

Hey watch this!

Beats me.

Mrs. P was trying to talk up getting back into the game in 2016, but she wasn’t getting a lot of encouragement. Depending on our children’s work schedules next year, we may be able to field a force sufficient to compete in the zero-dark-thirty land rush, but we’ll just have to see how that goes.

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Prepping for St Patrick’s Day

It’s been a busy week, and it’s just getting busier.

Tomorrow, St. Patrick’s Day, is a major holiday here in Savannah. It is also one of the Poolman’s big social events. Since 2002, we have gone down to one of the downtown squares well before dawn and set up a tailgate party in one of the squares along the parade route. We plan to do the same tomorrow.

The day will start around 3:45 am when the alarm goes off. We will need to be downtown by around 5:30 am. The police and park service keep everyone out of the squares until 6 am. Then they blow a whistle and the stampede to get to the choice spots starts. Initially, we were in Chippewa Square (where bus-bench scenes from the movie Forest Gump were filmed). However, it just got to be too much of a madhouse, especially after the parade. We moved a few blocks away to a square very early on the parade route. There are still plenty of people, but it’s not crazy.

Mrs. Poolman and I will set up our canopy, tables and chairs and await the sunrise and our guests.

Our site in Chippewa Square before the parade 2008.

A couple of years ago, Mrs. P became disgusted with the condition of the public porta-potties that are placed around the historic district. She came up with Mrs. Poolman’s Personal Pick-Up Porta-Potty. She rents a port-potty and has it placed in the back of a pick up truck.

Mrs. Poolman's Personal Pick Up Porta-Potty

We park it on the street near our square and it remains a fairly clean source of relief for our family and friends. Mrs. P is famous and well appreciated in our limited circle for this concept.

The parade will run from a little after 10 am until around 1:00 or 1:30 pm.

Watching the parade in 2008.

We hang out and socialize for awhile, but we are usually home and recovering by around 3 or 3:30 pm.

All told, it is a good day. We see a bunch of friends and neighbors who stop by for either a short visit or the entire day. Our two grown children are usually part of the crowd (if they are not working) with some of their friends.

It should be fun. I’ll report on the outcome later.