365 Days of Earrings

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Wearing of the Green

The saying goes that on St. Patrick's Day everyone is Irish. So today I wore green and shamrock earrings.

But I'm pretty sure that I'm not Irish. My dad's male line hails from Wales, the Cymru of this t-shirt. I have lots of WASP ancestry from England--white, Anglo-Saxon protestant.

Since the days when I drew maps showing the waves of "barbarian" invasions under the tutelage of my 7th grade history teacher, Ruth Williamson, I have always been impressed with the scarcity of "pure blood" anywhere, and it is certainly rare in my ancestral England. Even the Angles and the Saxons were Norse invaders! And those Irish Celts came from central Europe... By the time my ancestors were seeking religious freedom in 17th century Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut, they were a very blended people!

There are no shamrocks in my yard this time of year, not even the 3-leafed kind. But I did find some new growth in bloom.

To celebrate spring, I went for a long bike ride along the C&O Canal. Ah, spring!

1 comment:

M. Kasch said...

I'm soooo jealous of those blooms along your bike ride. Our only chance of green is the pine and spuce trees, still. As for biking- well, if I had spikes on my tires, they might fare on the ice. I think i'll wait another month, though, to catch up with you!
Happy St. Paddy's Day!