“Tis a wee bit soft out”, was Anne’s summation of the weather this morning. “It’s froggy out”, was mine. A bit of the ole country’s weather, on this fine Saint Patrick’s Day.
The fog burned off and we were left with the prospect of not one, but two St. Patty’s Day parades. Really three, but who’s counting? We chose the Hibernian, or Dogtown, parade over the downtown one. It is the more authentic of the two. It alway’s occurs on St. Pat’s Day and not just a neighboring Saturday, like the downtown one does. For you out-of-towners, Dogtown adjoins the southern side of Forest Park and is so named, because during the Fair, this is where the animals were housed. In related news, the zoo bought the old Deconess site and plans on expanding south of the highway. It already has a toehold with Turtle Park.
We biked to the parade. It was only 5 miles roundtrip, but we dodged much of the traffic and didn’t need to find a parking place. We got there early enough to get front row seats. We were bracketed on either side by little kids along the rails. They all got way more candy and beads than anyone else. Even the two loud and probably drunk guys behind us couldn’t out score them. Even though they yelled, “You! You! You!”, at every passing bead thrower. We knew that it was time to leave when the rain began. We ended up riding home in it, dodging cars, drunks and lightning.
About this time, you might be wondering about the title. The green is clear enough, but what’s with the white? Well, this is March and there is a certain madness in the air. Maybe the pall that sat upon Saint Louis this morning, wasn’t fog. It could have been a mourning shroud, it wore so well. Mizzou was upset by lowly Norfolk State (We don’t drink and we don’t smoke, Norfolk, Norfolk, Norfolk U). These come from out of nowhere upsets, is what makes the tournament exciting. It is just more exciting, if it happens to someone else. I point out that Norfolk’s team is the Spartans.
The other pertinent upset from the first round, is Michigan’s loss to Ohio. Not Ohio State, they’re doing fine, but who cares? Ohio’s Bobcats wear green and white. Those are the colors, but not the team I was thinking about, when I titled this post. I am referring to the Michigan State Spartans, Anne’s and my alma mater. They dispatched Brooklyn in the first round. Brooklyn? Who knew? Tomorrow the Spartans face SLU, Saint Louis’s last hope. Maybe the game will be on TV. Monday, will we read, “SLU slew the Spartans”? Hope not. Go Green! Go White!! Victory for MSU!!!
awwe cuttee!!!
OK – what I was going to say was that Rey had both MSU and SLU, so would win either way.But he would probably fare better in the long run with MSU. (And some other inane stuff about basketball.)
I finally posted on my site by logging in to WordPress, and then posted again, but logged out during the comment phase. This seemed to make it happy. Who knows.