St. Patrick’s Day 2018

It is impossible at this time of year not to think of my mother, who was Irish to her core, in ways both good and bad. She was a Cavanagh, and it was she who took me by the hand to my very first St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which also happened to be the first to be held on State Street.This was in 1956, and I don’t remember, though can logically assume, that new Mayor Richard J. Daley led the parade. But I have always remembered something my mother told me that day.

She was not smiling as were the hundreds around us as the parade passed, and when I asked, “Why aren’t you happy?” she said, “The Irish have not always had a happy time of it.” ChicagoTribunme