Editor’s note: Jeanette Cheezum has been published on several online writing sites and in eleven Anthology books and Vox Poetica’s Inspiration Collections 1 and 2 Words and Images and recently released Love Be Write. Three of these books have made the New York Times Best Sellers list. Awarded The Helium Networks Premium Writer’s Badge, Bronze Creative Writing Award and a Marketplace Writers award; a semi-finalist in the Verb’s Dynamic Dialogue Contest.
This piece ran last year at OTW and is worthy of a revisit.
St. Patrick’s Day
By Jeanette Cheezum
It’s said that St. Patrick is a patron saint of Ireland. A huge portion of the world has always celebrated this day with the Irish. When I was a child, if we didn’t wear green, the boys would pinch us in elementary school. By the time I reached junior high, the boys would try to kiss us.
(There is always room for change as time goes on).
Wearing of the green, parades, shamrock races, cabbage and corned beef and green Guinness at our local pubs, isn’t that’s what it’s all about? Apparently not– We celebrate St. Patrick and all he strives for on March seventeenth. The Irish celebrated the day when he left for the great beyond.
At the age of sixteen Maewyn Succcat, a Brit, was kidnapped by the Celtics and basically put into slavery as a sheep herder for six years. He was kept secluded. Lonely and afraid he turned to religion. Then one night God came to him in a dream. Maewyn planned his escape; he’d walk a couple of hundred miles to the coast to study religion abroad. Once in England he changed his name to Patriius, and studied for fifteen years. Irish history says he became a spiritual man with visions.
At the age of sixty, once again he changed his name to Patrick and returned to Ireland. He had a unique and gentle way about him and was able to convert the Irish from paganism. Since the Irish had worshiped the sun, he superimposed a sun on a Christian cross which became the Celtic cross. Down through the centuries we’re told that he was able to scare the snakes out of Ireland. Although it’s reported that this took place during the ice age. So, were there really snakes in Ireland?
No matter, let’s dye our hair, wear green and drink ale of the same color. If not celebrating for these reasons, then celebrate with my husband and me on March seventeenth, because it’s our thirty-second wedding anniversary. And that’s no fairytale.
