Today we went to the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in South Boston, reportedly the second biggest of its kind in the country (after NYC), expected to attract about 1 million spectators. I hadn’t been to the parade in a number of years, usually because the weather is inevitably bad, and I don’t feel the need to honor my sliver of Irish ancestry by facing a sidewalk crush of thousands upon thousands of drunk, rowdy Southie residents and their South Shore emulators all decked out in festive Irish-themed hats and jewelry, with a drizzly cold rain to top it off. That is exactly what we wound up doing, but at least I was mentally prepared.
We took the subway to South Boston and arrived at 12:15. The parade starts at 1pm, and already the sidewalks were jammed and the lines outside of the bars were long with people eager to pay a $20 cover charge to go inside and drink themselves blind. We walked about a mile down West Broadway and staked out on a curb on a hill. The crowd thickened with beverage-sipping revelers, and residents began appearing in their windows and rooftops.
The parade started with a caravan of Boston Fire Department trucks, blaring their sirens and horns at unsafe decibels. Then the Police Department came along on every imaginable type of vehicle: Motorcycles, cruisers, paddy wagons, specialized bomb squad vehicles, boats, horses, and bicycles. I’m not sure if this terrifying show of force is meant to instill civic pride in the crowd, or subdue any drunken mayhem that may be brewing.
After a few local organizations and politicians ambled by with simple banners, the marching bands and bagpipe brigades began to appear. By then, our prime location was overrun by a large family (ages 15 to 50, I’d say) drinking beer out of green Solo cups and jollily screaming at each other. We hung around a bit longer, then started the suffocating walk back to the subway station. I wanted to get out of there before the widespread puking started.
