The wearing of the green

This past weekend brought a touch of ol' Eire to the Midwest, as the Irish Fair unleashed its Gaelic sports teams, Irish step dancers, and potato boilers on the otherwise Scandahoovian Twin Cities. There were many a red head to be seen, while the native dogs of Ireland received adoring pats and the verses of "The Star of County Down" drifted over the crowd. 'Twas a scene so sweet, 'twould have brought a tear to my grandmother Agnes's eye, God bless her soul.

The festivities also brought to mind the trip to Ireland I took last year. Here's what made the trip so memorable:
• going with my beloved, who knows everything about medieval Christianity and loves Jacob's Digestives for all the right reasons.
• being served three different kinds of potatoes with dinner, without making any special requests
• the dark but sparkling humor of the people of the west. As the car repair man said to me upon seeing the gash my partner and I put in the tiny tire of our micro-car while driving on the rugged roads of the rugged western coast (cliched, but true: the coast is rugged), "It's always something."
• seeing the faces of people who look just like my father, my grandfather, and my grandmother

At its most Irish, the Dickinsonian oracle ruminates:

Life, and Death, and Giants -
Such as These - are still -
Minor - Apparatus - Hopper of the Mill -
Beetle at the Candle -
Or a Fife's Fame -
Maintain - by Accident that they proclaim -