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Tilted Stones and Hibernian Snakes

Thursday 03/17/2005 10:21 AM

Previously on this blog, regarding my exploration of the fenced-in plot of land with the sunken stone markers:

"...others tilted, but they all had numbers etched in them."

Well, almost all of them have numbers. There are a few that either never had numbers, were planted upside-down or have become so time and weather-worn that there are no longer any discernable numerals on them.

Check out today's image... see how that tree has grown up next to the stone marker? This place is pretty old.

More tomorrow.


And capping off our rare (perhaps unique?) three consecutive days of holidays and holidays of sorts, we have the most well-known: St. Patrick's Day.

While the myth talks about St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland (everyone knows Ireland doesn't have the right climate for snakes), the truth of the matter is that he was on of the earliest proponents of the abolition of slavery (more than a thousand years before our country was founded). He also introduced the Irish people to the concept of the Holy Trinity by using the three-leaf clover as a metaphor. Of course, that begs the question of how they explained the rare four-leaf clover (let alone Fry's ultra-lucky seven-leaf clover from that Futurama episode).

So.... Wear green. Chase snakes. Add food dye to your eggs, peanut butter, beer, whatever. Rinse. Repeat.

Did you know that some insanely jealous Finns made up a holiday in the early 50's that is a blatant (and poorly imagined) rip-off of St. Patrick's Day? Supposedly, this St. Urho chased all the grasshoppers out of Finland and now they celebrate St. Urho's Day the day before our centuries old remembrance of Saint Patrick (who just happened to have been a real person) by wearing purple. Sound familiar?

Me thinks St. Urho must be the Finnish patron saint of plagiarism. Or drunken hallucinations. Take your pick.

How's that, Mom?

File Under: Cemeteries; Holiday; Potter's Field
Music: Astrud Gilberto "Compact Jazz: Astrud Gilberto"

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