Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 203
We’re o’dyein’
the Santa Clara
River green
S
o, tomorrow is St.
Patrick’s Day. Sure
and begorrah. But,
in case you haven’t noticed, our celebrations of
the holiday here in the
SCV pale by comparison
to other U.S. cities. Take
Chicago, for example.
Those folks take their St.
Patrick’s Day celebrating
seriously, with a massive
parade and, I hear, green
beer sold on every street
corner. Enforcing the celebration there this year will
be a stepped up campaign
of arrests for public sobriety. And, as always, one of
the most blatant signs of
the celebrating of St. Pat-
Jim
Walker
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
rick’s Day in Chicago will
be when they dye the Chicago River green.
Now, as I understand it,
it only takes 40 pounds of
food coloring to dye that
river green for a few hours.
See WALKER, A5
Walker: Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by dyeing the river green
Continued from A1
Forty lousy pounds of
food coloring.
I mean, come on City
Council, where’s your spirit? How much could it cost
to bring this kind of highbrow joy to the SCV. With
40 pounds of food coloring,
we could jazz up our Santa Clara River all the way
from Sand Canyon Road to
Magic Mountain. And once
that happens, bagpipers will
spontaneously pop up out
of the bushes along the river banks, local marching
bands will swarm down out
of the hills, firemen will
show up, parading in organized ranks in their dress
uniforms — and the girls of
the Tilted Kilt will lead us
to the promised land, you
know, somewhere over on
Town Center Drive.
Think of the joy we will
bring to all the local soccer
moms and little children, to
the homeless folks camping in the wash and, especially, to several endangered
species, whose days are normally so dull.
I mean, sticklebacks enjoy the wearin’ o’ the green
as much as the next guy, and
this way we bring it to ’em.
And, on the practical
side, think of the tax revenue generated by green beer
sales at every street corner along Soledad Canyon
Road.
It’s win-win for everyone,
my friends.
All we need is a heavy
rain tomorrow — and, I kid
you not, the weather report
says that is actually going to
happen.
It’s the luck o’ the Irish.
Now, to get you in the
mood for our green river St.
Pat’s celebration, here I of-
fer up some old Irish wisdom, proverbs and stuff:
As you slide down the
banister of life, may the
splinters never point in the
wrong direction.
A good word never
broke a tooth.
A man takes a drink,
the drink takes a drink, the
drink takes the man.
Everyone is wise, until
he speaks.
Many times a man’s
mouth broke his nose.
It is often a man’s
tongue cut his throat.
Nodding the head does
not row the boat.
You’ll never plow a
field by turning it over in
your mind.
If it’s got badly, it will
go badly.
Good judgment comes
from bad experience —
and a lot of that comes
from bad judgment.
May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve
been, the foresight to know
where you’re going and the
insight to know when you’re
going too far.
There is nothing so bad
that it couldn’t be worse.
A man who moralizes
is usually a hypocrite, and
a woman who moralizes is
usually plain.
If you want praise, die.
If you want blame, marry.
A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished.
There is no cure for
love, other than marriage.
Bigamy is having one
wife too many. Marriage is
the same.
When you marry your
mistress, you create a job
vacancy.
And, finally, a rhyme:
A limerick packs
laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite
economical.
But the good ones I’ve
seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
So, tomorrow morning, at 10 a.m., I fully expect to be standing on the
Sand Canyon Bridge with
my 40 pounds of green dye
and a small bill for the city.
The rest is up to you, people. Are we going to do this
right or what?
Erin go bragh, bro.
And, please … neither
The Signal, nor Jim Walker actually advocates dyeing the river. This is just for
fun. Comment at jwalker@
the-signal.com or at http://
Twitter.com/DontSeriously.
