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Health & Fitness

Coffee House Bastard: The Day of Patrick The Saint

Who is Saint Patrick and what's with the snakes?

A green, rain-filled, and happy Saint Patrick’s Day to you, Studio City.

Growing up Irish with the first name of Patrick, there was always a responsibility for me each time March 17th rolled around--which was--how many free drinks would I oblige before I was passed out, mumbling into a bowl of soup at the bar.   Free kisses and shots of whiskey would roll my way each year, because I was Patrick, local representative of the great Saint Patrick--the patron saint of Ireland--dressed from head to toe in green.  Each year, I would face the crowd in some Irish Bar--and as soon as word of my name got around--the shots--they did indeed roll my way.

These days I no longer drink, as I lost my drinking card many years ago, and yes, it is true that we Irish are quite good at holding our liquor (I once fell down a whole flight of stairs but managed to keep my cup of beer from spilling), but I do, at times, feel on this day a great mischaracterization of the Irish.

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I will agree that the finest whiskies and bourbons in the world do come from the Emerald Isle, but so have a lot of great and noble folk.  And yes, I am going to officially debunk the story of St. Patrick standing on a large hill, banishing the evil snakes of Ireland with his Staff of Fire into the ocean to drown themselves, and in return, saving the Irish from painful ankle bites.   There have never been any snakes in Ireland and Saint Patrick became its patron saint primarily for converting many of the once pagan-worshipping Irish into Christians.

Seven years ago, I traveled to Ireland to visit (for the first time) all of my Uncles, Great Aunts, and Cousins who I had only seen in pictures.  I met my Uncle John, my cousin Damien, my Aunt Patricia, and a slew of pale-faced, eternally smirking, Irish descendents.  We stayed in the village of Feeny in Northern Ireland, where many of the people from my small clan come.  I strolled through a cemetery where each and every gravestone was marked by the surname HASSON (and each spelled correctly, mind you, not a HANSON in the bunch).  I felt the tension in the car as we drove through the streets of East Londonderry as the English where preparing for their Orangemen’s Day celebrations, which certainly did nothing to extinguish the rising thoughts of the Troubles that were certainly rolling through the minds of my extended family.

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Shortly thereafter, we made it to the Old Bushmills Distillery in County Antrim.  For almost 400 years, this brick and stone artifice has been making some of the greatest Irish whiskey known to civilization.  Since this was in the days prior to my drinking card being revoked, my sister and I sat down after the lovely tour to do a whiskey tasting with about twenty other merry souls.  The two important facts I learned from my whiskey tasting experience--there are A LOT of varieties of Irish whiskey, and like the French and their wines, the Irish don’t take kindly to leaving a half-empty glass of the finest whiskey in the world.  It’s easier to drink it down then to have to hear all the comments about the ‘soft Irish Americans and their delicate palates.’

By the time we reached Giant’s Causeway, walking across its almost impossible, six-sided columns blasting out of the water, I had an incredible realization.  Yes, I was drunk, but I was also walking across the album cover of the greatest rock album every made--Led Zeppelin’s 'Houses of the Holy.'  The only thing that was missing were the young albino girls and the sky of fire.  The place was really incredible--over 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption, protruding in varying lengths right out of the earth at the edge of the sea courtesy of Mother Nature.  Small pools of water housing sea life in almost each tip of every column.  This place gave the Grand Canyon a run for its money.

So as we drove down to County Mayo to see the rest of my people, I asked my Aunt Patricia why they called it ‘Giant’s Causeway’ and soon was spun into the tale of Finn McCool, a giant Irish warrior who had built the causeway so he could walk to Scotland and fight his counterpart, Benandonner.  But before Finn made it to Scotland, he fell asleep on the Causeway and when he did not arrive, the much larger Benadonner went looking for him.  To protect Finn, his wife laid a blanket over him (why she didn't just wake him up I don't know) to make it seem that it was Finn’s infant son under the blanket, which in turn, made Benadonner think that if that was his son, Finn must be massive.  Seeing this, Benadonner fled all the way back to Scotland, destroying most of the Causeway on his return so Finn could not follow.

By the time we reached Croagh Patrick in County Mayo (the famed hill that St. Patrick shooed the snakes from), I realized that I had been ‘Finn McCooled.’  In fact, every legend and story I had inquired about, I had been given a colorful, adventure-filled tale of how this or that came about.  About three hours later, my sister and I had made it to the top of Croagh Patrick where stood a lone white church in the clouds, high above the greenlands and Atlantic Ocean.  I was standing on my birthright--and by all intents and purposes--the origin of my name.

I was Patrick Hasson, originally from both Feeny and County Mayo, Ireland, and later, the City of Philadelphia.  I was from a tiny country that spawned some of the greatest and most creative minds in literature, theater, art, music, filmmaking, and most importantly, storytelling.  I realized that I knew less about Ireland than when I had arrived, and that was the way it was to be.  The Irish may be a lot of things, but for certain, they are a witty clan spread throughout the world to keep our spirits up with their humor, wit, and unbelievable tales of misadventure.

Now, if you really want to know the real truth about the Irish and why we celebrate on this day of days...I’ll tell you.  First off, the Irish invented grass.  Which, naturally, is why their isle is inundated with it.  Which makes perfect sense why they invented golf and claimed copyrights on the color green.  The Irish were the first to fly to the moon (the Leprechauns were just a myth to throw people off, much like the US military does with UFOs).  We invented the whiskey and we invented the wit--and if you lassies are lucky enough to find yourself a Patrick tonight, kiss him on the cheek and you will be the recipient of twenty coins of gold, to be found five days after the kiss occurs (look under the floorboard in your closet...the one you never noticed before).

Studio City, have a fantastic St. Patrick’s Day, stay Finn McCool with the drink, and remember, today everyone has a story to tell.

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