Incidentally, while I’m thinking about it, I wanted to wish all of you a happy holiday. This is a very important holiday in heavily Irish Catholic Boston and it is observed with religious intensity.
That’s right. It’s .... Evacuation Day. Say what? Yes, March 17 is not just the feast of St. Patrick. By happy coincidence, on this date in 1776, the British siege of Boston was lifted, and thus in Suffolk County, which includes the City of Boston, it is a municipal holiday on which government employees get the day off. After all, you can’t very well have St. Patrick’s Day be a government holiday with having the ACLU climbing down your throat, no matter how tenuous the religious connection.
And so in any year that March 17 falls on a weekday, you’ll find municipal employees of Boston in the parades and pubs with everyone else who called in sick or took a vacation day or blew off school.
What a weird state I live in.
