Originally Posted by Chula Vista

I'm going to be 100% serious for a bit.

I grew up in the Merrimack Valley in northeast Mass. I have very vivid memories from the late 60s and early 70s of St. Patrick's day. That entire area was made up of immigrants, or decendants of immigrants from mostly Italian, Irish, and French Canadian heritage. By then, the three cultures had spent enough time working and living together that there were really no lines anymore.

Every St. Patrick's day a bunch of the grown-ups would organize a huge dinner at a local American Legion hall. Between adults and kids we're talking upwards of a hundred people all celebrating together. The wives all manned the kitchen and corned beef and cabbage with carrots and potatoes overflowed.

Gallons of beer, great music, dancing, way too much second hand cigarette smoke, and eventually, the alpha males trying to one up each other with boilermakers (drop a shot of whiskey into a beer and then chug it) would end the night and somehow we'd end up home and safe instead of wrapped around a telephone pole.

It was as big as Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter.

Snark all you want, but it was a really big thing. There's still some of that left to this day.