The Paddy bandwagon

June's especially pukey today. Happy St. Patrick's Day indeed.

Sure, I'm of Irish (among other nationalities) heritage, but I never cared much for St. Patrick's Day. I think college soured me on it. All those kids named Caputo and Agnelli getting hammered and wearing "Kiss Me I'm Irish" tee shirts and shamrock antenna headbands sorta just makes you want to wear black and stay inside. So I did.

Chicago fancies itself an Irish city, what with the Daleys and the green-dyed river and Beverly, but I never took part in any festivities while living there. Correction, there was one pub crawl (in Oak Park) but that's it. Never did a parade, never wore green, never even went to see the radioactive-looking river. I sipped vodka and acted superior. Ha.

I would snootily think, "what do you people know of being Irish?" I had seen the family farm, visited relatives and had an Irish girl as a best friend. Your last name is Murphy? You're 34.5% Irish? Big frigging deal.

What a little brat I was.

I am very proud of being (mostly) Irish. I like that kinship, that shared history and the legacy of music and storytelling. Spoose, a first generation Irish-American, certainly had a lot to do with that (Ask him about his late father-in-law and likely he'll reply with this epithet: "George, that English son of a bitch." The resentment still runs deep). More influential however was practically living with the O'Driscolls for a good chunk of my childhood. Pauline and Finbarr were Cork natives living in Kerry with their four kids when a job transfer brought them to Illinois in 1983. Trish will tell you that it was like descending on another planet. One without "loos" and "bins." Terrifying.

The four kids -- Ronan, Tracey, Tricia and Barry -- were all either within one year or the same age as us. Immediately there was a strong familiarity. But it was around third grade that Trish and I got freakishly close. I remember playing in their pool (yes, they had a pool), doing our "it's better in the Bahamas" routine, when Trish emerged from under water and said, "You're my best friend." I blinked hard to see through the chlorine and then sunk back into the deep end, at a loss of how to reply. It seemed like such a big commitment, having a best friend, and I wasn't sure if I was ready for it.

Like anyone apprehensive about getting hurt in a relationship, I sat on it for 24 hours. The next day we were back in the pool having a canonball contest. It was a convenient foil for my nerves, all that splashing. I swatted a leaf off the water and dove in.

"You're my best friend, too."

From then on we were inseparable -- the gruesome twosome, Walter and Cecilia, Trish and Ker. We even had our portrait taken together -- at arguably the most heinous stage two kids could ever go through. (It hung in an ornate gilt frame in their Barefield dining room until recently.) The poor O'Driscolls -- like they didn't have enough on their plates with four kids, there was this awkward preteen eating them out of Micro Magic french fries and home lurking about damn near constantly. I remember one instance having to borrow underwear from Tricia because I had spent so many consecutive days under their roof. If I recall, they said "Tuesday" but I was wearing them on a Sunday. It wasn't unusual that I would return home with an accent and a loaf of soda bread under my arm.

The Irish get a bad rap for being bland eaters and unimaginative dressers, but I credit the O'Driscolls with introducing me to, among other things, onions, pistachio nuts, kiwis and accessorizing. Trish always had a snazzy vest and a brooch to cap an outfit, Tracey had that amazing "Florida" crop top with fringe, and Mrs. O'Driscoll had a dress that was comprised entirely of sequins. It was stored in a garment bag in their guest room, and Trish and I would unzip it and stare, fantasizing about what it must be like to wear such a treasure. The light from the window would hit the dress and send prisms of color onto the navy blue comforters on the twin beds, dazzling us. It was the most glamorous thing I had ever seen.

There was also art. Ronan had a poster in his bedroom of a Salvador Dali painting where a robot on a post-apocalyptic landscape was zapping the clothes right off a woman. I remember staring at it and it feeling so illicit.

Then there was Ron of Japan, "The Gods Must Be Crazy," Queen, Chaka Khan and Mayfair magazine. I did a lot of growing up on Pine Tree Lane.

When they moved back to Ireland when I was 12, I was devastated. My best friend was an ocean away, and with her a family I loved almost as much as my own. Trish and I shared esoteric interests, a language and practically strains of DNA. People would mistake us for sisters. We were abnormally close for kids -- we felt like a couple of quirky outsiders that didn't need an inside as long as we had each other.

I remember Trish calling me to break the news that they were leaving two months earlier than expected. I hung up on her. As if it were her decision.

But you've got to hand it to a couple of kids in the pre-digital age. We wrote to each other unceasingly, indulged in the occasional international phone call, and shared visits on a near annual basis. My first international flight was to see her a couple months after she moved. I was terrified, as I suffered a psycho degree of motion sickness. I'd get so worried about throwing up that I'd start throwing up weeks before even leaving the house. It was pathetic. Anyway, the need to see Trish trumped all my irrational fears.

I drove a tractor on that trip, chased loosed bullock back into a field after a lightning storm blew out an electric fence, dangled my feet off a cliff, and didn't throw up once. It changed that 12-year-old girl.

Years later when I was studying abroad in Paris, a debilitating attack of homesickness left me depressed and physically ill. I flew to Ireland to be with the O'Driscolls at Trinaderry for emotional and physical convalescence. It changed that 20-year-old girl.

Trish and her husband Dave will be here to visit in exactly one month and I cannot wait to see her. And for June, young as she is, to get her first brush with O'Driscoll greatness.

Greg, who is also part Irish, has never been there, and we've talked about how it would be a good trip to take with June while she's young. They both know so much about me, but they don't know this about me. That needs to change.

It's funny to think that June doesn't have that same potency of Irish blood running through her, not that it matters. If anything I'm grateful that she may not need to sheep-dip herself in SPF 1000 to walk to the mailbox. But I do hope she can appreciate that little part of her. And that maybe she'll be lucky enough to have a Trish of her own to help her along.

In the meantime, today she'll be wearing black. Like her mom.