St. Patricks Day Festivities
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Whoa! This has been a quick year. Seems like St. Patricks Day 2009 was just last week and here it is again!
It seems that no one celebrates on the actual day any more though for some reason. On Saturday I went to 2 parades. One in Oak Forest, and the other in the Brookside Glen subdivision in Tinley Park. It was raining for both of them. But on the upside, my camera still seems to work and my bags will eventually dry out.
The parade in Oak Forest was a total surprise. I have lived in and around there for most of my life and cannot remember them having a parade on Cicero Avenue since I was a little kid. This year, they closed Cicero and put on a great parade! Even in the drizzling rain a boatload of people showed up. I thought that was very cool.
The parade itself was impressive. 90+ floats and lasted over an hour. It had everything you could ask for….Irish dancers, local businesses of all kinds, some good looking floats, politicians, and sheep. There were all kinds of things going on after the parade at the local pubs and restaurants too. Pretty cool if you ask me. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. I really hope that they keep doing this. It was the best thing Oak Forest has done in years. A tip of the hat to them!
I then headed out to Tinley Park to shoot the 2nd annual Brookside Glen parade. This is a fun one too. They started it last year as a community parade with the focus on the kids having fun. Each family makes up a banner with their family name and everyone gets dressed up in their Irish best. A lot of families get involved and parade through the neighborhood. Pretty neat. And they even had the Mayor and a firetruck involved to make it a real parade! After the parade, everyone meets over at the Gibbons house for some corned beef and beverage of their choice. Like the Oak Forest parade, a job well done and everyone had a good time despite the weather!
Sunday was the Tinley Park parade. This one is always fun. And no rain today! Just a little windy but no biggy. Lots of floats and cool things to see. For years we have set up camp in front of Carls Barbershop and this year was no different. The barbershop had a little party going on and Brewski was there to keep an eye on everyone. It seemed like everyone was having a good time. After the parade I took a stroll uptown to see what was going on and everything was packed. I’m sure the businesses loved that!
Well, that was my weekend! 2 days, 3 parades, and lots of fun. I’m headed off to the lazy boy…this fun stuff is exhausting!