St. Patrick's Day

Saint Patrick’s Day is approaching and I will celebrate along with everyone else. I have a fondness for the Irish. The current Mrs. Trout is half-Irish for starters and we start each morning with a bowl of magically delicious Lucky Charms. I then shower with Irish Spring soap while listening to my favorite Irish musicians. Jim Morrison for instance. I have downloaded so much U2, the O’Jays, and Sinead O’Connor that I can hardly lift my MP3 anymore and

my cell phone rings to the harmonious melody of bagpipes. I even encouraged Mammy to audition for the local production of “Schuylkill Riverdance” which in now playing at The Santander (formerly Sovereign) Majestic Theatre. Sadly, she was not built for clog dancing and did not make the cut. She will stick to cooking scrapple which we have every morning with our Lucky Charms.
Then there are the entertainers such as Edgar Bergen and his sidekick, Charlie McCarthy, just to name but a few. I love them all.
I also admire the Irish contributions to our political process. For instance Mayor McCheese. I am not talking about former Scranton Mayor Jim McNulty, who is great on WYOU Sunday mornings. I am talking about the chief executive of McDonaldland. Does anyone know what happened to him? He cleaned up the streets of McDonaldland during his tenure and got rid of the Hamburglar. Maybe he could clean up Shenandoah.

I am also a fan of St. Patrick, the man and the legend, and know quite a bit about him. Let me share the information with you.
Last summer, I too had trouble with snakes in my backyard. Apparently a snake found its way down Sharp Mountain and onto my property. The snake became rather pesky and my old lady stepped on it while hanging the wash one sunny Monday afternoon. She immediately dropped her clothespins and notified the Pottsville police. With the help of their sketch artist, the snake was identified as a garter snake. Although it was not the Anaconda we feared, Mammy wanted the snakes out of our yard.
“What does my snake problem have to do with St. Patrick?” you may ask. Well, I had heard that St. Patrick was famous for driving the snakes out of Ireland and I thought to myself “if he could drive the snakes out of an island, then I could drive them out of my yard.”
“How did he get them in his car?” “Where did he drive them to?” “How would I ever get them into my SUV?” “Where would I go with them?” These were just a few of the questions that I had to answer.
I went to the Pottsville Library and checked out every book on St. Patrick and began reading. I found out that Pat was born in Britain, the son of a Roman official. His birth name was Maewyn Succat. I am glad that he changed his name, and I am sure the thousands of men named Patrick are grateful too. At the age of sixteen, Irish pirates kidnapped him. There were no “amber alerts” or photographs on milk cartons in the Fifth century. Life was cheap back then. He was kept as a slave for 6 years before fleeing and becoming a cleric in France. Later he returned to Ireland and converted the place to Christianity, driving everywhere to preach for thirty years. He did drive and is today known as the patron saint of Engineers. However his vehicle of choice was a chariot and not a locomotive, which had not been invented yet. His death occurred on March 17th, 493. Yes March 17th is the anniversary of his death. I doubt that many realize this as Patrick is largely overlooked on the anniversary of his death, pushed aside by the hoopla involving leprechauns and green beer.
As for the snakes, I learned that it was in the Mountain Croagh Patrick supposedly rang his bell and drove those serpents off the island and into the sea. Ireland today has no venomous snakes whatsoever. So maybe it is true, there is a humane way to get rid of them.

I later tried several different bells in my yard without any success. Despite my ringing for hours, the garter snake remained and my yard became overrun with neighborhood children looking for the Mr. Softee ice cream truck. Now I was confronted with two types of unwanted pests.