By Colleen Fielding
Welcome to Colleen’s Corner. This is a column meant for fun and some information About myself: I am a Freelance Photographer you often see me on the side of the road or in various places taking photos of different things animals, birds, places, people etc. l have lived in Lumby just over 8 years you have seen my photos in the newspaper (Lumby Valley Times) and once in awhile in the Vernon Morning Star, and the Lumby Art Gallery. Photography is my passion. Disclaimer: The information on some of my photos that I write about a lot of times come from the Internet or books I research them, hopefully the facts are as close to the truth as I can come.
Here it is again St. Patrick’s Day, and of course here is a picture of my favorite Leprechaun (lobaircin) Which actually means small bodied fellow, oops, not quite, obviously Tim is an anomaly.
St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated around the world in Canada, the USA, Australia, Japan, Russia, Singapore and of course Ireland with parades, parties, pub crawls, food, and a lot of laughs.
In Chicago they add a dye to their river to color it green. In 1962 city pollution workers would use dye to help them trace the illegal sewage that was discharged into the river. What a great way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, they thought. Getting 100 pounds of green vegetable dye and putting it into the river this amount helped to keep the river green for about a week. Now to help minimize environmental damage they now only use 40 pounds instead of 100. The green river only stays green for a couple of hours instead of a week.
St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland was always viewed as a spiritual and religious day. Irish law had mandated that their pubs would be closed on March 17; this law was changed in the 1970’s. The pubs are open to the public now which is great for the tourist season.
In Ireland they never call it St. Paddy’s Day. It is either St.Patrick’s Day or Paddy’s Day.
Whatever you choose to do for St. Patrick’s Day, have some fun, wear your green, and if you happen to see the tall Leprechaun out and about, don’t bother to ask him where his pot of gold is as that was spent a long time ago hahaha.