People thronging downtown streets make Hartford feel alive. As I rolled my bike down Main Street, I marveled at the faces crowding MDC's plaza watching the celebration.

I finally settled on my friend's front stoop, cracked open the traditional beer and studied the marching bands, unionists, radio stations, beauty queens, Shriners in funny cars, fire departments, police officers, honorary marshals, ambulance crews, and dance schools marching on.

The waving politicians and the clowns (or do I repeat myself?) show that people forget their differences at the parade. It is easier to have a good time if we aren't reminded of the ills of our society. So, now that the hangover is gone, let's analyze.

Speech seems a restricted commodity in the St. Pattie's Parades. While commercial sponsors like for-profit radio stations are allowed (perhaps they pay the police overtime costs?), parade organizers shun certain groups. Although I think Klansmen would look ridiculous in green, neither the KKK, nor gays, Nazis, and anti-war protesters would ever be welcomed.

I learned a few years ago to leave the peace sentiment at home. In March 2003, I taped two signs saying "Irish Against the War" onto my arms and slid my bicycle into the parade route between a few fire trucks on Trumbull Street.

In front of Black Eyed Sally's, "patriots" pelted me with plastic orange juice bottles and mini chocolate donuts. The cops finally pulled me out of the parade on Capital Avenue, but I thought we needed a voice in the parade to counter the extreme militarism of the parade.

That same year, I saw Mike McGarry with a lance demonstrating how the Irish would use said weapon to slice the reins and slits the throats of invading British horses.

"Arrrggghh," he said, I think.

This year, I saw the same: little boys on the sidewalks playing with toy guns while big men marched in uniforms carrying real rifles. Young people in fife and drum bands honored the New England minutemen, and the Korean War Veterans reminded us that freedom isn't free.

But like John Cleese in "Fawlty Towers", "Don't mention the war!" Or consider the fossil fuels used in such celebration. Mind you, I've been on public buses in other countries that ran out of gas with a full load of passengers. How would we react to that here?

Certainly, our community deserves a parade; reasons for pride exist. One float reminded us how the human spirit can endure tragedy like the Great Irish Famine. The float's visual - a Red Coat with a flintlock rifle drinking beer while children and women dressed in rags sat around a burning house made me think of armies plundering and raping and while we tried to laugh on the stoop, I felt glum.

That glum feeling carried to Uncle Sam, too. He led a contingent of some marching group. He dressed in a blue and white jacket with red striped pants, and with the white goatee. But I only saw images from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Forget that though, the Uptown Jug Band from Pennsylvania marched like it was Mardi Gras. And the Carpenters' Union tossed pencils to the crowd. The white Steelworkers stood on an I-beam while all but one of the black steelworkers sat on the back of the float.

Pointing that out isn't polite, nor would it be nice for the Teamsters to put a big sign on their float as they passed United Technologies headquarters: "We'll build war machines for better health benefits!"

In another time, big boss man simply said "Guinness is good for you!"

Heck, even a cotton candy hawker on Saturday carried a Guinness and an open Budweiser in her one hand, the cotton candy in her other. In the parade, Budweiser sponsored trucks, people drank on floats, one float was even a pub.

But as my friends and I finished our lagers and discussed where to continue our drinking, we disagreed if a pair of cops one a sargeant - from the Hartford Police Department should have taken Jell-O shots in front of us. The cops were slick, grabbing the Dixie cups and sliding them under their coffee cups before shooting the drinks and crumpling the cups.

But uniformed officers aren't allowed to consume alcohol. And I know I'm poaching on somebody's livelihood here, but suppose those nasty terrorists, or someone with a readily available semi-automatic machine gun, opened fire on that part of the parade. Am I happy that those officers just ingested a shot of alcohol?

No, but this is America, the worst country in the world except for all the others. And one day, we will learn to govern ourselves despite ourselves. Perhaps by seeing our hypocrisy laid bare, by coming to terms with our human frailties, we can evolve into a more peaceful culture.

3/13/06

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Stoopin' at the Parade