Happy St. Patrick's Day

Okay, I know I previously blogged about how I "just don't understand" St. Patrick's Day.

What I'd been annoyed by was the mindless drinking, guzzling of Shamrock Shakes, and meat market Mardi Gras-esque street festivals related to the holiday. There is no confusion about Irish folklore, which is pretty cool, as are the Irish people I know, and musical groups like The Clancy Brothers, whom I'm listening to as I type this, though technically I need to be job-seeking, and I will do that in exactly seven minutes. Resume powers, activate! Blogging addiction, die!!

Today is the *actual* day of St. Patrick, vs getting ye pint or two or three of Guiness on days in advance of SPD, so overall I am feeling festive in my green shirt. The breeze coming through the open windows feels great, too.

The album pictured here was purchased at an estate sale that kind of had an unhappy ending. I brought home some sort of bug infestation that most likely stemmed from some of the "treasures," which had been in an Irish American family's basement for decades.

This family, whom have a very Irish actual name, and whom for privacy reasons I've renamed "The Neckhams," had an unfortunate history, and I wonder why the luck o' the Irish was not upon them.

All three Neckham children died before their parents. The son, at age 31 or 32, died of a heart attack. He'd been a music teacher in Madison, and his flowy, airy, somewhat feminine signature had been scrawled onto opera, and classical sheet music in the basement. The daughter, middle child, was married in a Lutheran church (her wedding program was tucked into another book on the bookshelf), moved to California, and came back to the Chicago suburbs after her divorce. Her ex-husband had sued her for mental cruelty, per the man that ran the estate sale, and whom I heard the Neckham story from. Shortly after moving back home, the daughter died at age 32 or 33 of cervical cancer.

The youngest Neckham child, the one whose name was scrawled onto the Disney records, and other children's music (the family seemed to have loved music, and books, judging by the amount of both that they had), committed suicide at age 18.

The Neckham mother died about 10 years ago. She owned a lot of "men, can't live with em, or without him" type of knick-knacks, and had an extremely practical wardrobe. The kind of woman that preferred loafers to pumps. Mr. Neckham, the patriarch whom died in his 80s, alone, in a cluttered, dusty house full of an impressive amount of "stuff," had a closet full of hats in mint condition, blazers of sorts of fabrics, wing-tips, and fancy walking canes.

I attempted- poorly- to write fiction about the family based on what I knew from the man that ran the sale, though at some point I might revisit it. Right now, though, I'm just about to turn the Clancy Brothers over, and eat a traditional Irish lunch of fish, minus the chips. Guiness might be in my future, too. Hopefully no itching, and bugs, though. I'm itching just thinking about that bad luck from what would have otherwise been a good thrifting experience.