Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day.

I don’t have any Irish blood in me that I know of; but my husband, Mike, likes to tell the story of his maternal grandmother, who was 100 percent Irish. When he was a little tyke, she would bounce him on her knee and say, “Mikey, me lad, there’s two kinds of people in this world: Thems that’s Irish and thems that wish they were.”

So maybe I do wish I were Irish, ’cause this time of year brings back some happy memories for me.

As a child, I remember every year around the first of March, Mom would go through her pile of 33⅓ records and dig out Bing Crosby’s “St. Patrick’s Day” album. A couple times a week, especially on the weekend when we were cleaning the house, she’d crank up the volume and we’d sing along with Bing. Her choices were “Did Your Mother Come From Ireland?” “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” and “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen.” My favorite was “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?” — and we could usually count on my dad joining in when it came time for “McNamara’s Band.”

We never did anything else to celebrate St. Paddy’s Day that I can remember, but most of the words to those songs are still etched into my memory and bring a smile to my face.

Jump forward lots of decades and an Aberdeen St. Patrick’s Day tradition. (The names of many “instigators” have been mentioned — I don’t remember if anyone was ever actually caught in the act, and to this day I’d love to know “the rest of the story.”) Year after year, around the middle of March, a bright green stripe would appear down the middle of North Broadway in Aberdeen. Of course there were mutterings of “who do they think they are, destroying public property” and “whoever did this should be tarred and feathered at daybreak,” but many of us Aberdonians (and maybe even some from the other side of Myrtle Street) made sure we checked out Broadway to see if a leprechaun or two had left their mark.

And, of course, what would St. Paddy’s Day be like without a dinner of corned beef along with boiled cabbage, taters, carrots and onions? And if you’re really lucky, a loaf of Irish soda bread. To this day, that’s our son’s favorite meal. Whenever we get the whole family together, we try to have corned beef at least once — and Mike always says, “Don’t forget we need one whole roast just for Tyler (our son) and Austin (our son-in-law) to share.”

* * *

Today is not only St. Patrick’s Day eve — it’s my dad’s birthday.

He was a very kind, quiet, frugal and patient man.

He went to Oberlin College in Lorain, Ohio, on a full scholarship and graduated from the Institute of Pulp and Paper Making in Wisconsin with a doctorate. He had a brilliant, scientific mind, but I never heard him flaunt it. In fact I never knew him to add the title “Dr.” to his name.

He never raised his voice, and I rarely heard him swear.

He took care of my mom for years. She struggled with debilitating migraines and mental illness — back then we called it manic/depressive disorder — and she refused to take her medication. I remember him patiently getting up in the middle of the night to prepare an ice pack to help with her headaches. Or trying to talk her down from one of her manic episodes when she’d want to go out and buy all new furniture for the house, or stay up all night scrubbing the kitchen from top to bottom. And when she was “down” and in bed for several days in a row, he fixed my brother and me Spam and eggs or fried bologna sandwiches for dinner.

He was a square dance caller and round dance instructor. He and Mom helped organize the Little Squares and Gay Ginghams clubs that met weekly in the local community center. When I was in high school, he encouraged me to invite a bunch of my friends over to the house and he taught us how to do-si-do, promenade, swing your partner, allemande left and sashay, as well as “round” dances. In fact at our 50-year class reunion in 2016, a couple of my classmates reminded me that Dad had taught us all the kind of complicated dance to “Blame it on the Bossa Nova.”

Dad started showing signs of Alzheimer’s in the mid-1990s. He moved into Channel Point for a couple of years, then Westhaven, and finally spent his last few days at Pacific Care Center. He’s been gone 13 years now, and I still miss him.

Happy Birthday, Dad, and Happy St. Patrick’s Day eve.

Karen Barkstrom, The Daily World’s editorial assistant, can be reached at 360-537-3925 or kbarkstrom@thedailyworld.com.