Requested by Helen Forbus Salter of Thomaston By Quimby Melton Two important days are on the calendar for next week and their bright good cheer are coming none too soon. The Irish and their friends will celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day on Saturday, March 17 and the first official day of spring will arrive on Tuesday, March 20. Both are cheerful occasions in themselves, and both bring promise of bright times ahead. Patrick was born to prominent Christian parents in Britain about 389 A.D. He was kidnapped, sold into slavery in Ireland, escaped, returned to Britain, then voluntarily went back to Ireland to convert it to Christianity. Tradition says he founded about 300 churches, baptized 120,000 people and became Saint Patrick. The shamrock is the national flower of Ireland and people all over the world will wear it or something to simulate it on Saint Patrick’s Day. It is a clover which Patrick himself is said to have planted in Ireland because its three leaves represent the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Here is an Irish blessing I’ve always liked and enjoy repeating, especially on Saint Patrick’s Day: ’May your journey through life be a good one. May the roads rise up to meet you; may the winds always be at your back. May the sun shine upon you, and the rain fall gently on your fields. May the Lord hold you in the hollow of His hand – and may your soul be in heaven 30 minutes before the devil knows your dead.’ Now about Spring. The poet Robert Browning (1812-1889) wrote: ’The year’s at the spring And the day’s at the morn ‘¦ God’s in His heaven; All’s right with the world.’ While we can’t expect everything in the world to become all right in the spring, the occasion does bring promises for the future. Weather improves, dormant plants leaf and bloom, sun shines and weather warms.
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