Mother's Day

Every Spring we venture to celebrate our annual day to honor mom. This tradition has been dated back to the Roman eras, in one form or another. However, the American establishment of Mother's Day was created in the 1900's. Woodrow Wilson signed a measure to make Mother's Day a national holiday in 1914.

This traditional day of celebration of all the things our mother's strive so hard to provide their children quickly became commercialized. Businesses such as floral and candy confectioners saw a big boom even before the day was ratified as a holiday. A simple idea of thanks for the unsung role of mothering was tainted by profit.

The commercialization of the holiday eventually had the creator, Ana Jarvis, the advocate of the holiday renouncing it entirely before she died in 1948. Jarvis even lobbied for it to be removed for the American calendar. I know how she felt.

Commercialization of everything is the American agenda. You see it all the time, even if you are not aware of it. Christmas decorations go up each year before Thanksgiving dinner is served and right after a feast to celebrate our thankfulness, millions of Americans clobber each other to buy more stuff to take home during the Black Friday sales.

Holidays break up the dreary daily struggle. They add richness and can foster better relations with family and friends. Cheer up moms, your kids will be burning and torturing food to serve you breakfast in bed very soon. Cherish the macaroni art and the lanyard bracelets. You deserve them and much more. Your stretch marks, imperfect abs, along with the whole host of sacrifices of sleep, money, time, and headache make you the beautiful mom that you are everyday.

Happy Mother's Day Beautiful Ladies. The whole world owes you a debt that can never be repaid.

http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/mothers-day

Irish Food Traditions

It may come as a surprise to you that St. Patrick's day is not well celebrated in Ireland. This celebration and traditions are almost all American. The same can be said about many of the items on a Chinese restaurant's menu. You see, once the wave of immigrants disembarked upon our shores, those that were separated from their origin birthplace wanted a way to remember their traditions and honor their past.

Here in Chicago, the celebrations are very large, as we have a sizable population that have some Irish ancestors, and many more who don't but enjoy the ribaldry of the day. We have at least three very large parades to mark the event and tons of corned beef and cabbage with Irish soda bread consumed the whole week long. Tomorrow is the actual St. Pats day, but since it is in the middle of the week, last weekend was the parade day. The North-side, South-side, and Downtown  parades kicked off filled with floats, dancers, beauty queens, bag pipes, kilts, and lots of green beer. We dye the Chicago River green each year, pouring the dye from the backside of a Chicago Police boat.

Many of the early immigrants from Ireland found their way to Chicago and many of the men took up city jobs such as into service in the police and fire departments. In fact, the larger police units that are used to transport detainees were called 'Patty Wagons' due to have such large numbers of Irish policemen, "patty" being a derogatory slang for Irish men.

I have always liked the way this city celebrates this holiday, and having Irish ancestors doesn't hurt my love affair with the day. Most of the city dwellers that go out and celebrate the day with drunken bar crawls, lots of food, and corny green attire, are not in fact Irish at all, but Chicago always shows up to a party ready to go.

A good part of this holiday celebration is the fact that it happens in early Spring, often the parade is a cold and wet affair, so the drinking is often a tad too much. But when we have a bright sunny day, as it is today, the city is itching to get outdoors for any reason, and having a day where excessive drinking is expected makes it all the better.

Slán go fóill!