There are few holidays that aren’t controversial in Alabama. Think about it. Happy Halloween! “That’s for witches and devil worshippers.” Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! “You mean Robert E. Lee day.” Have a great black history month! “How come there’s no white history month?!” Even wishing someone a Happy Easter or any other religious holiday could inspire a plethora of reactions as to how someone should spend it, or if they should celebrate it at all which some weird branches (cough) Jehovah’s Witnesses (cough) don’t. [As a general rule, there are always Christians that like to pat themselves on the back about how they’re more Christian than anyone else…which includes cheaping out on Christmas presents and rolling their eyes at Santa Claus because he’s not really in The Bible.]
And yet people have four holidays that are generally innocuous in nature and won’t inspire much debate. One is, duh, 4th of July. Another is, duh, Memorial Day. The third is, duh, Veteran’s Day. And then there is the less-obvious St. Patrick’s Day which breaks the trend of Celebrated-Holidays-Where-Americans-Kill-Somebody-in-War.
I think people in Alabama have a soft spot for St. Patrick’s Day because there’s just something mildly relatable about the Irish as underdogs. After all, they had to fight England for their independence—-still are actually—-just as America had to. Of course, that was before the Civil War, when Alabama and the other confederate actually aligned themselves with England and accepted aid from them in an effort to destroy America, but uhhh…anyway, moving on…
So St. Patrick’s Day isn’t a reviled holiday that will inspire eye rolling from even the most hardcore rednecks or suburban church ladies. People DO wear green, and they will wish you a “Happy St. Patrick’s Day,” and maybe even put a leprechaun sticker on their car for a day. Still, the South is lacking in ways to truly enjoy the holiday. I mean, there’s no denying that although the deep South has more than their fair share of Irish heritage, Bubba is a lot more disconnected from it, than, say, Patrick O’Kennedy in Boston.
Much like anything in the Bible Belt, people might like St. Patrick’s Day, but the celebration is pretty muted. There’s no turning the Gulf of Mexico green (BP already tried that a couple of St. Patrick’s Days ago). There’s no having a big, sprawling parade that eventually devolves into a drunken riot in Birmingham (we only reserve those for college football games). There’s just not much of any large scale celebrations. So in the end, I guess the best way to celebrate it in Alabama is just to go to an all white bar with greasy food, bad music, and terrible dancing (if any) and get shit-faced…hey, maybe we’re not so different from Northerners after all.
LMAO