Curmudgeon's Corner
cur-mud-geon: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
The Real Reason for St. Patrick's Day
For my Irish and Norwegian friends, all of whom will likely disavow me after they read this:
The Real Origin of St. Patrick’s Day…
The reason the Irish celebrate St. Patrick’s Day is because this is when St. Patrick drove the Norwegians out of Ireland. It seems that some centuries ago, many Norwegians came to Ireland to escape the bitterness of the Norwegian winter. Ireland was having a famine at the time, and food was scarce. The Norwegians were eating almost all the fish caught in the area, leaving the Irish nothing to eat but potatoes.
St. Patrick, taking matters into his own hands, as most Irishmen do, decided the Norwegians had to go. Secretly, he organized the Irish IRATRION (Irish Republican Army To Rid Ireland Of Norwegians). Members of IRATRION passed a law in Ireland that prohibited merchants from selling ice boxes or ice to the Norwegians, in hopes that their fish would spoil. This would force the Norwegians to flee to a colder climate where their fish would keep.
Well the fish spoiled all right, but the Norwegians, as everyone knows today, thrive on spoiled fish. So, faced with failure, the desperate Irishmen sneaked into the Norwegian fish storage caves in the dead of night and sprinkled the rotten fish with lye, hoping to poison the Norwegian invaders.
But, as everyone knows, the Norwegians thought this only added to the flavor of the fish, and they liked it so much they decided to call it “Lutefisk”, which is Norwegian for “luscious fish”. Matters became even worse for the Irishmen when the Norwegians began taking over the Irish potato crop and making something called “lefse”.
Poor St. Patrick was at his wit’s end, and finally on March 17th of that year, blew his top and told all Norwegians to “Go to Hades”. So they all got into their boats and emigrated to Minnesota and Wisconsin…the only other paradise on earth where smelly fish, old potatoes and plenty of cold weather can be found in abundance.
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