February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
There is that old line about everyone loving a parade and we believe it to be still true.
But love enough doesn’t seem to be quite enough any more. This year we have witnessed the disturbing thought that some parades might go to the wall in the future for lack of finances.
Sure enough, times are hard and with eventual economic improvement perhaps the danger will pass.
Nevertheless, perhaps this is time to take stock of the importance of the most public form of celebrating our Irish heritage. Parade are not jus parties, they are events that draw people from all ethnic backgrounds into public places, onto common ground, and to a common purpose. They give our kids a needed break from their various electronic addictions
They can also serve an important economic function, not infrequently by drawing business to hard-pressed downtown areas. We need our parades. We don’t want to lose any of them. Indeed, we want to see more of them around March 17th.
Hopefully, a year from now, we won’t be hearing about challenges to the very future of some St. Patrick’s Day parades, but rather about the challenges being posed to organizers by having bigger and better ones.