Saturday was a crazy day. It was St. Patrick’s Day parade day on St. Croix.

Peter, the Pickled Greek and his friends and family have been working on a float for the past few weeks. A large trailer was decorated with blue and white drapes, Greek columns, flags, crepe paper, climbing vines, signs and toga-clad revelers.

Whew! What a day! Peter started his day before 8 am and asked people to get to the restaurant at 8 to put the finishing touches on the float. He’d heard that they were supposed to check in at 9 near the fort in Christiansted. Michael and I got a late start. It was seriously too cold to get out of bed. But eventually we did, and drove toward the Greek at around nine. By the time we got there, they were gone.

So we called on the cell phone, and Michael asked Peter where they were. Peter said, “We’re driving around town, there’s no one here yet!” The trailer was being towed by a large pick-up truck and there were a couple of dozen people in lime green chiffon togas aboard already in party mode. I laughed at the thought of them driving this huge thing around looking for the parade committee. We had coolers with ice and beer and we drove around a bit before finally meeting them behind the hardware store in Gallows Bay.

What a picture!  I couldn’t stop laughing as Lesley and Nikki dressed Michael and me in pouffy togas (sheer curtain panels) and gold cardboard crowns. We recycled Goliath’s frog prince costume from the Krewe de Barkus parade, added a green sash, and voila – he was wearing a  “toad-ga”! He didn’t win a prize, but, as usual, his picture was in the paper.

At around 10 am, the float was ready, so around 40 of us climbed on and headed into town for the line-up. The parade historically starts at 11 sharp, but this year’s parade committee was comprised of totally new people, so they were a bit less organized. While we waited, more people showed up and we dressed them up, got them beers, and danced with them in the street to reggae music from large speakers on a neighboring float. The parade actually started at 11:15, not nearly as late as the Cruzan Festival parades which generally begin hours after their announced time, and it took us about 90 minutes to get around the 4 or 5 block route and back to the fort area.

We tossed beads and candy to spectators until we didn’t have any more to toss but the necklaces around our own necks. The sidewalks closest to the beginning (and end) of the route were the most crowded. As we neared Prince Street, where we turned to get from Company Street to King Street, the crowds really thinned out, so Peter and Nikki and Pam and a couple more people started doing the Greek dance. The rest of us bounced around on the float and on the street and I thought we might actually break an axle from the stress.

Many of us were sunburned by the end. Michael and I needed to head home to feed and medicate dogs and cats before our next stop: Michael’s boss’ 70th birthday party. We stopped back at the Greek on the way home to separate recyclable cans from other miscellaneous refuse and move coolers inside the restaurant while Peter and others went to find out the contest results.

I changed out of my beer-soaked toga even though it was dry by the time we left again, but Michael kept his on for the birthday celebration. We would meet Peter and Pam there, and they would still be in the green. Peter and company stayed for hours awaiting the judges’ decision. By 5:30 or 6, a consensus still had not reached, so they came to the party. Peter and Colleen and her family visiting from the states added to the fun at Harvey’s party. Poor Pam had to leave early for another event!

The theme of the party included tigers and ducks (mascots from Harvey’s alma maters?) and lots of fun kid stuff like bazooka bubble gum, wax lips and yoyos. We dined and danced and drank champagne etc. until the the music stopped around 10pm.

And that was just the first half of the week-end!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 9:54 am and is filed under Reviews, St. Croix, Terry Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.