Burlington, Vermont's St. Patrick's Day

S.D. Ireland Trucks in Burlington's St. Patrick's Day parade.  

Note: Matt of All Trades blog relocated here to blogger, on March 17. Archive Matt of All Trades blog post prior to March 17 are at www.mattalltrades.wordpress.com

Yesterday, in Burlington, Vermont, the first warm, sunny day of spring coincided with St. Patrick's Day, leading to a rather exuberant scene in the city's downtown.

Usually, it's cold and wet and snowy and dark in mid-March in Vermont, so it was nice to see a pleasantly warm day to keep the revelers comfortable.

Burlington St. Patrick's Day hatwear

People have been getting into costumes a lot more during holidays lately. Dressing ridiculously isn't just for Halloween anymore. Unless two-foot tall bright green plastic top hats and black poodles painted green are now in fashion, I don't know.

Every year, the highlight of Burlington's St. Patrick's Day celebration is the S. D. Ireland parade.
For years, S.D. Ireland, a local concrete company, has held the noisy St.Patrick's Day parade in downtown Burlington.

It involves cement mixers, honking truck horns and rumors of margaritas being mixed within the cement trucks.

Definitely not your usual St. Patrick's Day parade. Below is a clip of this year's edition I shot and uploaded to YouTube.

St. Patrick's Day fashion statement in Burlington, Vt.

A lot of people are annoyed by the noise and disruption of the parade, but I kind of like it. Celebrations are supposed to be noisy. I mean, who would want to go to a silent Fourth of July fireworks display? The booms complete the experience.
St. Patrick's Day in some circles is a day for drinking. All day. Starting at the crack of dawn. Call me a wimp, but I don't have the stomach to stay drunk all day. I'm too busy. And the old bones in my body can no longer take falling over repeatedly for a full 12 hours.
Still, the line to get into RiRa's Irish Pub was there all day, so the drinks clearly flowed.
My only quibble: If only the bar next door to my workplace hadn't repeatedly played "The Unicorn" song. It felt like maggots boring into my brain after awhile.
Other than that, I'm glad everybody had a good time and the weather was great.

 The crowd at Burlington Vermont's Ri Ra Irish Pub yesterday