“Okay, we’ve seen the Irish-Setters. We can go home now.”

Standing around on Meigs St.

Another St. Patrick’s Day Parade bites the dust.
Yesterday (Saturday, March 14, 2009) was at least our fourth, perhaps even our fifth.
We march our dog with the Western New York Irish-Setter Club.
Our first was five or six years ago, and was the first report I sent to fair Marcy.
Regrettably it’s been lost.
It was the best report. Marcy included a St. Patrick’s Day Parade report in her vaunted Grady-book, but it was the second.
Not bad, but not the first.
All kinds of insanity were going on at our first parade.
Macho men in kilts were openly widdling on the lawns of the rich gentry that populate ritzy East Ave., where the parade starts.
The Brighton Volunteer Fire Department was banned from future parades because of widdling on people’s lawns.
It was no wonder. They were quaffing giant tankards of amber.
We skipped 2007; it was snowing and frigid.
The streets were salted, and ya don’t ask dogs to tread that.
Last year wasn’t too bad, just cold.
Last year we marched about five minutes and then stopped. The parade-leader far ahead had had a heart-attack.
This year was pushing 50° and sunshine; almost light-jacket weather.
But I wore my down jacket and knitted winter hat, because I knew there would be a lotta standing around before starting.
The St. Patrick’s Day Parade is more a silly chance for local advertisers to show off.
We were followed by a contingent of Obama supporters, and a puke-green tethered MetLife blimp.
A giant white GMC stretch dually pickup was in the parade, honking its loud airhorn at all-and-sundry.
Drunken revelers were wooping it up in the pickup bed, all dressed in green, and blowing beer-sodden smooches at the crowd.
That stretch was about 50 feet long — it would need a humungous swing.
Seems the Irish-Setters are always the stars of the parade. Local Humane Societies are now in the parade, trotting their Adopt-Me dogs.

Crossing Inner-Loop on East Ave. in Rochester.

“Oh, can I pet him?” children shriek from the curbside. “Puppie, puppie!”
Lurch! I’m suddenly yanked over to the curbside.
“I smell that hotdog. I want it!” YANK!
“I also wanna check out that trumpet-toy. That sounds like a critter.”
“Okay, we’ve seen the Irish-Setters. We can go home now,” someone whooped as we rounded the bend from East Ave. west onto Main St. in the center of the city.
Yelling and screaming from all sides — massed humanity, many with green hair and floppy green hats a yard tall. Most guzzling brewskis.
“Watch out for the broken glass,” my wife said. Drunken Grannies were smashing their Guinness bottles on the pavement.
A hotdog roll got scarfed.
“I thought this parade ended here,” my wife said, as we crossed Exchange St.
“Nope,” I said. “Two more traffic-lights. All the way to Plymouth Ave.”

Down Main St. in Rochester.

Finished, we began the long hike back to our van. The drill is to avoid falling on a curb. Didn’t last year, and this year neither.
This includes along East Ave. in the downtown nightclub district.
89 bazilyun young drunks are spilling out into the street.
Helmeted motorcycle cops with dark aviator glasses ride up on strobe-flashing Harleys, sirens blasting. They bark orders for people to get outta the street.
“Officer,” I think; “how am I supposed to wedge this nervous dog into this tightly compacted mass of writhing humanity?
I’m liable to get puked on.”
Only a few Irish-Setters showed up, and I think ours was the best looking one.
Most look rather fragile, too hairy, with the fur shaved off behind their ears.
Is this some show-thing; a dog that looks more like an Afghan?
Our opinion is that the breed has been over-developed; although I don’t think any of the dogs there were show-dogs.
One reminded me of Tracy, too short-legged.
Only one dog was comparable to ours, and that dog just appeared outta-the-blue during the march, and disappeared far before the end.
“You should show your dog,” some guy said.
Baloney! She’s more a hunter.
The parade wore her out. Nap-time! “What is it with these humans? Parades are silly! —Where’s the rabbit?”

All photos by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100. (RE: “‘Old guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down [I also am the oldest]. I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera [like the Nikon D100] instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines.)

“Meigs St.” is a long residential street in Rochester.

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s almost four, and is our sixth Irish-Setter.

“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. (The “Grady-book” was a book assembled by Marcy when I retired, of all my e-mails I had sent to her, which she had saved in a computer-folder. “Grady” was my nickname at the Messenger newspaper.)

“Brighton” (“breye-TIN”) is a suburb southeast of Rochester.

“Puke-green” is how all my siblings describe green, “puke” being vomit.

A “dually pickup” is a pickup truck with four tires on its rear-axle; two wheels per side. Such a truck can support a heavy recreational-vehicle trailer for towing; a “dually” is usually rated at one ton capacity. “Dualies” look rather macho; and sell well based on that, as compared to actually pulling an actual RV trailer.

RE: “It would need a humungous swing.....” —With a super-long wheelbase, the front-end (the steering end) has to swing wide, so the back end won’t hit the corner apex. A bus needed a big swing, since it had a 33 foot wheelbase. (For 16&1/2 years [1977-1993] I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.)

My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.”

RE: “The drill is to avoid falling on a curb......” —I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my awareness.

“Tracy” was our second Iris-Setter.