First,
Since I’m 100% Irish, I love celebrating this day.
When I was in college/Nursing school at Hunter College/Bellevue School of Nursing, the nursing student leadership was always awarded a spot in the NYC St. Patrick’s day parade each year. In my senior year, my friends and I were lucky enough to participate and be at the start of the lineup.
This is a horrible picture, but the only one I have, copied from my yearbook, so it needs to suffice. In the top photo, holding the banner, I am the second one from the left. If you can recognize me, I am the short haired, glasses, chubby one looking upward.
It was raining and 32 degrees that day as we started the parade. It only got colder as more and more people got drunker and happier, lol. But it was a top five memory for me and still is to this day. I was a proud Irish American in 1982 and am now, in 2026!
And I will be until the day I leave this mortal coil.
(Happy St. Patrick’s Day) Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit.
Peggy Jaeger, Author 