Wearing the Green

When my sister and I were kids, we didn’t have any green clothes.  I remember her giving me a rather odd look one day when I was old enough to go shopping for my own clothes.  I brought home a green and white striped shirt.  The horror should have been because the stripes were horizontal, but no, it’s because half the stripes were green.

Apparently my mother wouldn’t buy us green clothes because her father was Scottish and English and he wouldn’t have approved.

I kind of wonder about that.  He would say things, but it always seemed to me he was joking.  And when I used to volunteer at a nursing home when I was in my early teens, he made it a point to come in the door and say hello to Nellie Murphy, who was as Irish as the claddagh.  They’d tease each other, but always with an underlying respect.  After all, they both considered themselves American, no matter which country they arrived from.

Anyway, as I said, we didn’t wear green clothes.  Or celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. 

But my kids can wear green if they want to.

I like green.  It’s a soothing color, at least in the shades I like.

So this morning Alex is wearing a green shirt to school.

And Julia is bedecked in green nail polish, a green dress, and big green ribbons in her hair.

I have a feeling my grandfather would think she looks cute, even in all that green.

Comments

[RoseAnn]

DH's family is Irish...but Protestant and his grandfather drilled into them that they were not to wear green on St. Patrick's Day because they were "orange Irish". I always thought he made that up until I started learning more about Irish history. LOL When I asked if DH were wearing green or orange today, he laughed and said "Neither".