Happy St Patrick's Day

My Human grew up in a small town in south central Missouri called Rolla. Not much goes on in Rolla, but they have a branch of the U of MO system there. It's still currently known as UMR (or University of Missouri-Rolla). They want to change their name to something along the lines of Missouri Tech. My Human likes to say that Rolla is a good place to be from!

Anyway, where I'm leading to with this is that St Patrick's day has always been a very important holiday in my Human's life. They celebrate it in a big way in Rolla. You see, back in 1904 some students at the main Missouri University branch (the one my Human went to a bunch of years later) decided that they needed to have an extra holiday to celebrate. Four years later the holiday became a big deal in Rolla. There is some convoluted reason as to why, but it boils down to St Patrick being the patron saint of engineering. UMR is a big engineering school.

My Human told me that they paint the main street (actually Pine Street) with a substance called "Alice," which is green the day of the St Pat's parade. She told me that Alice is basically stuff like puke, poop, and pee. Dogs, can you imagine how incredible that must smell?!

When my Human was in high school (with a Bulldog for a mascot), she was in marching band. But they never marched in the St Pat's parade 'cause the powers that be didn't want the band to march down a street filled with drunk engineering students.

My Human got her degree in English, but her advice to all the kids out there is to get a degree in engineering 'cause they can do just about anything with their degree. (Including painting streets with poop!)

This year is the 99th celebration of St Pat's in Rolla. Below is the logo on their sweatshirt this year. Every year humans can buy a St Pat's sweatshirt. My Human is feeling old because she still has the 75th anniversary shirt she got during her high school years.