I never thought I would march in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Yet, there I was among the blaring bagpipes that echoed across 5th Avenue’s skyscraper canyon. The high school bands. The kilts. That undulating sea of green that swarmed like ants through the city.
For a brief moment — a break in the swarm — I was part of it. The pomp and circumstance. The Irish pride. The cop yelling, “Let’s go, people! Get across that street!”
Run! Run! Run!
It was a parade crossover on 49th — a place where tourists and drunks alike stood a block deep, waiting for a small lull in the parade. Then the police would wave this rowdy column of humanity across the street before the marching continued.
I didn’t make it through the first break. Nor the second. Only on the third go around was I close enough to shoot through. Parade to the left of me, parade to the right. I think that counts as marching. It’s going on my resume.
I was in New York for a College Media Association conference. I presented some sessions on things like writing opinion columns that matter. (Please pretend this isn’t a column about marching in a parade.)
I took along a jacket big enough to cover Alaska, the flu and a printout of a little toy dog my daughter desperately wanted me to buy at the American Girl store.
If you’ve never been to American Girl, then you just don’t love high adventure. It’s an incredible place, especially if you enjoy the thrill of heart-stopping credit card bills. The kind that require a defibrillator when you open it later in the month. The kind that make you wonder if selling a kidney on the black market is only urban legend.
When my daughter learned I would be traveling to Manhattan, she began an intense lobbying campaign to convince me to bring back Pepper, the last of the American girl dogs she doesn’t own. They’re small, relatively cute and don’t leave the kind of enormous, smoldering crater in your wallet caused by the other dolls and accessories and hair salon upstairs.
The lobbying turned into negotiations involving lawyers and signed contracts with clauses that read: “In the event of a sleet-lightning storm, father will brave aforementioned elements, but without use of an umbrella, which might attract a charge of electricity thereby singing the fine and delicate fur of exhibit A, also known as Pepper.”
There were tests and quizzes. She tore photos of all the dogs from catalogs and put them on flash cards. They were held up in front of my face as she asked, “Is this Pepper?” If I got it wrong, I was sent to bed without dessert.
When I left, I was handed a top-secret photo of my target with a note that read, “Bring him back alive,” or “Godspeed,” or something to the effect of “don’t screw this one up, dad!”
The modern day 6-year-old is highly literate and watches much too much dramatic television.
I tucked the picture in my pocket and promised I would get Pepper first thing in the city — in spite of my cold, in spite of my conference, and in spite of a parade that I figured would be long over by the time I got there. Only it wasn’t. It went on all day. Long enough to work the city into a screaming, drunken frenzy.
And funny thing about the American Girl store: It sits right on 5th Avenue. Right on the other side of the pulsing parade. I realized this small, inconsequential fact as I walked up the block. I remember thinking to myself, “What the heck is this hullabaloo? Don’t they know I’m getting Pepper!”
“Don’t screw this one up, dad!” rang out in my head.
So I waited in the cattle call. Raced across when the cops started yelling at me. Ducked into the store, full of tourists who were just as annoyed that Irish pride and heritage would block the front door of our materialistic endeavors. The nerve!
I searched out the pup and texted a photo with a note to the effect of: “Got em!” The reply came back immediately: “There’s a very excited girl here.”
Then I had to do make it back across the mayhem. My second “official” march in St. Patty’s. I can tell you that nothing feels quite as manly as walking across an adrenaline-charged parade with a red shopping bag emblazoned with “AMERICAN GIRL.” It’s like a giant billboard that screams, “beat me up” or “I brake for tea parties.”
What a dad will do for a daughter, for a pup named Pepper, and to march in a world-famous parade.