It’s National Corned Beef and Cabbage Day. And, it’s St. Patrick’s Day, the one day of the year everyone is Irish. As a non-Catholic, I assumed corned beef and cabbage was an Irish dish. Wrong. According to the National Day of Calendar it is an American dish. The Irish used a bacon/pork meat that got changed to beef in America in the mid-1800’s when they immigrated. I’m not too concerned about who decided the meat and vegetable went together, I’m just glad they did. I also like to swap out the cabbage for sauerkraut. We have already had it for dinner twice this week. I take advantage of corned beef being on sale and put a couple in the freezer for later in the year.

My father died on St. Patrick’s Day in 1992. Seems like yesterday and I still want to call him when  I have news to share. I really didn’t know my father all that well. He was one of those silent types and he worked the evening shift at a local manufacturing plant. When I was a youngster, one didn’t talk about the fact their father was an alcoholic. My sisters and I are all over 60 now and we are talking more about our growing-up years. One sister just told me that Dad was very active in AA and sometimes when he went to work, the boss would come to him and send him to help another employee with a drinking problem, on the clock. When Dad died, we got a very nice note from a man who I went to school with. It said he too was an alcoholic and he always went to the AA meetings my father went to in order to hear him speak. I wish I had known that side of my father. It is a comfort to know he helped other people. In his later years, he had an antique shop. The kitchen table was often surrounded by people with coffee cups in hand, and the topic was how to keep from drinking that day.

Dad

I generally write this blog in my pajamas. Today when I get dressed, I will put on my green, maybe even call my old boss and take her out for corned beef and cabbage, but I’ll be thinking of my father, pictured above. The “stuff” hanging on the kitchen cupboards are antique kitchen implements. You couldn’t sneak in one of those cupboards for any reason. The name of his shop was the Mousetrap Antiques.