March 2024 promises to be a fun month for the people in Naperville. The West Suburban Irish have been working hard to make sure that March 9 is a fun day for everyone.
They expect 10,000 spectators at the annual parade. The parade will step off at Naperville North at 10AM. This year’s entrants include pipe and drum bands, Irish dancers and Irish themed floats. Information about this event can be found at WSirish.org.
Before the parade The Naperville Running Co. will host the Rotary’s 5K Fun Run. Information about that race can be found at saintpaddysday5k.com.
My family will always remember the 2013 run and parade. My son and daughter-in-law liked to run in the 5K. I would bring their children down to watch them and cheer them on. In 2013, they ran together rather than at their own pace. We cheered them on and had a day of family fun. The next day my son, a Navy reservist, left for a 14-month deployment. While they always intended to run the race again, life’s twists and turns have prevented them from doing that, especially since they now live in Texas.
But they savor the memory created in 2013.
The second opportunity for family fun in March is Easter on March 31. Who doesn’t look forward to Easter eggs and Easter candy? When our sons were deployed to the Persian Gulf, their Easter baskets became square boxes filled with treats. We were told that those wonderful Cadbury oval eggs looked more like eggs “sunny side up” and that the yolks crystallized during transport. But they were still good to eat.
My husband, Terry, was a fireman and if you worked Easter, you had to be at the firehouse at 7AM and you didn’t leave the firehouse until 7AM the next day. It can be hard to work on holidays. One year my husband decided to hide plastic eggs filled with candy for the other members on his shift. He never mentioned he’d hidden eggs, and no one said anything about finding them. But the next morning, there was a pile of empty plastic eggs in front of his locker.
One person did comment that he prefers Reese’s peanut butter cups to Twix, just in case they worked together on Easter next year.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Happy Easter and I hope your baskets are filled with your favorite treats.
