Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 18, 1993 TAG: 9303180099
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ED SHAMY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
IRISH EYES CRYIN' - IN THE RAIN
To be Irish is, to hear the Irish tell it, to know adversity. Famine, unemployment, guerilla warfare, gritty neighborhoods in Dublin and Boston, Cork and Chicago - it's all part of the mix.But adversity overcame Roanoke's planned St. Patrick's Day parade on Wednesday.
It was canceled early in the day because of rain.
And because school was canceled and Roanoke Catholic High School's band was to have marched.
And because Mayor David Bowers, who was to have been the parade's grand marshal, is mourning the death last week of his father.
"I called it off after much agonizing, at 9:15 a.m.," said Laban Johnson, the city's special events coordinator.
Within two hours, the sun was shining, as if to celebrate the saint reputed to have driven the snakes from Ireland.
Johnson had been hoping for as many as 600 marchers.
Only two times since the St. Patrick's Day parade materialized in Roanoke in 1989 has it been greeted by good weather. Marchers have braved torrential downpours and drizzle in past years.
Word of this year's cancellation didn't make it to all of the 20,658 Roanoke Valley residents who told the Census Bureau in 1990 that they were all or part-Irish.
George McKelvey, a retired New Yorker who moved to Salem three years ago with his wife, Angie, was gussied up for the parade and ready at Salem Avenue and Market Street at the appointed hour. So were a dozen or so others.
McKelvey had hoped to capitalize on the concentration of Irishmen to pitch the Ancient Order of Hibernians. The fraternal organization had a chapter in Roanoke from 1902 until disbanding in 1947, said McKelvey.
He wants to resuscitate the band of Irishers, but needs 20 members to do it.
"I got two so far," he said, casting a thumb at Angie, "not counting her."
He's been at it for two years.
With no parade, there were few prospective Hibernians milling around on the streets.
Just another adversity to overcome.