THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995 TAG: 9503190011
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
Never mind that St. Patrick's Day officially was Friday.
For 28 years now, the folks of Ocean View have suspended their clocks and their calendars to make the nearest Saturday morning a combination Irish festival, ode to spring and old-fashioned, beer-suds street party.
The tradition was upheld in bleary good form Saturday as thousands of locals packed the sidewalks, the bars, the front porches and any other place a body could lean, stand, sit or squat. They were eight deep in some places in anticipation of the centerpiece of the day's events, the St. Patrick's Day Parade.
The Irish Day parade in Ocean View is a procession that celebrates the populist spirit and live-and-let-live code of Norfolk's oft-maligned bayfront neighborhoods. It kicks off at 10 a.m., or 10:30, or thereabouts, and meanders through the streets for more than two hours, making it longer than Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and at least twice as fascinating.
Anyone can enter. Saturday's units ranged from the polished and tested Shriners' motorcycles and minicars, to such informal units as eight guys with Volkswagen Beetles, a green Checker taxi cab, some people who own Pontiac Trans-Ams, and a gigantic, sparkling new Tarmac cement mixer with paper shamrocks pasted to its side.
Precision-drilled high school bands were interspersed with trudging Cub Scout packs, snappy antique autos, eight or 10 muddy Jeeps from a local off-road club, and a guy in an Isuzu Amigo whose attraction seemed to be the size of the woofers and tweeters in the back of his hatchback. It was uncertain if he was a formal entry or an enthusiastic motorist who just decided to join in the fun.
And fun it is. Ocean View has a knack for throwing parties the way parties ought to be. The St. Patrick's fest lacks the overmanaged oppression of HarborFest and the tweediness of Virginia Beach's Neptune Festival. Rules about drinking in the street are extremely relaxed, to the extent that an alien plopped down in the middle of the madness would come away believing it to be a celebration of somebody named St. Budweiser and his faithful companion, Bloody Mary.
Just as the calendar is suspended to declare Saturday the official holiday, the clocks are suspended in defiance of polite society's ``never before noon'' rule. At Rosy's Cafe - the friendly First View Street pub that serves as unofficial party central - the doors swing open at 7 a.m. on St. Patrick's Day, and as many people were having beer for breakfast as ham and hash-browns.
Sometime before 9, the crowd at Rosy's was elbow-to-elbow and William Melgaard, in kilts, was warming them up with a bagpipe rendition of ``The Irish Washerwoman,'' or at least, ``That's what I think it was,'' said Melgaard, an Ocean View expatriate who now lives in Hampton but comes back every year to march in the parade.
``It was `Achey-Breaky Heart,' '' said another guy, laughing, as he tilted back what in no way could have been his first lager of the morning.
Out in the street, hot sausage-and-onion sandwiches were serving as breakfast for the curb-grabbers who were lining up for the best seats long before any floats wandered down First View Street. Leslie Maguire, resplendent in a sweatshirt that read ``Patrick was a saint - I ain't,'' parked her two kids on a green plaid stadium blanket, tied the dog to a nearby post, and settled into a beach chair for some serious people-watching.
``I love it,'' she said. ``I come out every year. This is the real Ocean View, not the Ocean View you read about in the police reports.''
``When's the parade coming?'' beseeched her daughter, Carole.
``Soon,'' mom replied. Aside, she admitted, ``I've been telling her `soon' for an hour now.''
Soon enough, it came. True to the proletarian nature of the crowd, the politicians, the grand marshal and a clutch of Knights of Columbus dignitaries drew polite, if desultory, applause. The rousing cheers were reserved for anyone in uniform, from marching bands to the dignified corps from the Vietnam Veterans of America and the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.
Out in front of Rosy's, as the procession pushed on, the crowds pushed forward, eventually cutting the parade into a funnel of single-lane traffic, or less. Celebrants occasionally danced with the marching bands, bringing some wide-eyed looks of bemusement among Maury High School's brass section.
By the time it ended, half the people who'd marched by had wandered back to join the crowds lining the streets, the parade pretzeling back into itself like a serpent whose head passes its tail as it makes its way along.
And as the last unit passed, another St. Patrick's Day tradition unfolded: Seemingly every human being who'd marched or watched tried to enter Rosy's Cafe at the same time.
Somehow, magically, most of them made it. Irish eyes were smiling - some of them a tad blowzy-looking, perhaps from the stiff northerly breeze - and everybody agreed it had been a righteous good Ocean View morning. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by RICHARD L. DUNSTON, Staff
A St. Patrick's Day Parade float with a German theme? Yep,
Saturday's festivities in Norfolk had that and much more.
The Double Dutch Rope Jumpers perform Saturday in front of Rosy's
Cafe on First View Street in Norfolk's Ocean View section.
by CNB