Saint Patrick

The town were I used to work in Oregon, Woodburn, has a very interesting mix of people: 80% Hispanic, 15% Russian and 5% other. For the first time in my life I was the "other". I enjoyed the diversity. As wrestling coach I had a disproportionate number of the Russian population as you could have guessed (although I had some really good Hispanic wrestlers, most of the population thought we wore colorful masks with zippers and jumped off turnstiles). Many of the Russian population at the school is Russian Orthodox who would miss 20 or so days of school a year to celebrate different events in church history or to honor different saints specific to thier religion. I would ask students and wresters before they left school for a Russian Holiday, "Do you know what you are celebrating?" Nearly every time the answer was, "well, no, not really." I would give them a homework assignment of learning what they were missing school for other than drinking with their friends in the church parking lot while their parents spent the day inside doing "religious" type things.

So, before we go judging my dear Russian friends, how many of us know anything about Saint Patrick other than parades, Irish, green beer and random people pinching us (I had an old lady pinch me at CVS pharmacy yesterday and then say, "Honey, you go on home and tell your wife that an old lady at CVS pinched you.")

Some cool facts about good ole' Saint Patty:

• Historians guess that he lived between 320 and 460 AD
• He was British born and considered a Roman (by this time in history the Roman Empire had conquered the British Isles)
• He was captured by Irish raiders and forced into slavery on Ireland for 6 years before he escaped and returned to his family
  
• Although he was British (and had been captured and forced into slavery) he had a vision that he was supposed to go to the Irish people to spread the Good News
• He refused to take financial gifts from nobility and actually sold his own inheritance to enhance his ability to find commonality with the very people he was trying to reach
• He drank a lot of green beer (not really sure about this one, but that's what Americans think, right?)