Bookstore Musings - Holland Happenings

[trystinn]

Whidbey Island was settled by the Dutch and the Irish. In that order. Predictably, this area has become famous for it's tulips. Very hardly, long-lived beautiful tulips. To celebrate this harvest, our town shuts down it's main downtown street Pioneer and hosts a marvelous street fair. Directly outside the bookstore is the Shoe Race: with little dutch shoes, decorated by the kids, race down a water chute for prizes. And, sadly, they are already out of shoes!

I went ahead and opened the store a bit early today to capitalize on the excitement, already a few sales and friends dropping in. Good omens, both.

Comments

[tryst-inn.livejournal.com]

During the Holland Happenings we allow the Dutch to believe they settled the area. Come St. Pat's, we'll remind them that they likely didn't.

[alfrecht.livejournal.com]

That is one of those disparities that is so obvious in Oak Harbor--for Holland Happening (an entirely made-up holiday), there is a huge parade, a big fair, all sorts of events, and the old main street of town is shut down for a while because of it. For St. Patrick's Day, a day celebrated all over the world, they get three trucks with cardboard shamrocks on the side, they go down the street like it was any other group of vehicles going down the street, the Mayor makes a speech and kisses the "Blarney Stone," and some bagpiper plays "Amazing Grace."

Since there was that run of Dutch mayors for so many years (the whole Koetje dynasty, who were in from the late 70s through part of the 90s), my dad had a tradition associated with all this as well: the night before St. Paddy's, he'd jog down to Shitty Beach and urinate on the stone, since the mayor would be kissing it the next day. We did likewise on several occasions...Not out of disrespect to the Irish of Oak Harbor, but in protest of the mayor and the whole Dutch appropriation of all "culture" in Oak Harbor. And, as the Irish likewise urinate on the Blarney Stone in Blarney just for the laugh (or at least they used to before entry into the castle and the lands around it was regulated), I feel justified in having done so in the past as well!

[tryst-inn.livejournal.com]

The St. Patrick's parade has grown larger in the last few years, we hand out Irish Coffee (Jamesons) to the parade marchers as they go by the bookstore. The maintenance department even paints shamrocks on the sidewalks on Pioneer for the event.

One day, you realize, it will be the Spaniards day. :)

I adore your Dad, what a great tradition!