Were YOU there among the 40,000?

I had a busy Saturday and Sunday, so it’s just now that I’m getting around to posting my St. Patrick’s Day in Five Points pictures.

Were you there? Did you have a good time? I had an awesome time, as usual — even though I had to work. Kathryn Fenner had guilted me into volunteering with other Rotarians to check IDs.

As it happened, when I first arrived, all of the ID-check tents were out of the bracelets that certify partiers as being over 21. For awhile, that put us out of business, so I went walkabout.

Then, some more bracelets arrived, so I worked checking IDs for awhile, until we ran out again, at which point I went walkabout again.

Then, we got the word that we could simply write “21” in day-glo marker on both their admission bracelets and the backs of their hands, so I did that for a long while. At one point, Kathryn noted suspiciously that it was odd that most of the really cute girls were coming down to my end of the tent. A few minutes later, I went over to Kathryn and asked, in all innocence, “Just to make sure I’m doing this right — if she’s cute, I give her the OK, right?”  She didn’t think that was as funny as I did.

What I learned from this experience was that most of the world was born in 1990. (The cutoff date was March 17, 1991.) I also learned that only about half of the people in the crowd were from South Carolina. There was a surprising number of out-of-state licenses. Many of them were from Virginia, and quite a few, of course, from Georgia and North Carolina. But they were from all over. One unusually large laminated ID (it was about 3 inches by 4) was from Republique Francais. Two young guys showed their (U.S.) passports instead of licenses, which seemed odd, but whatever.

Then things got slow, so I went walkabout again. That’s how I got all of these pictures.

Near as I could tell, a good time was had by all. Jack Van Loan did a great job in this, his last year heading up the festival.

11 thoughts on “Were YOU there among the 40,000?”

  3. bud

    Thought she might be your wife. I don’t recall you ever posting a picture of her. Perhaps that would be a blogging faux pa of some sort.

  4. Steven Davis II

    ““Just to make sure I’m doing this right — if she’s cute, I give her the OK, right?” She didn’t think that was as funny as I did.”

    Now there’s a shocker.

  5. Karen McLeod

    There were people there? Thinking to avoid crowds, we went to the zoo instead. The entire population of Columbia and surrounding areas was there! Then we tried Frankie’s Fun Park, and the same crowd was there!. We went to the mall–but forget it; the parking lot was full. Have the citizens of Columbia learned to bi-or tri-locate?

  6. Brad

    Bud, she HAS been pictured on the blog, but it’s been awhile. And she’d rather NOT appear on the blog, actually.

  8. Brad

    I heard, via email, from the guy in the leprechaun outfit — Ethan Wade, from up Greenville way.

    Ethan very kindly let me know that “dwarf” or “little person” is preferable to “midget,” so I made that change in my cutline. But on the whole he seemed pleased to have had his picture on the blog. If he’s there next year, I’ll try to get a closer pic.

    Thanks for the beads, Ethan!

  9. Silence

    I’m not sure why you’d say “dwarf dressed as a leprechaun” because if you just said a “leprechaun” then the stature would be implied.

  10. `Kathryn Fenner

    @ Silence–there were plenty of oversized leprechauns carousing. Oversized and overserved.

  11. Silence

    The oversized ones were certainly people dressed as leprechauns. I’d be willing to bet that they were generally not Irish either. The wee ones may have been actual leprechauns.

Comments are closed.