St. Patrick

My father's family was Orange Irish. My grandfather pulled on an orange shirt on St. Patrick's Day and went to bars in San Francisco seeking trouble. 

In America and Canada another name for his ethnicity was Scotch-Irish. This Anglo tribe was thought of as trash when they reached Canada and English America; they soon began producing Presidents from Jackson to Clinton. 

The Scotch-Irish were from Ireland, and my father called himself Irish. 

My mother was Catholic Irish. The Catholic part didn't stick--her  mother had been excommunicated-- but her favorite relative was her pipe-smoking grandmother, Mary Berry, who had come over on the boat. The Catholic Irish Presidents have been Kennedy and Biden.

My father's mother arrived in California driving a covered wagon. My own mother arrived in California when she was six. Her mother had driven an automobile on dirt roads from Des Moines to Compton.

So when people ask what my ethnic background is, I tell them I'm Californian.  And I once accidentally stepped on Audrey Hepburn's foot.

w