Irish Day - Part I

Let the countdown begin to my favorite day of the year: Irish Day. In case you are unfamiliar to Irish Day (and why wouldn’t you be? This is a regional, regional, regional holiday), it’s the first Saturday in October when they shut the streets of the West End down for a celebration of the Irish culture. And by our culture, they have a parade with bagpipes and every one gets shit faced. It’s an elaborate excuse for the bars (at least nine in a mile by 0.2 mile strip of land) to get one more big day before the fall starts. As one who needs little excuse to drink (sometimes as little as, “I woke up this morning”), an organize effort like this is appreciated.
What do my parents think?
Dad: I hate Irish Day. I have to park a mile from the house and then people wake me up when I go to sleep at 8:30 on a Saturday night.
Mom: I’m not a big fan of Irish Day. I think it sends to wrong message about Irish people and the West End.
And my opinion: Let’s see, I wake up and start drinking and there are people to drink with. It’s the greatest day ever.
So in order to get those Barney readers prepared for this weekends drunkening, I’m doing a preview episode. I think the record so far for earliest drinking time is 7:30. The longest I’ve drank for is 15 consecutive hours. Now that you have the stats, we’re going to do a preview by reviewing the previous 8 Irish Days and ranking them. Part I includes Irish Days 8-2. Number 1 is deserving of its own episode since it’s the defining High School Barney story. Let’s get started:
# 8 – 2005: Did not attend Irish Day. Worked until Friday at 7:30 and did not have the energy to wake up the next morning to drive to the West End. Called myself a pussy repeatedly.
# 7 – 2002: Being as I remember absolutely nothing about this day except that there was a good chance I drank very cheap vodka with orange juice all day, I can’t rank this very high.
# 6 – 2003: Ranks higher than 2002 because while I don’t remember anything about this day, I was bright enough to bring a camera with me. The only two pictures that I remember are me taking my first drink with a clock reading 8:00 in it and a picture of some girl’s ass. In a related story, I was a full fledged member of The Zoo at the time, so that seems about right.
# 5 – 2006: Nothing really memorable happened this year (none that I can remember), but this was the only year that my dad enjoyed. The reason: The Yankees getting their ass kicked by the Tigers. We laughed for 3 hours straight. It was great.
# 4 – 2001: You would think this would be higher, but it doesn’t age as well as my life changes. Back as a freshman in college, I used this weekend as a time to spend with the girl I had been seeing in high school. We spent approximately 3 hours lying in bed together. 2007 Barney looks back and calls 2001 Barney a biggity bitch and laughs. 2001 Barney redeems himself someone by starting to drink right after she left. Not just drinking, but drinking with Legendary Frank. If you know Drunk Barney, you know he can be an asshole. Take Drunk Barney, and put him on steroids and maybe you have Legendary Frank. I learned everything from that man and it was an honor to drink with him. I could spend days telling Legendary Frank stories, but I don’t have that time now. Just know that he gave me the name Barney, made it stick, and used to tell the black kids at practice who were running sprints slow, to, “Run like you have a tv on your back.”
# 3 – 2000: We decided to play a drinking game. Being high schoolers, we had no idea what a good drinking game would be. Since the Miami-Florida St game was on (back when it still meant something) we decided to do shots every time there was a score. There was about 7 minutes left. In that time frame, one team scored twice, the other once. We did shots for the extra points, because that was a separate score. We did shots of 101 proof Wild Turkey. This did not end well, as I was vomiting within an hour after the game. This one gets bonus points because I ended up going out that night. And thus, a warrior was born.
# 2 – 2004: My senior year of college was a shining example of how far I’d come in 4 years. I began drinking at 8, didn’t end until 1 am in a different state. I drank on the trip to New Jersey. The only pause I had might have had was on the 30 minute walk to the train station. I ended up going to a party in the Boken of Hos, and only stopped at 1 am because they ran out of beer. I was a champ that night.
# 1…wait on it. To be posted tomorrow.