When I awoke from my half slumber in a dusty corner of 24 Columbia Street, I knew that the day had come.

The day when most rules of normal human function are thrown out the window, and replaced with pure insanity, and debauchery.

Slightly hung over from the night before, I ventured down the stairs, where the smell of burnt eggs was emanating from the kitchen. One of the hooligans was awake, and when I turned the corner into the kitchen it was Camia, with spatula in one hand, Miller Lite in the other, obviously ready to take part in the days festivities.

24 Columbia St, she ain’t looking too pretty.

I went for the fridge and thought about grabbing a beer, but instead I poured a cup of iced tea for myself to cure my mouth, which at that point felt as dry as the Sahara desert. It was 10:30 a.m. That thought crossed my mind many times, as I sat down on a couch in the living room, and contemplated what exactly this day was going to be like. By 11:00 a.m. Morano and Losee had awaken and walked down the stairs, the looks in their eyes explained their inner conflict of knowing that their last sober thoughts would come before the break of noon.

Finally, I mustered the strength to grab my first brew which were all sitting in a big plastic tub being cooled by the snow in which the city of Oneonta was shat on by the frosty night before. That first beer on St. Patty’s day is a tough one, it doesn’t taste good, let alone the fact that it was a Keystone Light, which didn’t help the cause much either.

After I got about one or two down the hatch, I called my buddies who lived on campus in Madison Hall. My friend Stark was also visiting Oneonta because he was on Spring Break at the time, and was staying with my friends Miles, and fellow Zubazkateer Isaac Cass up at Madison. When I called I expected that they maybe were still asleep, but when Miles answered the phone I heard a rowdy scene in the background. “We’re fucking playing flip cup!!!” stated Miles as I heard the rowdiness and the “HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY!” chants coming from the background. “We’ll be down in a little bit,” he finished with, and hung up the phone.

I knew that I had to catch up, so I upped my pace. The beers were flowing much more smoothly now. Stark, Miles, Isaac and Mark Magaril, the crazy little Russian bastard who’s birthday happens to fall on this drunken holiday, drove down at 11:20a.m.

Birthday Boy Magaril acting like a crazy Russian

The first conflict of the day arose when they were trying to figure out where to park. All the cars parked in the streets had to be moved to a parking garage in the middle of the town due to the snowstorm the previous night. Camia called the Oneonta police station and asked if they could park on the street, the officer on the phone said that would be ok, and it ignited a rowdy scene of yelling and fist pumping.

Sick Fucks Stark and Losee

As soon as they entered the door everyone started to get pumped up. Stark put on his St. Patty’s day mix, filled with Dropkick Murphies mix of loud guitar and Irish bagpipes and that set off the whirlwind of chaos that would envelope us for the rest of the day. The funnel was passed around the room several times, beer pong was played, bacon egg and cheeses were consumed.

The kind of day it was outside was as if God was angry with all the drunks who were celebrating St. Patrick’s Holiday the wrong way. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the terribly bright sun reflected off the fresh pure white snow and shot directly into your eyeballs. When I stepped on the porch for the first time I screamed out, “MY EYES!!!”

We all sat out on the porch for a while, and chanted “HEY!!!....HEY!!!...HEY!!! …..HEY!!!” at any passer bys walking down the street, or cars traveling through. Anybody who passed by must have thought, “Wow these guys are fucking animals…”

At about 12:30 we were very sloppy, and we set off to the bars. The first bar we tried to get into was “The Silver Bullet”, which is probably the fanciest bar in Oneonta. There was a long ass line to get in which I didn’t initially expect, but this was Oneonta so I guess it is par for the course. I was pretty nervous about getting in because my fake ID was cracked on two of the edges and was looking pretty ghetto.

All of the legit 21 year olds, Camia, Morano, Losee, and Magaril went in front of us, and then when it was time for Miles’ ID to be checked which was the identical fake Pennsylvania ID as mine, the huge bouncer said “This is fake” and slipped it into his pocket. Miles’ expression was of sheer sorrow, as if he had lost a loved one. He desperately pleaded with the bouncer to give it back but he would not budge.

I was very pleased that Miles had stood in front of me on line because as it would have been my ID taken away, which would have ruined my day as I’m sure it ruined his. After this sobering incident Miles, Isaac and I headed to “Reds filling station,” one of the less well-known Oneonta bars. There was no bouncer at the door and we were not IDed at the bar. They were serving big yard long plastic tubes of green beer for $4 at Red’s. A pretty sweet deal indeed.

After finishing two yard tubes each of green suds we decided to go get some pizza, but first me and Isaac had to rouse Miles who had passed out in typical Miles Ross Fashion.

This is usually the end of a normal drinking night for Miles J. Ross.

We left Red’s carrying our big tubes, and immediately a Cop stopped us on the corner and said, “Finish that before you go anywhere.” So we pounded what was left of it as the cop drove off. Miles somehow slipped and fell, and Isaac and I started to hit him with our tubes while he was down. Both of our tubes shattered in this process and we were both kind of pissed.

On our walk to Tino’s pizza we decided to check up on what normal sober people were doing. Our first stop was a pet shop. At this point things got fuzzy and I don’t remember much of what happened, but I do know that the owner of the pet shop booted us out of there because we were making a big scene and screaming things like, “FUCKING IGUANAS!!!!!!!!”

For some reason we got all worked up about Iguanas, I wonder why?????

When we got to the Pizza place, we called the rest of the hooligans and met up. After lunch we stopped in to “The Old Spanish Tavern” for a few more drinks. Again much of the details after this point were lost in my brain. All I remember was somehow; it ended up just being Isaac, Losee and I. At this point it was probably 2:30 p.m.

At some point we left the bar, and started wandering around town with no apparent goal other than causing big scenes. Our first stop on our meaningless journey was the law offices of Scarzafava and Basdekis. If you have lived in Oneonta at all, you are familiar with the commercials for this law firm, which are really hilarious. So we storm in, most likely looking like a bunch of savages, Isaac at the time was wearing a big pair of green sunglasses. The woman at the front desk asked us “Can I help you with anything??” and Losee, who was delirious with laughter at the time, blurted out “AHHH hahaha! YOU CAN’T HELP US WITH ANYTHING!!! AHAHAHAH!” It was at this time that we quickly departed out the door.

Our next stop was the “Ear, Throat, and Nose” Doctor’s office, across the street. Losee and I both fell while climbing the staircase. Losee was smoking a cigarette and laughing still deliriously while laying on his back on the staircase. While this happened, Isaac stormed into the Doctor’s office and demanded an appointment, screaming something like “My ear hurts real badly, BUT I DON’T GOT INSURANCE!!!”

After we had our fun at the expense of everyday working class people, we decided to head back to 24 Columbia.

As soon as I got in the door I went back to my dusty corner to pass out and recharge my batteries for the night. About 2 hours later I noticed I was alone in the house. It was weird to be semi drunk/hung-over at 5:40P.M, I remember thinking “Oh god what has my life come to.”

A little later on everyone came back to the house ready and willing to catch their second wind. So again, slowly but surely everyone hopped back onto the rowdy train. Beer Pong was played, Irish music was blasted, funnels were passed around, HEY!! HEY!! HEY!!! Was chanted, and it was off to the races again.

Much left of what happened in this day were lost after this session, so keep in mind the article will shut off similarly to my memory of what happened afterwards.

We left for the bars around 8ish. This time we were off to the “Copper Fox.” As we were walking toward the bar a hippie Jesus freak approached us with leaflets on the street. He preached to us for a while, about how we should change our lives, you know, classic shit. Before he could finish his preaching, Isaac stated, “I like to get fucked up, MAN….”, which stopped the Jesus freak dead in his tracks, and we all laughed and made our way to the bar.

The rest of the night was pretty much a blur to me, I remember being in the bar where the smell of corned beef and cabbage was potent in the air. The bar was packed to capacity with people all dressed in green. The last thing I remember was taking shots at the bar of SoCo and lime with everybody, and it is pretty much a blank slate after that.

When I awoke the next day I was painfully hung over, possibly the worst hangover ever, so bad that my hands were shaking all day. But hey it’s only a one-day a year kind of thing and I’m Irish so it’s expected of me, as it should be for all of you, that goes for you Italians too you greasy fucks. (I’m mostly just calling out the guidos, so don’t be offended).

I hope that this tale inspired you to follow a similar path ossification on this upcoming St. Patrick’s Day, it is truly one of the greatest holidays there is.

Relish it baby, RELISH IT!

Questions? Comments? Any reaction at all? Email me at itsbyrne@hotmail.com, or contact me on the forum. Happy St. Patty’s day, you’ll hear from me soon.