St. Patrick's Day celebrated with parade

As if there hadn't been enough challenges already, what with the budget crisis and the threat of rain and the sobering news about renewed violence back in Ireland, the annual Philadelphia St. Patrick's Day Parade had to compete with Pat Hanlon's suit.

Hand-tailored to Hanlon's specifications by a nice German woman in the Northeast 20 years ago, the jacket and trousers are made of pure Irish linen. A linen so fresh-sprouted, rhapsodically green that it makes the Emerald City seem sad and sallow.

So as Hanlon, a 77-year-old retired food-service manager, stood on the corner of 16th and Arch Streets to watch the bagpipers marching and the floats bearing dancing girls with boing-boing curls and the vintage convertibles driven by smiling Irish Catholic parishioners, he discovered that he had become part of the spectacle.

The crowds turned their gaze from the pageantry to stare at The Suit. Tourists stopped to take its picture.

"It's not for sale," Hanlon told one man, who was eyeing it covetously. "I don't care what you do."

Hanlon's wife, Terry, noted that his get-up was a collaborative effort. His shamrock tie was a gift from a Jewish friend, she said, as she delicately picked a spot o' lint from her husband's lapel.

"He's always been a flashy dresser," she said. But nothing else in his closet is quite as blinding as this, the prized outfit that hangs mothballed 364 days a year, until he takes it out the night before the parade to iron it.

"He presses all his clothes," she says, with the loving tolerance of a long, long marriage. "Presses his clothes and polishes his shoes."

The couple drove down from their home in Northeast Philadelphia early to claim their spot on the parade route. "I'm 100 percent Irish," Hanlon says. "No stray blood." He and his wife, who is Scottish on her mother's side but is just as devoted to St. Patrick's Day, have not missed a parade in almost 30 years.

This year, they worried that they might. With the city too broke to offer free security, cleanup, and other supportive services, the parade's organizers found themselves $40,000 short of the funds it needed.

But over the last few weeks, donations flooded in after Brian P. Tierney, chief executive of Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C., offered a $20,000 matching grant from the company, which owns The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com.

Tradition requires that parade-goers decorate themselves with Irish pride. Hanlon's suit was a standout, but thousands of others wore a lot of green stuff, to notable, if not always flattering, effect.

Feather boas, sequined Mad Hatter hats, and shiny shamrock necklaces. Degrees of Irish heritage were noted on T-shirts - FBI "for full blown Irish" and IBM for "Irish by marriage."

Mayor Nutter was spotted marching toward the front of the parade, wearing a suit on the drab-olive end of the green spectrum.

"Hey, look!" shouted Rob Kinsey, a 50-year-old tradesman from Harleysville, nursing a Wawa coffee cup filled with vodka-spiked iced tea. "It's Mayor McNutter!"

Nearby, Jimmy Gilhool was having trouble keeping his cart of T-shirts in stock. Gilhool, 16, a high school junior from Boothwyn, has three uncles on the Philadelphia police force. One of them was a close friend of the late Officer John Pawlowski, killed a month ago, and has raised more than $100,000 for the family by selling memorial T-shirts at $20 apiece. Yesterday's kelly-green version was flying off the carts.

One, literally.

As the Phillie Phanatic passed, standing atop a trolley, a green Pawlowski T-shirt sailed over the crowd. The Phanatic caught it, wiggled in delight, and held up the shirt triumphantly.

The parade, with about 200 groups participating, progressed slowly for more than three hours along a truncated route from 16th Street and JFK Boulevard to Eakins Oval.

A pair of Irish singers trying to lead sing-alongs with the crowd was repeatedly interrupted by deafening shots from two dozen muskets fired by the 69th Infantry Irish Irregulars, a Civil War reenactment group.

"Anyone need rounds?" one of the group's leaders called out.

"I need whiskey!" one of his recruits shouted back.

Adam Batchelor, a 22-year-old from Drexel Hill, distinguished himself in a pair of shamrock-printed sneakers ($12, Nordstrom's Rack), a forest-green blazer ($3, Bryn Mawr Thrift Shop), a leprechaun tie (inherited from his grandfather), and an authentic Donegal wool cap (appropriated from a friend).

The outfit caught the eye of Gov. Rendell as he marched by. Rendell waved. Batchelor seized the opportunity. He told his dad to get out the camera and ran over to pose for a picture that he may one day frame to show friends he wants to impress. Unless better judgment prevails.