One week from today is St. Patrick's day, so in honor of that, today's "throwback Thursday" is courtesy of St. Patrick's day circa 2011.

This was back when Nicole and I were both living in Southie, and it was pretty hard to ignore St. Patrick's there.  Roads were shut down (sometimes to the point it took me hours to figure out how to get home), the entire population of Boston hopped on the red line and invaded our neighborhood and bars, and of course, the parade!

The South Boston, St. Patrick's Parade is the second largest parade in the country, with anywhere from 600,000 to 1 Million people attending every year.  It's also over 3.5 miles long and takes most of the day to work it's way through Southie.  So pretty much if you live there, you either embrace the parade, or you get out of town for the day!

It's also been exposed recently as a pretty homophobic parade, which takes a lot of the fun out of it.  That's the reason why our former mayor Menino always refused to take part every year.  This year the parade isn't until March 20th, and I likely won't get down to Southie to celebrate, but it will always hold special memories for me. 

What are your plans for St. Patrick's day?

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