Cracking the St. Patricks’ Day myths The truth behind green clothing, getting pinched, and the man who started it all Beth Askins Sttaff Writer It’s early morning on a Wednesday. As the newly-risen sun filters through your blinds, you catch a glimpse of your calendar and realize it’s not just any Wednesday. It’s March 17—St. Patrick’s Day. Oh yeah, you think, recalling what the occasion entails: you rush to your closet, rummaging to find something green. Upon finding a suitable
green shirt, you smile to yourself. You’re not getting pinched today! Never once in the course of this yearly ritual do you stop to ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?” It’s just a tradition you accept and have accepted since you were old enough to know how to dress yourself, a Hallmark Holiday you celebrate probably just because everyone else does. “I don’t know the real reason [we have to wear green],” said senior Heather Audyski, “I just don’t want to
From typewriters to iPods: Explaining the common technological generation gap “How do you play this thing?” my friend asked me a few days ago as she struggled to connect her iPod to my car adapter. “You push the big white button with the sideways triangle on it,” I joked, being too lazy to give her real instructions. Everyone in the car chuckled a bit at my lame comment, but at that moment I realized just how much technology has changed our lives. Thirty years ago, my sideways triangle description would not have been an unhelpful, obvious answer at all. The markings that we now call “universal symbols” – the play/ pause buttons on iPods, the green phone icons on “send” buttons, the fast forward symbols on television remotes – were hardly known when our parents were teens, and did not exist at all for our grandparents’ generation. It’s no wonder anyone born before 1980 seems tech retarded! My dad once told me about what he considered to be the biggest tech craze of his childhood: the electric typewriter. Perhaps the equivalent of today’s MacBook, these devices seemed to be the hot gadget of the 1970’s. Owning one had some definite perks; you could delete any mistake three letters back or less, you didn’t have to worry about scrolling and adjusting your paper manually, and of course, you didn’t have to push the buttons with as much force as the traditional typewriters. What a revolution! I laughed to myself when I first heard of the “amazing” things an electric typewriter could do, and there is a reason why I did. The humor in the situation is derived from the sheer amount of change that the world has seen from his childhood to mine; what was once unbelievable technology now seems to have walked straight out of the Triassic period. There is a name for big changes like these that set old time apart from modern time: a generation gap. The generation gap that is currently evolving around us is probably the biggest since the 1920’s coupling of the automobile and radio. The explosion of technology at the beginning of this century led to the formation of an entirely new language and an entirely new culture. If you had told your boyfriend “ILY” ten years ago, he would have thought you were talking about verb tenses. The phrase “social network-
ing” didn’t even exist back then! The digital age has completely changed the way that we communicate and act in social situations, and it has left our elders with a bit of nostalgia for the past, perhaps rightfully so. Take my mom, for example. The last day of February break found her driving a SUV-full of my friends home from Tahoe. We were pretty disgruntled seeing as there was a four-hour drive ahead and no comfort to be found; suitcases were in our foot space and ski poles were in our head space. Naturally, we cranked up our iPods to try to pass time. My mom, however, sat in seclusion at the wheel. She told us of a time when car rides meant hours of family bonding and good conversation and she complained of our anti-social behavior (but we didn’t really hear her because we had headphones in our ears). She cursed the death of this entrancing Apple Company, wishing to return to a simpler time. My mother actually does own an iPod. It wasn’t her decision; she got it as a Christmas present last year from the family. It’s a fourth generation, hot pink “Nano” with a built in video camera and an 8 GB memory. The minute it came out the box it began collecting dust in our home office. My little brother stole the headphones that came with it because he had broken his own in a mishap with our chew-happy puppy. Eventually I snatched the iPod itself from the desk and synced it to my own computer; I could not let it sit there unused while I had to deal with my 3-year-old relic of a music-playing device. It doesn’t really bother me that my mother refuses to use her iPod (actually it doesn’t bother me at all because now its mine!), or that my father needs to read the instruction manual to understand the buttons on our DVR remote. I have realized that it is not because they are dumb and it is not because they are clueless; they need help simply because they are on the older end of an especially deep generation gap. I suppose the world changes too quickly for the stubborn human nature to adapt in time. And although our youth puts our generation on top of the world right now, I suspect that twenty years from now we will find ourselves in our parents’ position; we will be longing for the simple times when you could fit the whole world in your back-pocket in the form of that half-inch thick gadget called a “phone”.
get pinched!” But like all holidays, St. Patrick’s Day is much more than the commercial façade of four-leafed clovers, shirts that invite onlookers to “kiss me, I’m Irish”, and cutesy little men sporting ginger beards and dressed in buckled shoes and hats. All the traditions came from Ireland, to be sure, but the man who started it all was neither a leprechaun nor a T-shirt wearer. St. Patrick, AKA Maewyn Succat (his birth name), was actually not even Irish. No one knows for sure his exact birthplace and time, but most scholars agree that he was probably born in Scotland around 375 AD, to relatively wealthy parents. March 17, the day we celebrate, is not actually the day he was born, but thought to be the day he died.
When Succat was 16-years-old, pirates kidnapped him and sold him as a slave to a chieftan named Milchu, who oversaw a large territory in Ireland. While he worked at tending Milchu’s sheep on a hilltop, Succat started praying to God and turned from pagan to Catholic. This was a turning point in Succat’s life. After six years of toil, Succat escaped and traveled to France to become a Catholic priest, where he changed his name to Patrick. Setting off to Ireland once again, he undertook the task of converting the country to Christianity. After 40 years of building churches and preaching to thousands, Patrick succeeded in his mission. Today, Ireland is still considered a largely Catholic country. Oh, and that four-leafed clover tradition? That was started by Patrick. Except… it actually wasn’t a fourleafed clover. During his preaching, he often used a clover with three leaves to show the people how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit could be one being in God.
Wearing green and pinching: In the early 1700’s, when the holiday first became popular in America, people believed that wearing green clothing actually hid a person from the mischievous eyes of leprechauns, who would pinch a human if they saw one. To warn ignorant folk against the harmful effects of not wearing green, people started pinching those who didn’t wear green, too. Leprechauns: Their relationship with this holiday has more to do with the dawning of spring, when the Irish believed leprechauns to be most active. Leprechauns were said to be greedy creatures as well as tricksters, who could often be found steal-
As patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick is a very important icon in the Catholic faith (for more details on St. Patrick’s life, you can look online at the Catholic Encyclopedia). Throughout the years, the commemoration of the man who changed Ireland’s official religion has dwindled down to the celebration of leprechauns and pots of gold at the end of the rainbow. But there is a way to keep St. Patrick alive. Next time you see a child’s menu around St. Patrick’s Day, a gift card with a four-leafed clover on it, or a shirt emblazoned with “kiss me, I’m Irish”, instead of thinking “aww, how cute”, take a moment to remember whose day everyone is celebrating. Remember the man who single-handedly converted the Irish to Christianity. Remember a man who dedicated his life to his faith, perhaps the only man whose life ultimately improved after being kidnapped by pirates. Remember the name behind the holiday. Remember St. Patrick.
ing gold out of the pot at the end of the rainbow. Various stories have been told of leprechauns who tricked Irish folk into trading their own gold for leprechaun gold, which was said to disappear overnight. You’d think they’d learn. Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: According to the Irish belief, wherever a rainbow appeared, a person could find a giant pot of gold at the end of it. Thus, seeing a rainbow was considered good luck. Unless, of course, a leprechaun had gotten to it first. Blarney Stone: Found in Blarney Castle in Ireland, the stone is said to give a person who kisses it the gift of flattery. Today, the word “blarney” is also used in Ireland to dismiss a person’s flattery, eg. “Blarney! My hair doesn’t look any more amazing today than it usually does.” Illustration by Beth Askins and Kylie Brown
Bay Area Myths: continued from front page Outside of the marked boundary, everything checks to be normal. Upon entering the sphere of mystery, you can instantly feel its force. With a sense of dizziness and slight nausea, the forces of The Spot affect your entirety. Not only do you notice the physical changes, but small mental changes as well. “My body is confused,” described senior Hannah Stone as she cautiously, but easily, walked up “the staircase”, which was in fact a Photo by Rain Stites wall. While most visitors are believers to begin with, skeptics are proven wrong. Gaurav, an engineer and visitor on the tour, attempted to find an explanation for The Mystery Spot. “I was a little skeptical at first and I thought there could be answers, and I couldn’t figure it out. It’s scary,” he said. Plenty of theories are assumed about this place of the unknown, however, none have yet to prove true. Is The Mystery Spot just another optical illu-
sion, or will it forever remain an unsolved mystery? You decide. To y s - R - Us , Photo by Rain Stites Sunnyvale: “We call him Johnny,” said Rick, current Toys-R-Us employee, of the spirit that employees believe to roam the halls. Built in 1970, this toy store is home to more than just dolls and bicycles. Before construction of the building, the land was John Murphy’s Farm, an apple orchard of the 1800s. Legend says Johnny Johnson, a woodsman who worked on the orchard, fell in love with Murphy’s daughter. While chopping down wood one day alone, Johnny’s axe missed, striking his leg. His pleas and cries for help were left unheard, and he bled to his death. According to locals, Johnny now roams the back aisles, the women’s restroom, and the upstairs of this haunted ToysR-Us. “It’s just creepy,” described current employee Jenna of the upstairs storage room. According to employees, the up-
stairs storage room during closing is the most eerie of all. Boxes will mysteriously move and noises will be made throughout the room, although no one appears to be around. “[When] no one is back [in the storage] you’ll say ‘Hey, how [are] you doing? Anybody back here?’ [and no one will answer],” Jenna continued. “[The spirit is] just kind of like, it’s just there, you know?” Surveillance footage has also revealed Johnny to other employees of the store. Rick described numerous occasions during which footage revealed skateboards and bicycles rolling up and down aisles while no one is around. Also, the store’s sliding electric doors violently slid open at around 3 a.m. a few months back, Photo by Rain Stites resulting in the arrival of the police. Cameras also show the store to be completely empty at the time of the incident. Are all of these accounts just stories, or is Johnny still seeking his long lost love from many years ago? -Rain Stites, Editor-in-Chief
Language: our outlet for self-expression Emma McGhan Staff Writer There are thousands of cultures spread throughout the world with different customs that create barriers. However, there’s one aspect binding every civilization on Earth: language. Words give people the power to express themselves, to create works of literature, and to inspire. But, where do these words come from and how is their meaning derived? Languages like Spanish, French and Italian are considered “Romantic” languages, which means most of their words come from Latin. While English shares many cognates with our cousins
across the pond, our speech is a culmination of many different languages from all over. The Germans, Vikings, and Anglo-Saxons all played a hand in creating the words used to produce Shakespeare, Dickens, Hemmingway, and our Facebook statuses. With anything that wants to survive multiple generations, our words have grown and adapted with time. This was probably most evident as we struggled through “Romeo and Juliet” our freshman year, barely recognizing our own language. When we separated from our Motherland to become our own independent nation, our English took on a
life of its own, and became an English dialect, an English 2.0. While great American orators throughout history like Lincoln, Kennedy, and King never would have imagined us expressing ourselves with words like “dude”, “lol”, and “hella”, they showed us how to use words with dignity and integrity. While you are more likely to hear “Omg, did you hear about...? She was so totally…” walking down the halls as opposed to “The lady doth protest too much…”, language is important to our country, as evident through our first amendment, the freedom of speech. And whether we use this right to move the masses or to update our friends on our daily lives, words move us forward.