St. Patrick's Day Celebration at the Community House

Bedford Town Supervisor Lee Roberts toasted the 100 or so senior citizens who braved yesterday's steady rain to celebrate their Irish heritage—no matter how small the percentage—in style at the annual St. Patrick's Day Party at The Bedford Hills Community House. 

"Top of the morning to you," she said to a smiling crowd, drawing from her Irish ancestry (she's half-Irish and her maiden name is Curran; the other side of her family is Dutch).

With even less, if any, Irish heritage on his side, 94-year-old Robert Swartz joked that he needed more than a little green to get by on this day. "With a name like mine, I've got to wear a sign," he said gamely, as he sported an honorary Irishman pin.

Elois, his wife of 63 years, seemed less self-conscious about her lack of Irish-ness and rejoiced in what the Irish bring to us all.  "They are happy, jolly and good dancers," she said.

Mary Jo O'Brien was ready for the dancing and hoping for an invitation. "Never turn down a good thing," she said, as she sat with her sister, Eileen, from Ireland.

O'Brien remembered her childhood St. Patty's Day traditions, noting that she'd rather forget some parts. In the old country, she said, the holiday had religious overtones, and her family would visit a well where Ireland's patron saint had supposedly stood. 

"We'd go pray at a hole in the ground," she said, which clearly wasn't as fun as dancing with her Bedford Hills friends.

Still, her sister couldn't help but notice how nostalgia seemed to cover some of the negative associations from the past. "It's so Irish, you feel like you're home," she said.

Doug Crossett and Scott Pires of Oliver's (formerly the Katonah Grill) donated the dinner and the entertainment, guitar player Pat Joe Birney.  Crossett said, "This seemed like a good way to get St. Patrick's Day started."

Danny Fontana (an Italian-American, while we're keeping score) agreed, and was grateful to the restaurant owners for helping make the celebration synonymous with the way the Irish go about things. "They really know how to live," he said.

His sister Flora Fontana felt the Irish spirit too, but playfully commented that the Irish could learn a few things in the kitchen from the Italians, though she loved the corned beef and cabbage.

The celebration seemed to go beyond celebrating specific holiday traditions as old friends  mingled and chatted. "It's nice to enjoy the ambience and get together with neighbors whom you don't get to see often enough," said Gladys Bocker. 

And going the extra mile for our seniors, said Roberts, is something that shouldn't be contained to just the special days. "We have to remember them everyday because they are important to the life of our town," she said.