Omaha, NE – Ghosts of St Patrick’s Day Past

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Tomorrow, St. Patrick’s Day the temperature is supposed to be in the 50’s with sunshine in the afternoon. That’s great weather just in the nick of time because tomorrow this town is going to be teeming with partygoers, revelers and drinkers blaring out songs from the old country and tipping a few back.

The local Irish bars are going all out. Three Fine Irishmen are serving green bagels for breakfast at 6:00 am. (I’ve eaten green bagels and green bread before, but it was when I was young and really poor and I never told anybody let alone advertised it).

O’Connor’s (downtown) is slacking off and not opening until 9 am. But the Brazen Head is opening at 6 am. And they plan on having a heated tent in the parking lot to serve lunch in. Hopefully they won’t need the heat.

And if you’re in midtown you can hit Sullivan’s at 40th & Farnam starting at 6 am. For breakfast they’re offering free homemade Irish soda breads and assorted jams. That sounds kind of cool. And not too far away at Maloney’s on 72nd St. they have green eggs and ham.

So with all those, and more great places to go to tomorrow I’m hoping that St. Patrick’s Day 2010 will be better than St. Patrick’s Day 2009, 2008 or 2007.

Last year my friend Dave and I went out. We decided to hit some places that weren’t the normal Irish bars – you know those quaint little out-of-the-way places. We had good intentions; only things didn’t work out too well. We only really had two goals. I wanted a green beer and Dave wanted a Guinness.

Our first stop that night was a little hole in the wall by where Dave worked. He said he’d always wanted to go there so I said, “bring it.” Well, I should have said, “shove it” because there were probably less than 6 people in the bar (including the bartenderess), a few St. Patty’s Day decorations scattered about, no Irish food in the place and not a green beer or Guinness to be found. I even got yelled at for putting my feet on a chair. And this was in South O.

Next we went to The Corner Pocket on R St., somewhere between 38th and 42nd streets. We went there because Dave heard that Lindsay Wagner (Playboy Playmate – Nov. 2007) who is an Omahan was from that area and sometimes went to that bar. Again it was a bust (no pun intended). There were only handful of people there but I did manage to scrape the bottom of the crock-pot for the remainder of the corned beef and cabbage.

From there we ventured over to the Marleybone on Leavenworth St. It was okay, and not nearly as wild and crazy as I remember some St. Patty’s Days there. But still no green beer or Guinness. So we to Clancy’s on 72nd & Pacific. They were really busy and we thought for sure we could get what we were after there. But they wanted a $10 cover for some bus thing. We didn’t want any bus thing nor did we want to pay a $10 cover. By this time it was close to 10 pm and we still hadn’t had our green beer and Guinness.

The Pipeline was just up the street, but we had been to the Marleybone and Clancy’s and if we couldn’t get our Irish fix there I didn’t thing the “O’Pipeline” would be able to do the trick. We decided to try it and if they didn’t have them then we’d just call it a night.

But low and behold the “O’Pipeline” had both green beer and Guinness. So we stayed there for three of them, sang O Danny Boy in our hearts and smiled like our last name was O’Malley.

Even though that was a lame night it beat the year before when my cousin and I went to The Swizzle Stix (the old La Vista Keno) and got there when all the corned beef and cabbage was sold out and we ended up eating tacos instead. Ugh.

Or the year before when a girlfriend and I went to a bar in Lincoln and were happily drinking green beer when they suddenly got a super rush and the waitress quickly dropped off a bottle of Miller Lite and a small vial of green dye and told me to mix it myself.

So this year I’m hoping for better things. As least the weather should be nice.

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