Warning: This will be a VERY VERY Long post.
Last week I experienced my first St. Patrick's Day in Butte. It was a day I was warned about by many and since have been asked by many how it went. The Holiday is probably one of the if not THE biggest day of the year in Butte. Well when that Wednesday rolled around I put on a green sweater and a green and white beaded necklace because I was told I would be pinched if I did not wear green. I look good in green so not a problem. If yellow was the St Patrick's Day color I'd be in trouble. Also, the necklace was a cheap thing from Walmart that came with a blinking shamrock but I took that off finding it too tacky for the news.
Well in the morning I went out to film the parade. It was interesting but shorter than what I expected and from talking to people after it was shorter than other years. They also said it was disappointing and one of the worst parade's. Oh well. However, two of the guys I interviewed after the parade I want to say were in their 20's. They informed me that for the past few years they had been traveling with a group of friends to different St Patty's day celebrations. This year they decided to bring all their friends to Butte. And since the Parade was a bummer they made their own fun with relay races. These races required 2 people to race up the hill to where 2 beers were lined up then chug the beer as fast as they could. Once a person was done his or her beer the next teammate would run down the hill and chug a beer. They then invited me to come on their bus for the day and follow them around as they celebrated. That would have been fun but probably would have gotten me fired. So I went on to interview more people. I talked to one guy who told me he didn't see much of the parade but was happy with the chicks that were there. Awesome. I also interviewed a 77 year old man dressed in a white tux complete with hat. His vest had shamrocks all over it and his beard was dyed green. He has been walking in the Butte parade for 20 years.
Later in the afternoon I headed back uptown with my news director to get set up for my live shot at 5:30. We got up there at 4 and were set up and test run went smoothly by 4:30. So with that hour of time to kill I walked around and took some pictures and also had some very interesting conversations with people. I was hit on by dudes with my news director sitting 2 feet away from me, had some girl scream "yo you blondie" at me to try and get my attention to tell me about her guy friend that was interested, and saw several people walk by the camera and just scream in it. Yea it wasn't on. The best was the girl that walked up to the back of the camera where the viewfinder is and stand in front of that part screaming at it. Ok even if the camera were on you failed miserably at your goal of getting on because that is the BACK of the camera and not the part where people would be able to see you. There was also a drunk girl who came up to our "golden rod" aka what we use to feed the video to a transmitter on top of a mountain so that people can see what's on my camera, on tv. Well when this girl got up to the "golden rod" I guess she thought it looked like a certain um male body part. She proceeded to rub it and make certain sexual comments and sing songs about it. It was so hard not to laugh. Then about 20 minutes before I was to go on tv another drunk girl dropped a full beer right next to me. The beer splattered one side of my body. Sweet. I couldn't wait to interview the Sheriff smelling like beer.
Well the Sheriff showed up about 5:20 and we were going live at 5:30. We had asked him to have one police officer there as well just to keep an eye out for crazy drunks while we were on live television. There were 6 police officers. I was feeling pretty safe surrounded by police and standing next to the Sheriff haha. Well the live shot went ok except for the fact that anytime the Sheriff was speaking we had no audio. At first we thought it was a problem with the microphone cable but then our Anchor said she had a similar problem once before because of a transmitter they wear and it needs to be turned off. Oops. Guess I'll know for the future.
After the live shot I went to an alcohol free party for teens. Again smelling like alcohol since a beer had been spilled on me haha. Oh well.
After work around 9 I was able to meet up with some people and experience my first St. Patty's day in Butte being one of the people celebrating. All bars were ridiculously crowded. The picture at the top is of the bar I was at. And I would put it at this point in the blog but I don't know how to do that yet. Teach me. Anyways I felt like I was back in College with that kind of crowd at a bar. Also, the bathrooms were also very much like the College Park bar bathrooms. Dirty and long lines with no toilet paper.
I left the bar with a friend and 2 cowboys. Don't worry she knew them. We went to a bonfire that one of the cowboys knew was going on. That was interesting. It was a good time I was taught how to jitterbug by one of the cowboys. I really don't know what that means but it was some kind of dance. Anyways it was interesting because I had to pee while I was there. Well this bonfire was in the middle of nowhere. Soooo me and the other girl climbed over a hill and tinkled on the ground far away from the bonfire where no one could see us. I really don't remember the last time I had to do something like that. Thrilling. My St. Patty's day ended shortly after that but I was still told I did not do it right because I did not get a shamrock painted on me and I did not eat corned beef and cabbage. Looks like I already have plans for next year.
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