You should all know that I’m not from Cleveland. And though I grew up in a small farming community in southern Michigan, I really consider my hometown East Lansing, Michigan. I lived there for about 20 years after high school. Erika and I met there in 1995 and spent the next 12 years together falling in love. All in and around Michigan State University.

St. Patrick’s day is not a big deal in Michigan. It’s an excuse for some of the college kids to goto the bar and get some light draft beer that has some green food coloring squirted into it. Yes, I have partaken in green food coloring beer. Bars do open early, but really it is not a big deal. Home football games are crazy in East Lansing. Final Four games are big deals. Welcome week at MSU is a big deal.

In Cleveland? St. Patrick’s Day is a very big deal. I was shocked to find this out. But seriously, it’s absolutely nuts. We recently moved into the Higbee building at work, which is attached to Tower City. What does that mean, that my office is basically attached to the only mall and main subway hub in downtown Cleveland. It’s nestled between the Cavs Arena, Indians Field and Browns Stadium. So, when something is going on downtown, I’m in the middle of it when I goto work.

Yes, I have been here for 3 St. Patty Days now. But I’ve tried to stay away from downtown until this year. Knowing I was going to be in the thick of it, I brought the camera expecting to catch the action.

I’m attaching a gallery of the pics below. But I’ll write up some of the details now. Feel free to browse the shots.

I snuck a picture from where I work on the 8th floor, overlooking the parade route below. Once I got a few shots I snuck down a few minutes before the parade started. You should know that there is no school in Cleveland on St. Patrick’s Day and all the 25 and under crowd are downtown. Some acting crazy, some having a good time, some completely drunk and some a little of all of the above.

One step out the door and there was the porta-john line. 10+ deep, people were standing outside in the 40+ degree weather waiting for a chance to make a deposit in the green little houses!

There were people everywhere, thousands and  thousands waiting mostly by the parade route for it to begin. Officially, there was supposed to be ten thousand + people just participating in the actual parade. There were vendors on every street corner selling any and every manner of green themed party gear that you can imagine.

People were climbing poster boards. People were posing police who were out in full riot gear waiting on some crazy armored hummer thing. After that, I took a walk down Euclid avenue to check out the bar scene and see some people away from the parade route. Lines were queued up outside bars and friends were carrying/dragging drunk friends home (I hope).

I ran across two guys wearing green beards and browns shirts. One of my buddies at work would later comment, “That is as Cleveland as Cleveland gets. Look at those knuckleheads.” I couldn’t agree more. People were just everywhere, having fun. It was as if I had been waiting the past 2 1/2 years for the city to wake up.

There were random people blowing these long green horns. They were so loud, I could hear them inside the Higbee building 8 floors up after I went back to work. I eventually found the dude who was selling them on my way back in. He had a hand full of horns and I almost bought the lot to keep a few of them off the street.

On my way back into the building, after the parade had been going on for a good 30 minutes, people were still streaming out of Tower City into the streets.

Great stuff watching the young people from Cleveland come out in droves and have some fun. Where do you hide Cleveland? I don’t know where you’ve been?!?!