From the archives: On LI, embracing green for St. Patrick's parades

This story was originally published in Newsday on March 12, 2001.

The silly string was everywhere, even on Sen. Chuck Schumer's car.

It was green silly string, of course, since this was a St. Patrick's Day parade.

Green was the color of choice for a lot of things along the parade route in Rocky Point yesterday. There was green hair, for one. And green dogs. And, of course, green beer.

But even the least festive of the parade watchers-one, say, who merely shrugged on a green shirt instead of spraying on green hairspray, or one who just wanted to mingle on the crowded sidewalks with what seemed like half the population of Sound Beach, Mount Sinai and Rocky Point-could not avoid the silly string. Hundreds of kids along the parade route equipped themselves with cans of the stuff, and, as each Cub Scout troop, float or fire engine made its way past, the children would unleash the stuff from aerosol cans in a seemingly unending supply.

Afterward, Schumer pitched in to peel silly string off the black town car that had followed him down the parade route.

"This is so much fun," the Democratic senator said as the last of the green stuff came off. "I was here last year, and had such a great time that I decided to come back."

The community's 51st annual St. Patrick's Day parade was run by the Friends of St. Patrick, a local organization of mostly Irish community members who organize the yearly event.

Small town, maybe. But small time, no way. Friends of St. Patrick president Hugh McCarrick estimated the crowds on the sidewalk at around 35,000 people, and said that 2,500 others marched. The parade featured 15 bands, five local fire departments, 12 floats, two colorful mummer bands from Philadelphia, and around 1,000 Boy, Girl and Cub Scouts, along with Fireflies, Brownies and Tiger Cubs.

Leading the parade was the Rocky Point Golden Eagles, a local civic group, followed by the three grand marshals, waving from a convertible Pontiac. They were Sister Phylis O'Dowd and Sister Elizabeth Stringer of St. Anthony's in Rocky Point, and Sister Margaret Judge of St. Louis de Montfort in Sound Beach.

In Huntington yesterday, another annual parade-the town's 67th-took place under ideal parade conditions. Brookhaven National Lab reported that temperatures approached 50 degrees across much of Long Island.

As the last of the fire departments filed past in Rocky Point, Rob Tingo of Selden was trying to discourage his son, Justin, from unloading the last of his silly string at inappropriate times. When a member of the Rocky Point Fire Department marched by, wearing his dress blues, Tingo reached out to Justin.

"Oh no," he said. "Not the fireman!"