LEPRECHAUN FIELD DAY IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

I have to do this.  It is still just a little past St. Patrick's Day and the Leprechaun's are still at it.  It is not the first time.  I find it strange that about one week ago I had a thought run through my head about two of the most exciting snowstorms that I had ever experienced.  We have been having a very dry Winter here in SoCal.  It is always disconcerting to have this happen.  If we do not get our 10 inches of rain before the end of April, we will be in baaad shape for water.  We are always in bad shape for water, but without the rain and the snow pack, it can go all the way to BAAAADD.  So, this year, to spare you the tears, though we could use them if you send them this way, I'll get right to my story.
One St. Patrick's day when I was still in grade school, maybe 1949 or '50 we got one good spanking by the snow Leprechauns.  My parents made all kind of jokes about the fact that it must have been caused by the fact that the mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts was a Pole at the time.  Like I say, it was a good thrashing.  I think I remember something like 10 or 12 inches.  It was really something.  I can't remember if this caused the electorate of Holyoke to elect an Irish mayor the next time around.
The second one was when I was in Seminary in Enfield, New Hampshire, somewhere in the vicinity of 1955 or '57.  That year was a rather white one for us in that neck of the woods.  As it turned out, we got walloped with about 15 inches of the cold, dry, icy, grainy type of snow that falls when the temperature dips to the mid 20's.  It is so beautiful, but oh, what a pain!  Even in New Hampshire it took us a couple of days to clean the stuff up so that we could live comfortably.  I can't remember all the jokes we cracked over the time that we were cleaning up from the storm.  It's perhaps a good thing that a> I can't remember them, and b> they would not translate well from the "canoque" dialect into English anyway.
Well, what happened here was that on The Day, [March 17, natch] snow hit us in SoCal down to the 1,000 foot level.  We have been suffering for three days in weather that cuts right through us with a wind-chill factor of somewhere around 38F.  It's been raining all this time too.  It's almost enough to make us want to go back to the various tropical resorts that we came from.  You know, places like Van Buren, Maine; Burlington, Vermont; Timmins, Ontario; Buffalo, New York and such.  I did say, ALMOST, right?  I even forgot our friends who lived for ten years in the tundra of the Yukon.  
So, that's St. Patrick's day in my life.  I hope you all had a good one.