100,000 welcomes

Classic decor at the Wherehouse? in Holyoke after the 33rd Annual St. Patrick's Day 10k race: the Irish expression "Cead Mile Failte" (100,000 welcomes) and a photo of JFK. I think it would be great if every town had a warehouse full of artifacts from the town's past and present.


I was going to take photos along the way and blog the race, so to speak, but I didn't get the greatest shots. There are some good scenes along the way including a bagpipe player, people in weird outfits and kids holding out their hands so you can give them the high five when you run by. About every 20th person seems to wear a big floppy hat that looks like a pint of Guinness. These two young women wearing shirts saying, respectively, "dumb" and "dumber" -- pointing to the other girl -- was something I hadn't seen before.
About 3,300 ran this year. Some top runners compete and winners earn $1,000. Sadly, the trio of fighter planes that swoop down above the runners at the beginning didn't make it this year, but a helicopter made an appearance and got some applause for the effort.


Mile 5 of 6.2 is always a pretty good place to be. I was pretty worn out this year. I like to come in under an hour, but I came in at around 64 minutes.



Dave Sullivan, of Easthampton, register of probate for Hampshire County. This guy is EV-ER-Y-WHERE. He's an area coordinator for the Obama campaign and he was at the race raising money for a guy who got a kidney transplant. I was so, so touched that he came to my dad's funeral last year.


The walls and ceilings at the Wherehouse? are covered with memorabilia ranging from ephemera to old washing machines, an actual cockpit of a plane that you can step into and who knows what else. This horse stands by the stairs.


Love the photo galleries of past Holyoke Saint Patrick's Day "colleens" and various bishops among other figures. My brother's in-laws, the Czelusniaks who were from Holyoke, were always a little annoyed that a girl had to be part Irish-American to run for colleen. There are plenty of Czelusniak Funeral Home artifacts to be seen at the Wherehouse? though.


Pretty much everywhere you look, you see a Kennedy mug.

We went to a fun party afterward at the house of Anna Maria of Elizasmom. I was hoping Eliza herself could make a guest appearance at AboutAmherst, but all the pictures I got of her were blurry. Taking photos of toddlers isn't as easy as it looks, I guess.

Elizasmom's beautiful mom claims to be 60!

Elizasmom's friend Michelle who got her MFA at UMass and teaches creative writing at Boston University.


Elizasmom's friend who used to work at Merriam-Webster in Springfield told us she was involved in getting the word "blog" into one of the famous dictionary's editions. D'oh, she tells us this just as we were on our way out, so I can't tell you anything more about it.


Bloggers, runners and running bloggers courtesy Elizasmom.