WEARING O' THE GREEN

Corned beef, cabbage and potatoes seasoned with laughter and dashes of shenanigans will be served at the tables of Irishmen and the Irish at heart Thursday.

Two Cape Girardeau families have made sharing hearty helpings of good times a March 17 certainty since 1966.

Jim and Evelyn Riley and Dee and Jack Durkin plan to continue the tradition this St. Patrick's Day.

"It's a time to be with good friends and sing good songs," said Dee Kelly Durkin, "and kick up our heels a little bit."

While career demands caused the two families to be separated by many miles just a few years after meeting, they refused to let distance pull apart their friendship.

"They'd come back here or we'd go where they were," said Evelyn Riley. "If we couldn't get together any other day, we almost always got together on St. Patrick's Day."

The Durkins returned to Cape Girardeau as permanent residents six years ago.

Friendship also has weaved its way through the lives of the Durkin and Riley children. It was because of the children that the parents met.

"Our daughters knew one another in school," Evelyn Riley recalled. The mothers met one day while shopping with their daughters. "We immediately liked one another and hoped that our husbands would too."

They must have, because almost 30 years later the March 17 tradition continues. "My husband and Mr. Riley usually start out early in the morning," said Dee Durkin. "They'll have corned beef and cabbage for an early lunch, for dinner, and sometimes for a midnight snack."

Family, friendship, plus a third element, that of faith, are a natural fit with St. Patrick's Day, Patricia Flanagan Litwicki of Cape Girardeau contends. "Most of your Irish people have a strong faith. They were brought up that way," she said.

Tradition and pride in heritage run deep. "It's nice to keep up some of the old ways," Litwicki said. "I've tried to keep it in my own family -- by celebrating, by telling them stories of my grandmother and my parents from years ago.

"I just think your heritage is very important for your own life."

She counts her grandmother's rocking chair, brought from the homeland by an Irish priest, among her prized possessions.

Litwicki's mother was reared in a part of St. Louis called Kerry's Patch. Jim Riley, too, has family connections with the place.

"My grandfather rode a white horse in the St. Patrick's Day parade," he said. "I still have that medal and still wear it on St. Patrick's Day."

Ethnic pride is not lost on Jim Riley, whom Dee Durkin describes as "Ireland itself."

The best aspect of being Irish, Jim Riley contends, "Is just bein' blessed.

"There are only two kinds of people in the world," he said with an old country lilt in his voice, "those that are Irish and those that wish they were."

Of the foursome, Evelyn Riley is the only one not claiming Irish descent. Jim Riley, unfailingly referring to his wife of many years as his bride, asserted that Evelyn is indeed "becoming" Irish.

Admitting that the endearment has raised an eyebrow or two through the years, Evelyn Riley added with a chuckle, "The Irish are kind of full of blarney."

She said that while St. Patrick's Day may be used simply as an excuse to celebrate, she's quick to join the fun. "I just kind of ride in on their coattails, because they do have fun."

There's just something about St. Patrick's Day in the United States that inspires the fun-loving nature in many -- Irish or not.

"They're just kind of blithe spirits," Evelyn Riley said, "and it just rubs off on everybody, and everybody has a good time."

Mary O'Leary Yeager of Cape Girardeau, likewise, claims: "Everybody's Irish on St. Patrick's Day."

One thing is certain, she joked, "You never ask someone if they're Irish. If they are, they'll tell you. If they're not, don't embarrass them."

Yeager said she always looks forward to the March 17 observance. "We have one grand time," she said.

Yeager will gather with her five siblings to talk of the old days and of days to come. "Anytime you get a bunch of Irish together you have a lot of talking," she said.

"The Irish are clannish," Yeager added, referring to the great value she bestows on family. "My children are my closest friends."

Saint Patrick, the patron of Ireland, was both a bishop and a missionary. While March 17 is hailed as the great saint's day on both sides of the ocean, the two countries' customs then take radical departure.

"In Ireland, they don't carry on like we do here," Yeager said. "It's a very solemn feast day over there." After a slight pause, she added with a chuckle, "More's the pity for them."