POMO ST PADDY’S

I’m a bit of a self-hating Irishman here, but I had a good time on St Paddy’s Day this year thanks to a party given by a Jewish friend of mine. It was a fundraiser for a local gay-straight rugby team (very post-gay) and featured the usual bevy of plaid-shirted Washington types, but also a bunch of thick-necked, buzz-cutted rugger enthusiasts. I had to play rugby for five years or so at my English high school (hence, in part, my 19 inch neck), and my father treats rugby as something only a mite bit less important than life and death, so I can talk rugby positions with the best of them. Of course, rugby, properly understood, is only one half sport. The other half is drinking. Well, we did admirably by the latter. It was the first party since high school where people peed into the drain outside rather than wait in line for the john. It’s civilizing sport is rugby. For years in England, I’d heard people refer disparagingly to rugby fanatics as “rugger-buggers.” Finally, I get to hang out with the literal thing.