St. Patrick’s Day always reminds me of my Aunt Mary, or “Mare,” as we said, like the female horse. No one seemed to have endings to their names back in the ’50s: I was “Ant.” In the neighborhood culture that was South Philadelphia in the ’50s and ’60s, Mare was a classic. She was about 4-foot-3 in her favorite housedress. I could put my chin atop her head when I was in fourth grade. There seemed to be a lot of shorter people back then.