It’s here again. As I write this it’s here, and as you read this, it’s over. It’s St. Patrick’s feast day, that day when the first born on American soil celebrated by cooking up corned beef and cabbage, and when my grandfather slammed his beer glass down on the bar at Skeeter O’Neils and shouted, “Tell me again just exactly who it was who could afford corned beef?”

It’s here again. As I write this it’s here, and as you read this, it’s over. It’s St. Patrick’s feast day, that day when the first born on American soil celebrated by cooking up corned beef and cabbage, and when my grandfather slammed his beer glass down on the bar at Skeeter O’Neils and shouted, “Tell me again just exactly who it was who could afford corned beef?”

If I turn my head slightly to the left, I can see it from here.

A review of William Broad’s new book, “The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards” recently appeared in these pages. It seems to lean heavily on the risks part.

August 1941. Petty Officer Matt Devine stood behind the family’s peeling green lawn bench, his hands behind him. He was on a short leave and anxious to get out of this hot backyard and over to Mary Viellas’ before he had to catch his train.

One day at recess in the school yard at St. Mary and Joseph Catholic School, I fell down and seriously skinned my knee. Everyone laughed and ran off, except for Mary Lister.

“You call this snow?” he shouts down from the top of his truck.

She stands at the gate watching her son board the bus. She talks to him on her cellphone. She is in her late 70s, maybe a well-kept, fit 80. He is seated now and she can’t see him, but he’s there on her cell, where they keep up the conversation they started at breakfast. They continued in the car probably, going over the little things.

They’re coming. They’re coming home from every point on the compass: Kabul, Berlin, Korea. They’re coming from Los Angeles, Chicago, El Paso, Eagle Pass and Tampico.