St. Joseph's Day

March 19, 2024, at home

Happy St. Joseph's Day !!! (I am half Italian, all on my mother's side of my family.)

Here is my explanation of my tradition that forever links St. Joseph's Day and St. Patrick's Day, merely two days apart.

I once again following my own decades-long, personal tradition of wearing the color purple on St. Patrick's Day on March 17, 2024. I have been doing this since my age was in single digits in the late 1960s because I am half Italian. (I am also Austrian, Swiss, and Portuguese.)

Purple is the color of the Italians. I am a lifetime member of Alpha Phi Delta, which is a national, Italian-heritage, social-service fraternity, mostly at colleges and universities in the northeastern section of the United States. Our fraternity colors are purple and white, with the white carnation as our fraternity flower.

I became a member of Alpha Phi Delta in the early 1980s, when I was studying for my undergraduate degree at Villanova University near Philadelphia, and was soon elected as a member of the fraternity's local executive board, specifically as "Recording Secretary."

When I started my tradition in the late 1960s, around seven or eight years old, it was slightly before I had discovered that we Italians have our own celebratory day -- St. Joseph's Day -- which is two days later on March 19. After all of these decades, I continue to keep my purple tradition alive.

However, we Italians wear red on St. Joseph's Day, which I will be doing later today.

As an aside, do not wear the color orange on St. Patrick's Day, that is, unless you want to offend the Irish Catholics. Orange is the color of the Protestants. And, of course, wearing green on either day was never an option for me due to my contrarian nature.