Steve Arrison, the Hot Springs promoter who invented the World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade as a wildly successful traffic generator, had to chuckle at this:
A bar in New York’s Bronx, has come up with a 47-foot St. Patrick’s Day Parade to wrest the title of shortest from the Spa City. In one pub door and out the other. Arrison is up to the challenge, as a New York Time article notes:
The word this week from Hot Springs, which has been holding its parade for more than a decade, was emphatic: It was not yielding its title.
“Ours is going to be the first-ever world’s shortest 11th annual St. Patrick’s Parade,” said Steve Arrison, a tourism official in Hot Springs. “We lent y’all Bill Clinton. You’re not taking our parade. Even if we have to walk backwards, or walk in place, we’re keeping ours the shortest.”
This, of course, is a promoter’s dream come true. Just spell Hot Springs right.
The article details the Irish Elvi that throng the Hot Springs event, The Riverdance knockoff — Lord Fatley and the Lards of the Dance. Belly dancers. A fire truck.
Arrison is sending $100 to the Bronx. You can’t buy this kind of pub.
Details here about the March 17 event. Jim Belushi and Mountain Man from Duck Dynasty will be on hand.