The Beach Bistro hosted another St Patrick's Day Parade last Sunday.

The parade was huuuge. The crowd was in the millions. It was the largest parade crowd in history.

The lying press fixed the pictures so it looked like the crowd was smaller.

I come from a long line of parade enthusiasts. My family's favorite was what we called Uncle George's zipper parade.

It all started with George's baked beans.

My Uncle George loved putting rum in his cooking. His beans were particularly lethal.

George got the beans and pork and brown sugar going in a huge iron crock on the stove. Then he turned it down low and loaded in the rum. He built a hardwood fire in a hole in the backyard. When the fire turned to coals he took the cast iron pot from the stove and put it in the hole and covered it with gravel and sand. The pot would bake all day and then cool through the night.

It was the original Nova Scotian slow cooker.

Losing the rum's alcohol in the cooking drove George crazy. It seemed a terrible waste.

The last time he cooked his beans, he decided to try to seal the alcohol in by wrapping the crock in a space age aluminum blanket he bought to keep warm at hockey games. He sealed the whole thing up with duct tape and put the crock in the hole with the red hot coals.

George washed down all that cooking and digging with a couple of beers. The beers necessitated taking relief through the back fence into McGuillicuddy's yard. Uncle George and McGillicuddy had been bickering all of their lives. He and McGIllicuddy were forever peeing back and forth through the fence.

When the beans exploded, the blast scared the bejeezuz out of George. He zipped up real fast and caught a bit of his equipment in the zipper. No amount of cussing or jiggling or dancing around could get him uncaught.

Reluctantly, George called cousin Mike, the doctor. Doctor Mike was in charge of the emergency room at the hospital.

Doctor Mike immediately appreciated the gravity of George's dilemma. He called about a dozen cousins over to the house to evaluate George's condition and consult on a course of action. Cousin John was appointed to keep me abreast of developments by phone.

After some considerable rum-sipping and muffled giggling, the boys resolved to transport Uncle George to the emergency room by ambulance.

Because of the urgency of the situation, Cousin Tommy, the police sergeant, called in a couple of squad cars to act as escort.

Cousin Glenn, the fire inspector, got a pumper.

Uncle George and his zippered appliance moved off in a parade of sirens and flashing lights and horn-hooting cousins.

Because of the sensitivity of George's condition, the parade proceeded at a cautious pace – past all of the family's houses on the way to the hospital.

My grandmother had 10 kids. It was a longish parade.

When George finally got to the hospital, cousin Mike had arranged a greeting by the entire emergency room staff. Cousin Tommy, the cop, had called his dad, the press photographer, so the papers were in attendance.

Uncle George was safely extracted from the zipper. The celebration of this medical miracle went on into the wee hours.

The parade was appropriately covered in the home town papers.

The parade crowd was reported to be in the millions. Huuuge.

Sean Murphy is the Head Coach of the incredibly talented team that runs the Beach Bistro, it's little sister Eat Here and their new craft cocktail bar, The Doctors Office. Some of his articles can be found on the Bistro's web-site, www.beachbistro.com