St. Patrick’s Day this weekend is the delivery of the promise made on Groundhog Day of an early spring and a time to celebrate.

Central Oregon has a lot to offer to mark the return of blues skies and green grass, if the listings in our GO! Magazine are any indication.

Here’s how you can get out and enjoy the weather. If you have your cell phone handy, download our app and get the listings of the fun and music this weekend. It is listed in the app stores as “The Bulletin: News & eEdition.” Once you have it running, select GO! Under the “topics” section. The listings also are easily available on our website here: www.bendbulletin.com/events.

Of note this weekend is the St. Paddy’s Day Dash, starting at noon across the flag bridge in the Old Mill District. The Mt. Bachelor Rotary Club and Cascade Relays team up to sponsor a 5k, 10k and 1.3-mile course. The running of the green starts at noon. Proceeds will benefit the Assistance League of Bend.

Also on tap (and many kegs will be tapped) are performances by the Bend Fire Department’s pipe and drum band. The group performed for the Mt. Bachelor Rotary club on Friday morning, where bagpipe player Dave Howe described why fire departments and bagpipers are closely associated with each other.

Early in the last century the Irish were on the bottom end of the immigration spectrum. Hence, they could only work the worst jobs, Howe said, and firefighting was the worst of them.

“It was low pay, dangerous and there were a lot of fires, too,” he said.

Turns out that when a firefighter or anyone died in a fire, the Irish bagpipers would play at their funeral. Eventually the firefighters and bagpipers merged into the groups you see today.

We hope you get some sunshine on your face this weekend, after months of cloudy days.

And while you’re at it, please support our local journalism by subscribing if you haven’t already.

Thanks for reading.

Gerry O’Brien, Editor