St. Patrick’s Day was Rob’s favorite day of the year, and not just for the most obvious reason. For a Jewboy raised in Long Island, Rob often thought of himself as being Irish (albeit without the luck). He loved wearing Scally caps, was a big fan of Flogging Molly and the Dropkick Murphys, and saw The Departed more times than Scorsese. Beginning sometime in his teenage years, Rob became an unrepentant hooligan.

Each year he and his friends would take the train into the city for the St. Paddy’s Day parade and they’d all get prodigiously wasted, doing the pub crawl thing and who knows what else. There was one time when his friends came to our house after the usual shenanigans and they had to carry Rob up the stairs to his bedroom because he was completely passed out. Cue Flogging Molly’s “Drunken Lullabies.”

But Rob being Rob went one step further in his quest to be an honorary leprechaun. I don’t recall exactly how old he was when he came home with a four-leaf clover tattooed between his thumb and forefinger on his left hand. He got the idea from Ryan O’Reily, his favorite character on Oz, and was always most proud of that good luck charm.

So on this St. Patrick’s Day, let’s raise a pint and make a toast:

“To Rob.”