“They say you’re preaching to the choir,” Jim Crampton told a roomful of people Monday evening. “Now, I’m in a choir, and our choir rehearses and practices until they get it, and even then they go back and practice.”

As the St. Patrick’s Day parade crawled through the Valley, across the windswept Elk Street bridge and into the snow-covered Old First Ward last Saturday, it was fronted by two Buffalo police cruisers, their lights turning—single occupancy, of course. A contingent of police officers followed many blocks later on foot. “I thought you had the flu,” a parade watcher shouted to the driver of one car, at the corner of O’Connell and Tennessee. “I got better,” the cop said wanly.