By Tom Deignan

Whenever I tell people that my father was a san man — that is, a worker for New York City’s Department of Sanitation — I usually add that he got on the job thanks to a little known affirmative action program which sought to diversify the heavily-Italian department.

That’s a joke, of course, because the truth is the department, which turns 75 years old this year, has always had an Irish presence. 

This year, my best friend of over 25 years, Ed Hicks, got his first taste of marching up Fifth Avenue.

“It was an experience,” said Hicks with a laugh. “Wherever we went people went berserk.”

Hicks, a Staten Island resident and band drummer, has been on the Sanitation Department nearly a year now. Previously he worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center. 

He watched the horrific events of September 11, 2001 unfold from a bus on the Gowanus Expressway. He was late for work that day.

He later joined the Sanitation Department for the same reasons generations of Irish Americans have — security, stability and the opportunity to work with an eclectic group of guys.

Hicks came along at a good time. The department’s Emerald Society has been working in recent years to get the message out that there’s, well, plenty of green in the men in green.

About 10 years ago, the department defied many who said it couldn’t be done and got its own pipe and drums band up and running.

“Hopefully we’re laying the foundation for the band to be around for a long time,” said piper and bandmaster Pat Flynn, a Manhattan native who was a founding member of the band and whom many credit for steering the band through a particularly challenging St. Patrick’s season.

Like Hicks, Flynn said he will never forget marching up Fifth Avenue for the first time.

“I’ll always remember that,” he said. “It was awesome.” 

Nevertheless, when people attend the famed parade up Fifth Avenue, they tend to keep an eye out for the fire and police department bands, if only because those two jobs are still considered heavily Irish. 

Sadly, some people don’t think about the san men until the street sweepers hit the pavement and the clean up begins. That’s unfortunate because the current sanitation commissioner is the impeccably Irish John Doherty.

Meanwhile, only a san man can say that they marched up the avenue, as well as swept it clean and — if necessary — plowed the snow away.

In fact, all of this year’s snow made this year’s parade for the Sanitation’s pipe and drum band a particular challenge. 

Think about it? When are you going to practice if half of your band is doing 12-hour shifts moving snow around the five boroughs?

“I think (because of all the snow duty) we had only one really good practice before Fifth Avenue,” said Woodlawn resident Frank O’Keefe, a drummer with the band whose parents were Irish immigrants.

When you talk to sanitation workers they almost universally praise their jobs. This nosy reporter did feel the need to point out that cops and firefighters are often depicted in much more heroic terms. 

This despite the fact that a sanitation worker was shot on duty earlier this year. Let’s face it, if the streets are not kept clean and clear by sanitation workers day in and day out, the city might grind to a halt.

“No one has written a TV show about sanitation workers,” is all O’Keefe would say when asked about this. “We’re kind of like umpires in a baseball game. The only recognition we get is if something bad happens.”

Well, for the first time in years, a good thing did happen to the sanitation contingent at the big Manhattan parade. They got prominent TV coverage, unlike recent years when it seemed the cameras were always going to commercial when they came marching along.

Now that St. Patrick’s Day is over with, things don’t ease up for the sanitation’s band. They will play at a member’s wedding this weekend and Memorial Day is coming up. 

Until then, Hicks, Flynn, O’Keefe and the rest of the san men will be out doing what the do best. Quietly keeping the city marching along.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net.)