Greetings!

**Freelancer** · 5th June 08, 06:34 PM

Greetings to all!

Although I've not a drop of Celtic blood in me (mostly German), I've been drawn to the sounds of the Pipes for as long as I can remember and to Scottish and Celtic culture in general. Last September I was invited to participate in a Scottish wedding in the Beautiful Green Mountains of Vermont, and so had my first opportunity to wear the kilt. It was a PC rental with Royal Stewart tartan. It was GREAT! It felt so natural and I was proud to wear it. The wedding itself was a complete joy to participate in. The band was a Celtic group and the dancing was contra dancing.

Anyway, after the wedding, I started to experience some serious "symptoms" (you know what I mean?). The solution: I went and got myself "Tanked" of course! I started by learning as much as I could. I was on this site for months (some of you would say I was "lurking", but to me, that has such an ill favoured connotation. I'd prefer to say I was "mining" the site for it's wonderful wealth of information). I received my kilt just in time to march with my Scottish friends in the NY Tartan Day Parade last April. It was a wonderful day and a proud experience to march in the midst of all those pipe bands down the streets of the City where I was born. My wife took some photos of the day which I will try posting, though I'm a bit of a luddite when it comes to IT.

This is me in the kilt with a friend.

Here we are marching.

This the the Grand Marshall of the parade, Lawrence Tynes, born in Greenock, Scotland. He is the field goal kicker of the New York Giants football team.

Pipe bands...

And more Pipe bands!

Thank you for reading my post. Glad to be a part of the group!