I guess I broke protocol and posted without introducing myself. So I'm here in the "newbie" section at the end of my first day to make up for it.

Where to begin? My grandfather, Hugh, immigrated to the United States from Scotland due to a firmly held (and often repeated) belief that if you are educated and work hard you can succeed in this country. His firstborn son, my uncle Hugh, didn't really apply that precept of his father's - he followed a different version of the American Dream. Having chosen a leather jacket, a motorcycle, and brill cream where a helmet should have been he died upon impact with a car in his early thirties.

Two years later, I was born and when my mother told my grandfather she'd named me "Hugh" it wasn't necessary to say anything else.

Grandpa Hugh used to take us to the Scottish games when we were kids. He showed me the Sgian Dubhs, let the sound of bagpipes into my young ears, then died of a heart attack on my 8th birthday.

So, at the age of eight, I became the oldest Scottish male in my family. Like Johnny Cash's "The Boy Named 'Sue'," all I had been given from the men in my family to guide me was this name, "Hugh."

Now I'm the father of a young man with Scottish ancestors. I'll have to teach him traditions that were never taught to me. I'm here to make sure I get it right, because I didn't name him "Hugh."