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[beverlonian]

Having worked most of my life either in Scotland or for Scottish companies, my wife and I have attended many Christmas Dinner-Dances where Scottish colleagues wore kilts. This prompted my wife to suggest I also should wear a kilt to these events to which I readily complied. I found I could not believe how incredibly comfortable wearing a kilt was and the next step of wearing a kilt at home was not far away.
Browsing the internet I came accross Tom's Cafe (sadly not the same forum it used to be) and later X-Marks were I found that wearing a kilt casually was more widespread than I thought and I soon gained encouragement to wear kilts out and about and especially when hiking.
Unfortunately, as I have mentioned in prevous posts, this has not been with the blessing of my wife, which I do not understand given it was she who kindled my first interest.

[longshadows]

It all began with oatmeal. Well, that's as close as I came to anythng Scots growing up in East Texas, but I've always loved oatmeal. Anyway, then came the pipes. As I grew older, I enjoyed them and felt a certain something when I heard them, but I knew of no Scots ancestry. A few summers back, I attended the Maine Highland Games and when the pipe and drum bands began to play, I melted and tears came to my eyes. But, "I wasn't Scots", so I just ignored these feelings.

Then in January, on a drive up to Quebec, I listened to an interview on NPR with Steve Villegas, founder of Utilikilts. Interesting, but not something I could even consider, but a spark must have been kindled and a few weeks later, I was thinking about it and went to the UK web site. There were links there to other kilt-related web sites. I read and through about it. I bought a kilt (SWK Black Watch). I was hooked. Now I own eight and I haven't even had my legs in a pair of trousers in a month. (I can thank you guys for your support and advice which has been a big help to me over the past few weeks.)

Oh, by the way, I have since discovered that I have three family lines of Scots ancestors, who came to this country as early as the late Seventeenth Century. So maybe that's why I like oatmeal so much!

[Phil Wright]

I knew about my family history, but the really difficult bit was that I used to work in the theatre during my time in college and I used to go for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Whenever I got time off I used to walk down to the mile and look at the kilt price tags and work out how many more years of festivals I would have to work to get one. Once I started work and got money, other things got priority.
My Dad started doing the family tree in earnest, then we found out he had cancer and was not likely to last long, so a couple of years back I decided to get my kilt in time for Christmas, so he could see it and I could get best use out of it for the season.
Now?.... I've given up trying to find excuses and just get on and wear 'em!
Phil