Weekend in the Highlands
The 40th Annual Monterey Scottish Games and Celtic Festival wraps Toro Park in plaid.
Jul 05, 2007
By Maureen Davidson
“
KILTIE, KILTIE, KILTIE,” we formed a skipping parade behind the highlander who was probably in the city for the day...my brat pack: Glasgow, Scotland, mid-1950s. Urban Scots as we were, the sight of a man in traditional garb just walking through the neighborhood was enough to draw us away from our games of hopscotch to follow him, chanting, for the length of our block. But when we went to the highlands, there were still plenty of men who wore kilts every day, including my grandfather on the island of Mull, who knew what a handsome devil he looked in full regalia, from his polished leather brogue shoes to his jauntily worn Tam O’Shanter cap. For just walking about the town he wore a fitted tweed jacket and sweater, kilt, rough-knit knee-length socks and a plain leather sporran, or purse, hanging from his belt. For more formal occasions, out came the fine-woven jacket with gleaming buttons, a dagger, or sgian dubh, tucked into his stockings, and a length of tartan cloth— called a plaid— draped around his shoulders. He was a sight to behold.
Monterey County has been overrun with men and women in kilts during Celtic Week, a greedy eight days of parades, piping, drumming, dancing, drinking and throwing heavy objects that began last Sunday with a Caber Parade in Carmel, and ends with the 40th Annual Scottish Games and Celtic Festival in Toro Park this weekend, July 7 and 8.
“Celtie, celtie, celtie,” I might have chanted. Indeed the Celtic race once covered Europe all the way to Turkey. Fair-skinned, warlike, cultured, the Celts were noted for their strong women, whose status was equal to men, their poets, seers, artists and musicians. Deep in the bloodlines of most Europeans, Celtic heritage is strongest in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Brittany. And Monterey County, apparently.
* * *
Now, I always love to see men in kilts and think they all look incredibly handsome— but then I married two Scots (in succession, of course) and am obviously not to be trusted on this subject.
Wondering how it is that so many local men have some form of kilt in their wardrobe, I asked Wilkes Bashford, the famed Carmel haberdasher, what’s the kilt’s appeal for a non-Scot.
“You must be a good, robust, masculine man with a fairly strong degree of self-confidence to wear a kilt well,” he said. “It’s not for wimps. Because of its silhouette, it’s very flattering. And the fabric, the colors— the whole thing is a good, honest solid look, with integrity.”
Well, there you have it, I thought. And a good sporty look on women, too.
* * *
“
People who get into bagpipes tend to be on the eccentric side” d’Avenas says. “And of course part of what attracted me to the bagpipes is that so many eccentric people practice it.” ,He’s been playing for 35 years— beginning at a time when American pipers and pipe bands were mere caricatures.
In my own second year in the US, attending a Miss Universe Parade in Long Beach, I remember hearing a pipe band approaching from a distance, causing my little Glaswegian head to turn with smiling expectation, but, at the sight of a half-hundred men— and women, gasp— in kilts worn way too long and not hung right, and the pipes just a shrill mess, and wimpy drumming, I actually felt sick. But now, Americans who have taken up piping have become more serious about the art, and over the last 10 years, after San Francisco’s Prince Charles Band broke through to the top ranks of pipe bands in the world, there has been a significant paradigm shift.
“And there have been a lot of improvements that help keep the pipes in tune,” d’Avenas says.
“I listen to a recording of a prominent Scottish band of 40 years ago. I can hardly bear it. Now I personally adjust the tuning in all the chanters in the band.” He shows me a chanter with electrical tape cutting off millimeters of a few of its holes. . . .
With all of its eccentricities, why would anyone choose such an instrument? “People like it because there’s so much going on, the melody, the drones, etcetera… Kids like it because it’s so stinking loud.”
* * *
Celtic Week began with a Caber Parade, right? A caber is a big pole, pretty much like a telephone pole. This is typical of the highly technological sports equipment used in highland games. Athletes throw them. And also big hammers. And big bales of hay.
The fellows and a few women that fling these sports accessories around the field all afternoon tend not to be of the lean and lithe variety: If you hear one of them called Wee Geordie or Wee Mike, you can pretty much bet that the bearer of that name is a fellow who fills a doorframe pretty well and doesn’t get teased much for wearing a skirt.
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It’s rare in Scotland to be asked— or for anyone to care— what clan you spring from. The tracing of roots has been such a great preoccupation in this country of immigrants that people descended from the same genealogical Scottish families formed associations around their clans. Booths representing these clans are now a constant in any highland games. . . .
Traveling in the highlands a few years ago, I talked with an old caretaker of a famous highland castle. Telling him I was now living in the US he chuckled, “Aye, a lot of Americans come here to look for their ancestors. Funny, though, everyone’s related to the chieftains. I’ve never met anyone looking for traces of their shepherd forebears.”
* * *
So this weekend children will try their hands at athletic events, and cabers and hammers and stones will be thrown by large, kilted people. Darling children will dance in colorful costumes. Amazing dogs will herd sheep. People will forget their diets and eat meat pies and drink lots of ale. Clan representatives will inspect family trees. Falcons will fly from gloved hands and on Saturday night new friends will be made and undoubtedly songs will be sung at a barbecue and party. Sunday the affair will culminate with a spectacular parade of pipe bands. It’ll be brrrriliant
Originally Posted by Monkey@Arms
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