Sometimes people say this kind of stuff to me when I’m on the road. Sometimes I eavesdrop. 1. “You speak really good English for someone from Scotland.” Gas station attendant, Hoquiam, Washington, Chapter 6: Hellhole of the Pacific 2. “Well, when you find a woman who ain’t your cousin round these parts, you want to grab them […]
The Tiger of the Highlands
Today I’m sitting in a bar in a Turkish area of Berlin with The Canadian, as my nephew Wee Joe calls her, having just flown back from Spanish islands off the coast of the Western Sahara, where I was writing about Scottish-Texas. Confusing. In between attempting to drown out the screeches of a hyperactive German […]
Learning Gaelic on a Texan Cat Ranch
“Let me tell you all the things that might put you off first,” says the email. Texas summer heat is not for the faint-hearted. Or for the easily burned. It is mostly triple digit temperatures and usually no rain to break the heat. This year is an inferno and we are having a drought.” This […]
Highland Sprite
(Posting this from Berlin – it’s a wee bit I’m trying out for the Texas chapter, xxxa) The Highlands might start just 20 miles away from the creaky old house in Glasgow that I grew up in, but 20 miles is a long way in a country that’s only 37 miles wide at its narrowest […]
Barbecue, Berbere Spice and Perfect Teeth
I’ve been back in Glasgow for a couple of weeks now. I was away for a couple of decades. I still can’t remember the UK mobile phone number that I’ve had for the last five years, but I have a dentist. I’m trying to think up ailments so I can register with a GP too. […]
Lobster trumps Haddock (or why I first left Scotland and went to America)
I first moved over to this side of the Atlantic as part of a brisk Transatlantic trade in teen lobster servers. Back then, Scotland’s universities provided a summer supply of clambake attendants, buffet minions and housekeeping underlings to the hotels and resorts of Martha’s Vineyard each May. The Gulf War had smitten all graduate job […]
Stewed Pears and Eggplant
(I just added most of this bit to the Oregon chapter… after rummaging in the freezer…) I’m prospecting in Portland’s Scottish Country Shop, confused by their array of imported chocolate bars, kippers, Irish black puddings and jars of Sharwood’s curry. Looking in the freezer is like peeking into the cupboards of an eccentric, elderly Scottish aunt […]
Peacock’s Improved Double Dissection
I hop on a ferry to Navy Pier and head to the Chicago River. It’s time to experience another watery wonder of Chicago. As I stand in line with the hordes waiting by Michigan Avenue Bridge, Docent Rebecca Dixon smiles her way along the line, asking people where they’re from. She stops when she hears […]
Aquariums I Have Known
Along the brim of Lake Michigan, a seemingly infinite number of security guards patrol the area on Segway motorized scooters. Perhaps it just looks like they’re omnipresent because of all the reflective surfaces around Millennium Park. It seems that whatever angle I look into the gleaming mirrored “Cloud Gate” sculpture, or “the Bean,” as it’s […]
The Only Kelpie on the Block
Dominic, a Filipino-American in Chicago for business, tells me at the buffet about how his people congregate in communities in the U.S. and asks me why don’t Scots do this. Why don’t we? Is it the Scottish Way to skulk off alone? To get absorbed into a new country? It seems we did congregate back […]
