Oh, OK, I'll Play - 7 Sordid Secrets-

Everybody knows most all my stories (actually, not even close to all) but here are a few more tidbits:

1) I can play the bagpipes, enjoy a good Haggis and have had 11 Scottish Terriers in my life. (Makes you wonder, don't it?)

2) My dream car is a Ferrari 360 Spider.........with a 10' snowplow and tow hitch to make it useful. But......

3) Driving sucks.

4) I try to keep a vegan or at least vegetarian diet but it's difficult in a carnivorous world. Plus, there is that Haggis thing , Mrs. Dudley's cookies and Garland Store makes a wicked chicken salad sandwich. Anyway, I don't make a big deal of it. I'm actually just thankful that I have anything to stuff in my face.

5) Chris and I have seen 5 comets together: Halley, Hyakatake, Hale-Bopp, LINEAR and now Holmes. (Peyton should go out and see it now)

6) I am working on becoming a curmudgenly recluse.

7) I am working on becoming a better steward of my land.

5.

It had been many years since we walked the beach together so the letter came as a complete surprise. But the real shock was this letter was from Hamish, the cabbie. I feared it contained bad news, but I wasn't ready for the tale it told. In it he told a story of unimaginable terror on the high seas that I will relate to you here and call "The Saga of Donald McNish"

Young Donald was a seaman. He had signed on as crew and was standing second watch in the starboard bilge aboard a pseudo-research vessel out of Oban. The mission of the ship was to find evidence to support the theory that the Loch Ness Monster, "Nessie", did not in fact live in Loch Ness but spent most of her time feeding and nurturing her young and living the good life in the open seas away from the prying eyes of the world by shadowing colliers and tourist ferries as they passed through the locks at Fort Augustus, traveling down the Caledonian Canal to Loch Linnhe and into the Firth of Lornh around Mull. She would then repeat this trip when the time was right and return to Loch Ness for a "wee roll in the heather", so to speak , tease the tourists with a flash of skin then back out to the rich fisheries in the sea.

So far the evidence had been thin to back this notion which would, in fact, account for the lack of proof being found for Nessie's existance. None the less, the ship sailed on knowing that scientific investigation was mostly years of drudgery.

A good sailor always has his eyes on the horizon for signs of trouble and trouble found young McNish and his shipmates in the form of Fiona and her all girl crew sailing on an unflagged ship registered to a militant wing of the Royal Society for the Preservation of Scottish Folklore. Fiona and her companions had been taught since young school girls that Nessie lived happily in the Loch being a proud part of the majesty of the Highlands and it was Loch Ness' mysterious deep, dark waters that kept her hidden from the naysayers and cruel scientific "experimentation" and any notions to the contrary were akin to heresy. So it was with great excitement when they caught sight of NcNish's ship as this was their chance to make their voices heard and be fair warning to all that would follow.

Fiona ordered her crew to come about and make course along side the scurvy dogs vessel. Unfurling the flag of St. Andrews Cross, they bared their proud, and ample, Scottish bosoms to honor Wallace and the ghosts of Stirling Bridge and boarded and scuttled the research ship and sent her to the bottom to "fatten the eels on the blasphemers bones".

As scuttlings go, it was a rather crude attempt. The crew had adequate time to abandon ship and man their life boats. Arriving back in port, the ragged and somewhat shocked crew was all accounted for, except one: Donald McNish could not be found.

Seen sailing off, bound to Fiona's fantail, wee Donald McNish was last reported cleaning the pigeon foulings off the decks at Fiona's Paddleboat Rental in the moat at Urquhart Castle.

The letter concluded: "she needs you"........Hamish.

4.

According to my watch, we should have been in Dubai two hours ago. Two hours ago, yesterday. Apparently my new watch had stopped working when I was still back in Rio. Probably happened during the lively bottom half of the Best Butt on the Beach competition that I was covering. Barely. Well, that's OK. The guy I bought it from assured me Rolex's have a lifetime guarantee so all I'll have to do is send it back to the factory for repairs. Actually, all it probably needs is a glob of grease on the gears or something. I should be able to pick some of that up in Dubai. But what I was really after was a barrel of oil.

I was once told by a highly placed oil company representative that from crude oil I could distill not only my own gasoline but I could get propane to fill my lantern, butane to light it with, napthalene to kill off the moths gathering around it, tar to patch my driveway, kerosene to clean up the mess with and more -ene's and -ane's than I could possibly know what to do with. In any event, my lubrication needs will be met. But more importantly, I will have my own little hedge fund in a can.

But I think I will just take this damn watch off and put it in the little bag in the seat pocket in front of me and hand it a flight attendant for disposal when she brings me another drink. Time, who needs it? Everyday that goes by sinks the knife of memories deeper in my heart and every scent of newly cut hay gives it a twist. After all this time, why does she still torture me so?

3.

Hamish was growing impatient. I always liked the cute little horn sounds on those cute little foreign cars, but Hamish had a way of putting an edge to it. He was already further off his normal route than ever. Her mother had spent nearly an hour giving him directions to the farm and now it was growing dark and he was getting nervous. He knew he was in an area populated by faeries in the peat bogs and he had no interest in becoming the subject of stories told by children under the covers on dark and stormy nights.

I had thoughts of slipping him a couple quid and sending him on his way, but what was the use? She was betrothed and I had to meet with the crew of avid but amateur sailors I had met in a rather seedy Clydeside bar in Glasgow for a trip home on their sloop rig.

The last thing they needed was a heartbroken, love sick passenger. So.. buck up, matey. There's more fish in the sea. It's better to have loved and lost than..... Foreign women are nothing but trouble. Hell, they can't even talk right. Floor it Hamish, I got a boat to catch.

2.

The taxi arrived right on time. It seemed like only yesterday Hamish, the driver had dropped me off. And now it's goodbye, I sailed with the tide in the morning. Where did 2 weeks go? I gathered up my things and said thank you to her folks for a wonderful adventure. I had to pass by her bedroom near the stable in their rambling, centuries old farmhouse. When I reached her doorway, there she was coming towards me and with outstretched arms we embraced in one of those magical, first young love moments. Her hair still had the sweet smell of fresh hay from the time we spent together earlier in the mow.

She had grown up in this little town in Ayreshire on the west coast of Scotland. She lived in a house that went back 10 known generations of her family and was now farmed by her brother. I'm not sure even the locals could pronounce the name of the town. Actually, most conversations in town seemed to involve mostly shrugs and grunts.

A beautiful child, she was the perennial winner of the Loveliest Lass of the Linklands at the local fair. A competition scheduled between the herding dogs and the caber toss to be sure and get a good turn out. The linklands are a narrow stretch of rather poor, thin soil and scrubby vegetation separating the fragile interior land from the often hostile sea. Aside from it's ecological purpose of a barrier/buffer strip, it's only other use was for coastal real estate development and golf courses. This fact flashed Pound signs in her father's eyes. Although not a sporting man, the thought of sea side condominiums replacing the worn and sagging docks and freeing the local fisherman of their rather dismal existence gave him the warm, fuzzy altruistic feeling that real estate developers were known for.

But, the condos had yet to leave the napkin they were sketched on. His actual occupation was owning and operating the town pub. Conveniently located next to the town health clinic, it had the friendly, homey appeal that kept a steady stream of customers. He had a fairly lucrative contract with a nearby bus company to provide "Hamely fare an' a dram" to the glassy eyed patrons of the "Burn's Country Motorcoach Tours". Although a mass feeding, the sheppard's pie with bashed neeps was actually quite tasty and the watered down whisky would appeal to any good Scot's sense of frugality. Her mother, a good, kind woman would lovingly pack a lunch for anyone going down to the beach for a picnic, carefully wrapping the simple sandwiches tightly in foil to keep the blowing sand out and with a wink would fill their canteen with "a wee samthin tae tak the chill off".

It was this atmosphere and a powerful thirst that drew me into this place. I was in the waning weeks of my "summer abroad" program from school in the states. My assigned project was to study the effects of muirburn, the burning of heather to affect regeneration, on the red grouse population. But I confess a good part of the time was studying the effects of fermentation on barley. I had taken a taxi down as far as Hamish knew where he was going and assured me it probably wasn't too long a walk into the next town, whatever it's name was. It was a typical dreary cold and wet day. My feet were soaked from the five mile trudge and my eyes burning from the coal smoke pouring from the chimneys. The flickering light over the pub sign caught my bleary eye and the sandwich board with soup and stovies on special drew me in. While warming the rest of my toes with the scotch broth and my brain with a second pint, a sparkle of light caught my eye. There she was, polishing the silver in front of the fire, the soft light of the flames highlighting her incredible beauty and her delicate touch revealing her gentle nature. It was all too much. Bold from drink and toes warmed by soup, I suavely approached her and blurted out "how do you pronounce the name of this here town anyway?". I only remember her giving me a shrug and a grunt before I hit the floor. Apparently my feet were not as thawed as I had thought and the effects of two pints and quickly standing had been my downfall. Literally. Fearful that a litigation crazed American could be the end of the family business, her folks had carried me over to the clinic where they were advised the best thing would be for her to nurse me back to health and get me back on my way with no ill feelings. With that kind of care there was no real reason to "get better" in any hurry. We strolled the farm together and she showed me the ways of her world. We were able to work on local pronunciations, the subtleties of the shrug and the intonation in the grunt long into the nights and practice them during the day while learning how to open local seafoods. Although I wasn't really sure some of the words she used were real, I was smitten. But there was a problem: Wee Donald McNish.