Notes from a morning in Portland, Oregon, during which I continue to be perplexed about the fact that people make sporrans — Scottish manbags/kilt accessories — out of animal heads, after a visit to the Kilt and Thistle Shoppe in Salem. The next day at the Fresh Pot coffeehouse in Portland, I scroll down the […]
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“You speak really good English for someone from Scotland”
Sometimes people say this kind of stuff to me when I’m on the road. Sometimes I eavesdrop.
“Well, when you find a woman who ain’t your cousin round these parts, you want to grab them fast. Why don’t you stay, we’ll get a cabin up in the woods, have us a shackload of kids?” Man with three teeth, Gatlinburg, Tennessee
Stoaters
I’ve been working away on The Scottish Ambassador project for three years now. I’m so close to done – just a few more trips to take. I’ve still got to learn Gaelic in Salt Lake City, bagpipe lessons await in New Jersey and I still have to meet my monster, Nessie (in lesser known rollercoaster […]
Extraordinary
Still at the Kilt and Thistle Shoppe in Salem, Oregon, I search for my tartan. William is a man who knows his tartans and is happy to show me my colours on an aged monitor similar to the one I first played Donkey Kong on. We scroll through the 5000 tartans contained in the database […]
The Tartan Radar
…in which I continue my quest to become 100% Scottish by venturing into a Scottish Shoppe in Salem, Oregon My pace slows as I register the wail of bagpipes filling the synthetically bright, subterranean-level shoppe with their insistent drone. I am instantly sobered by their sound and assailed with sudden doubts about my ability to […]
Additional “Additional Badgers”
Additional Badgers… part 2 Being a relatively new resident of North America, amusing beasties such as raccoons and skunks still have me pointing and exclaiming with delight. I am still not 100% sure of appropriate creature encounter behaviour. I think I’ve got the basics of bear etiquette down – it’s all in the claws, apparently […]
Additional Badgers
Driving toward Salem, we seem to be heading straight into a rain cloud. It looms forbiddingly on the horizon. This Salem, an un-witchy one, is the capital of Oregon, home to a population of 140,000, a stately university campus and dozens of imposing government buildings. It also boasts an impressive tally of no less than […]
Hellhole of the Pacific… the final part
While my travelling companion wrestles with a belligerent windscreen wiper, I pop into a gas station to pick us up some refreshments. Stepping into the brightly lit store, a fakey doorbell DING! announces my entry and a slow drawl comes from the back, “Be out in a minute.” “No hurry,” I say, scanning for the […]
Hellhole of the Pacific… part 3
The scenery soon lurches from Bedraggled Small Town to Smoky Industrial. A sign looms on the right, “Welcome to Aberdeen! Come as you are.” I have. I’ve made it. I’m here. When I first lived in the U.S., I traveled round the country with my brother Mark. People would look up from glowing televisions to […]
Hellhole of the Pacific… part 2
In Seattle Greyhound Station, disheveled and disgruntled passengers slump in molded plastic chairs. A tumult of arcade machines chirp, ca-ching and whistle off to one side. From the numbers of slumpers, it looks like unless I perfect professional glowering skills and attain truly shocking levels of pungency in the half hour before the bus leaves, […]
