All Aboard: New Hampshire

Question: How many times might an Iowa girl be surprised at the 2010 September New Hampshire Highland Games Scottish Festival?

My trip to visit dear friends last week was just the best. It is a rare and blessed occurrence when high expectations are met with such perfection. Bob and Rose Marie Phillips aim to please, and please they do, every time.

I arrived on the eve of Rose Marie’s birthday and along with another couple, we dined at an intimate restaurant on the edge of town. My first order of business was to order a Lemon Drop martini (Rose Marie’s birthday drink of choice) and we toasted to her continued health and happiness.

We were lazy the next day. Bob played a round of golf and Rose Marie and I took a walk around their beautiful lake area and shopped for dinner items needed for the next night. Later we dressed for our big evening of festivities at the Highland Games Dinner Dance at Loon Mountain, a ski area about an hour away from their home. Rose Marie’s Scottish heritage was calling her to attend and Bob and I happily accommodated her wishes to celebrate her birthday Scottish style. She had her birth clan’s tartan plaid ready and waiting. It was red and I wore mine as a scarf. She had hers draped around her shoulders and waist and was a complete tartan knock out...smoking hot! Bob wore his plaid tucked in the lapel pocket of his jacket.

During cocktails, we were served a mysterious looking appetizer. It turned out to be Haggis, a traditional Scottish dish. It resembled a liver pate or, spam from a different culture, if you will, so I dug right in like a tartan trooper. Come to find out, the ingredients could have qualified for a Jeopardy answer and question, “A Scottish dish made from the stomach, liver, tongue and heart of a sheep.” “For $200.00, Alex, what is Haggis?” Oh, my God….I had just come from the Iowa nightmare of poor little dirty abused chickens laying contaminated eggs. Now I was eating sheep stomach, liver, tongue and a heart? I ordered more alcohol and kept my mouth shut…when in Rome….After I had calmed down, I enjoyed a delicious dinner of meats and veggies and turnips disguised as cheese balls. It was all good.

After dinner, the lights dimmed and the entertainment began. Let me paint a visual picture of the ambiance of the evening. Most of the ladies were in dressy casual attire with plaid accessories, but at least 50% of the men wore kilts and traditional Scottish attire; knee high socks, black leather shoes, dark cropped jackets and leather sporrans hanging from the waist. Those Scots were practical back in the day. Since a kilt has no pockets for keys, coins, etc., there was a need for sporrans, or bags to carry things in. I couldn’t help but notice the sporrans hung strategically in front of you know what and am not sure if that was by design or not. From a practical standpoint they not only carried things but were in a great place to give a guy protection from, say, a rabid Scottish Terrier trying to hit below the belt. Anyway, each clan from the genealogical beginnings of time somehow got to own their own particular plaid. In addition, it goes further in the fact each clan had a dress plaid, a hunting plaid and some other, probably mowing the lawn or hanging out plaid…whatever. Rose Marie came from the Leslie Clan and hers was predominantly red, but there was every color you would ever want to see.

The entertainment included an aspiring Gaelic singer, young girls dancing to the piercing sounds of the bagpipes, sword throwers doing amazing tosses high into the air, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police marching in unison to bagpipes and more. During all this, I was listening, and gazing around the room. With a particular glance, I casually looked in the direction of a kilt-clad gentleman across the dance floor. He was with his wife and obviously tired of sitting. He squirmed one way and then the other. With one particular squirm, he obviously forgot he was in a kilt. Now, the word on the streets of Scotland is that if you are man enough to wear a kilt, you are a wimp if, underneath, you wear the tighty-whiteys, if you get my drift. The poor bloke had squirmed spread eagle with nothing that looked even remotely close to white, plaid, or otherwise. I shook off the first glance but had to look again to see if I was imagining things. About the same time, two women at the next table zeroed in on 'kilt man gone wild' and went hysterical, verifying my thoughts he was sitting cheek to cheek upon the wool, so to speak. It was a very funny moment but I wasn’t quite ready for a super belly laugh since I was still a little nervous about any potential after effects from the Haggis and the long drive home.

So to answer the original question, a girl from Iowa at a Scottish Festival can be fooled twice. Apparently all it takes is a serving of sheep innards and a man in a kilt sans underwear! Great fun!

As for the rest of the trip, it was, again, a true pleasure to be the guest of the Phillips at their beautiful home on Lake Winnipesaukee. They introduced me to their close friends; we dined, golfed and revisited the fond memories of dear Paul over nightcaps of port wine and Amber. I could not have asked for a more heartwarming time. Thank you Bob and Rose Marie…if you are out there in blog land reading this!

(Personal note to the Phillips: Have you heard about the holiday warning that states “Get even…Give a Fruitcake.” I just MAY have to find a poor sheep with a shortened life span to see if I can come up with a proper Haggis delicacy to send my Scottish friends at Christmas!)

PS…our trip back to Loon Mountain the next day to watch the opening ceremony for the games produced a tartan plaid scarf for me….we searched and searched for my clan of choice and finally found it….the MacLeod Clan, Dress Tartan….BLACK AND GOLD….GO HAWKS! You can take the girl out of Iowa, but you can’t take the Iowa out of the girl!

From New Hampshire, I traveled to Washington D.C before returning to DSM. Read all about it in the next blog!