Happy Tartan Day!
By Mitch Berg
It’s that most wonderful time of the year, Tartan Day!
Today, Scots-Americans will stream through downtown Saint Paul and Minneapolis, clutching ill-concealed liquor bottles and blaring on noisemakers. Politicians and media people will prepend “Mac-” to their names and recite Keats and Burns before crowds of cheering onlookers.
Large, unruly parades led by bagpipe bands will step through slicks of vomit (tinted blue, from the blue-dyed stout and single-malt whiskey that’ll be lubricating the good times) amid hordes of tartan or blue-and-white clad, kilt-bedecked revelers, wending their way to both City Halls, where the crowds will paint their faces a merry Saint Andrew’s Blue and moon the government, bellowing “Ye canna take our FREEDOM!”
The questions they should ask themselves is, without Scots-Americans, would there even be an America as we know it?
From the framers of the Declaration of Independence to the first man on the moon, Scottish-Americans have contributed mightily to the fields of the arts, science, politics, law, and more. Today, over eleven million Americans claim Scottish and Scotch-Irish roots — making them the eighth largest ethnic group in the United States. These are the people and the accomplishments that are honored on National Tartan Day, April 6th.
So put some Black Watch and Big Country on your IPod (you do have some Black Watch, right? Or the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders? The Pipes and Drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards? Oh, for crying out loud, even the amalgamated Bands of the Highland Division? C’mon, people) and celebrate!
It’s Tartan Day, 2009. Rejoice!
April 6th, 2009 at 7:59 am
God save the Stuarts & God bless the Boys of ’45! The Hanoverian succession & the Acts of Union were a fraud perpetrated on an ancient & honorable Kingdom!
-Terry of the Boyds of Kilmarnock.
April 6th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Mitch, although my people came to this country from Norway, older roots lead back to Scotland. The most recent of them involves a fellow of the Mac Nider sept of Clan Mac Farlane. He was a Lutheran during the early strife of the Scottish Reformation, and they were the smallest of the three religious parties, hence the losers. The records say that he fled to Norway “after some killings”. I may one day buy a necktie in the old tartan of Clan Mac Farlane in his honor. On this day, I’ll boast of my Scots heritage.
April 6th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Haggis; it’s nay crap laddie!
April 6th, 2009 at 9:28 am
This should explain the phenomenon you describe, Mitch. Stay indoors and it will pass.
http://snipurl.com/fc6ew
April 6th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Actually, I prefer Dropkick Murphy’s version of Scotland the Brave.
April 6th, 2009 at 9:57 am
“You canna change the laws of physics, Cap’n!”
April 6th, 2009 at 10:35 am
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=trainspotting&hl=en&client=firefox-a&emb=0&aq=f#
April 6th, 2009 at 11:24 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_%22Sawney%22_Bean
April 6th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
I actually have the Black Watch on my iPod… and yes, I do enjoy a wee drop of highland malt now and then.
April 6th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
What? No tangential mention of Big Country?
April 6th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Begorrah, read it again, Jimmy.