Subject: Re: our Monarch's hembest year but een ...
From: Paul Kennedy (kennedyp@toronto.cbc.ca)
Date: Mon Jan 17 2000 - 09:54:27 EST
How do we do this, Doctor? Should I just lie down over there on the couch?
So what do we do now? ......Huh?
You want me to explain why I seem to be just a bit confused today? Or,
let's just say more confused than normal....
Well, I got this friendly message from a guy called Scottie... And, I have
to confess that whenever I hear that name--Scottie--it conjures up images of
one of the great NHL coaches of all-time, Scottie Bowman.... I mean, I may
have to walk over to the sacred Hockey Hall of Fame today, to take a
snapshot of Mr. Bowman's bronze rectangle of eternity, so that I can ask
some much more cybersophisticated friend to post it on the web for all
bananafish to worship.... But I am, perhaps digressing along excessively
"Canadian" lines....
The name 'scottie' also conjures up images of some kilt-wielding celt whose
real name is more likely Angus, or Iain, or (poor bugger) Douglas.... He's
the kind of man who knows where to wear his sporran. There's a sprig of
heather in his bonnet from way back five years ago when they rented that
motor home on Skye.... Scottie can quote Robert Louis Stevenson until he's
finally put the last member of his audience to sleep. (This usually takes
about twenty-five seconds!)
Anyway, my friend Scottie described the character of his apparent countrymen
in the following confusing manner:
>
>
> self-flattering
> yet guilty, lascivious yet sentimental, puritanical yet
> maudlin, drunken yet watchful - THAT is the element
> that makes me truly ashamed of my compatriots.
>
Here's my problem, Doctor.... As I read the list, I thought "How utterly
attractive!" Scottie seems repulsed by the very Scottish attributes that I
admire. ....This depressed me.... To tell you the truth, Doctor, I was
about to grab the dirk from the garter retaining my long left sock--or
should it have been my right? A man named Scottie would certainly know
whether true Highlanders wear their switchblades on the left, or on the
right.... Anyway, I was extremely depressed until I came upon that part of
Scottie's message which allowed:
>
> I might just consent to one verse of 'For a' that.'
>
> Scottie B.
>
>
It brought tears to my eyes, it did, Doctor!
Cheers,
Paul
Ahem.... "Is there for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, an 'a that...."
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