Posted on July 13, 2013 under Storytelling with one comment

Summer is a time of festivals.  It matters not where you travel across this great land, you will find people gathering to celebrate something.  If you love jazz music, folk music, rock, bluegrass or country, you can probably sniff out a great venue and experience world class entertainment.  The same goes for arts and culture.  And there are countless festivals that celebrate food and drink, and gatherings that celebrate our heritage.

In my home town, people of Scottish descent are celebrating the 150^th anniversary of the Highland Games.   It is a week filled with tons of activities.  The skirl of the bagpipes fills the air on a daily basis and sometimes well into the evening.  Occasionally, an overzealous piper will play right in your neighborhood well after the sun has set.  This brings out howls of protest from people and dogs.

The week is replete with competitions in Highland dancing, piping and drumming, the world famous Scottish heavy events and a good old fashioned tug of war contest.

Today was the annual street fair where local merchants hawk their wares on the sidewalk outside their establishments.  There were also lots of artisans, food vendors, face-painters and, you guessed it, more pipers, all vying for a piece of your attention… and wallet.

It was a magnificent day weather-wise and the streets were teeming with people of all ages.  As I was walking back to work after lunch, I noticed an unusually large crowd gathered on a property sandwiched between the Legion and Town Hall.  I wondered what it was that could draw such huge numbers.  I knew that it couldn’t be strippers, seeing this was an all-ages crowd.  Had “Dora the Explorer” made a surprise visit to Antigonish?  Was it possible that the Legion had opened its doors and was wading through the crowd offering free booze?  Maybe the mob had grabbed the mayor and councillors and put them in stocks?

Even my failing eyesight could not miss the large sign displayed at the perimeter of the crowd: “Dog Fashion Show Today at 1 PM”.

So this qualifies as Scottish heritage.  I must have missed this when I took Celtic Studies as a freshman 40 years ago.  Due to the enormous crowd I couldn’t get anywhere near the action and just had to experience the event vicariously.  A little while later, I took a short cut behind Town Hall to get my car.  I inadvertently stepped into the staging area for the dogs.  It was almost exciting as having a back stage pass to see U2.  I watched as their handlers efficiently primped and changed outfits on the doggie divas in this canine cabal.

I realize that people are passionate about their pets, especially dogs, but this experience left me dumfounded.  As I was leaving, I bumped into a local physician (not a vet).  When I expressed my amazement at the spectacle, he informed me that dog mania is rampant.  He recounted an episode at Central Park in New York.  He was chatting with a woman walking her three dogs.  Apparently, the dogs had become a bit of a sore point between her and her husband.  In a fit of frustration, he had offered her an ultimatum: either the dogs were going or he was.  Without pausing for air she indicated that she and the dogs do miss him from time to time.

I walked away with my tail between my legs.

Posted on July 12, 2013 under Storytelling with no comments yet

I have never been to a fashion show and I have certainly never been to a doggie fashion show…until earlier this week. Actually, I didn’t get to see the show as the crowd was so large that I would have had to elbow little babies and senior citizens to get a vantage point. Tomorrow, I will be posting a story called ” Barking Up The Wrong Tree”.

Some of you may have already noticed but I have a new Week45 Facebook page up and running thanks to the patience of my son, Peter and my daughter, Margaret. I am slowly getting up to speed on social media. I do believe that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

See you early tomorrow morning. I have come to realize that there are a lot of other early birds!

Posted on July 11, 2013 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

That whooshing sound you hear is July moving into fast forward. I realize fully that this is one of the signs of aging but everyone I talk to seems to think that time is speeding up.

I have several new stories just about ready for publication. I was “walking the Main” yesterday during the annual street fair. It was a perfect day for this event and people were out in throngs. One of the largest crowds I have seen in a long time was assembled on the lawn of Aphrodite. You couldn’t get anywhere near the centre of the action. At first, I thought that maybe someone was offering free beer until I realized that it was an all ages event. And then I saw the sign: ” 1:00 p.m. Doggie Dressup Show”. After work, I hastened to my computer and penned a story called ” Barking Up The Wrong Tree”.

I have also finished my story about golf and once it is edited I will throw it on my website. It’s called ” A Bag of Dreams”. And speaking of golf, I suspect that there the usual number of casualties today following Wednesday’s Kilted golf tournament. It’s a good thing that they don’t measure the “productivity index” in Antigonish during Highland Games week!

Other stories in the final edit stage include “Open Sesame”, a story about the impossible to open plastic packaging on some goods we buy and “No Bull”, a story from down on the farm about ” bulls gone wild”. And, as promised awhile ago, I have done a more serious piece on the problems with the lobster fishery from  the vantage point of a consumer. It’s called ” Into a Pot of Boiling Water”.

If you happened to miss this on Facebook yesterday, I updated a few things on my website yesterday. In particular, I draw your attention to the “Motivational Speaking” tab.

Wherever you are in the world, please stay safe and have a great day and a wonderful weekend.