I've been readin' on CBC that skaters in kilts have hit the ice at Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park for the St. Andrew's Society's Great Canadian Kilt Skate lately.
“You don't have to be Scottish, you don't have to wear tartan, or even a kilt, but if you want to channel your inner Scot and put on a tartan or a kilt, you're more than welcome to. Skating in a kilt is a different experience, "Cooler than it is with pants on; and cold on the cheeks."
I can’t express how this appeals to the long-ago Ulster Scot in me, but as it is, I cannot ice skate; never learned. My ancestral Norwegian and Swede bits are especially disappointed about the fact that I have no hockey skates with brightly colored runner guards in my basement. I don't have any
 |
| These aren't mine. |
 |
| Nor these. |
well-worn ready-to-go hockey sticks occupying an empty corner. I have no stories of yesterday's skating parties with friends and family on Mikinaak Creek, the Roseau River, or scars from hard-fought hockey games under the lights at the Wannaska rink or fights inside the warming house.
 |
| Abnormal quiet in the warming house. If only these walls could talk. |
Aye but such envy flows t’rough me veins so much, for that fact alone that I should live in the desert to atone for the waste of such potential genetic ability. (Where the wife sorely wishes we did, least ways during the winter, arthritically speaking.) I just needed a mentor, like Loyd Melby
 |
| Loyd's Wannaska School Hockey Team |
 |
| School Hockey Trophies |
I could maybe just cross-country ski again; the ski poles would aid my balance and the like; I could wear inflated boat trailer tire inner tubes on me bum, knees, and hips and just bounce or ricochet off things in my way, but likely spills at my age would ill-advised for the matter of health and safety; I wouldn't make the team. But add a plaid kilt, a clan tartan sash cross me chest, and my weighted kebbie stick and lanyard a-danglin' in its sheath, I might really look the part. Might be good enough. I could order one on-line. Or not.
If building deer stands was a sport you would be on top.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see you gingerly embracing your Scottish heritage.
ReplyDelete