Scottish Highland Games
Laurenburg, NC October 3, 2009
Oh my GOSH!!! Is there one of these every week? Ok I want to live at one of these festivals. I have never seen so many men in kilts in my life. Parking was a little weird. This was the first year of the Scottish Highland Games in Scotland County, NC. People had to park in this big giant field. Well it looked like no cars had ever parked there before and there was 3-4’ grass all around, which was fine. It made me feel like I was on an episode of little house on the prairie. But there were also briars, a lot of them. I don’t recommend sandals. Ouch. I still have a sticker thorn in one of my fingers from pulling them out of my feet. Tizi had never seen briars before so he thought it was Hell so far. Lol We walked across the street to the ticket booth. I picked up a program to the game events and paid for my and my son’s armbands.
My son and I walked in and to the right there was a stage with a cool Scottish/Celtic sounding band. It sounded like alternative rock. On the left was the food booths. There were fajitas and haggis (ewww) and hamburgers and hotdogs, and homemade danish and breads. We kept walking through the field past the stage and an older couple came to ask if they could see my program. I told them yes. I said the games are about to begin (Noon) and that we missed the opening ceremony. L We woke up late for the festivities again. She said, “You didn’t miss much.” So then I was disappointed. I thought hmmm, this isn’t going to be fun if the opening ceremony wasn’t beautiful and interesting like I assumed it would be. “They must be about to start the games, because there are a lot of really big men over there near the field,” they said. I said, “Where are they? Because that’s what I came to see.” That statement took them by such surprise that they stared at me for a long pause and then they were doubled over laughing. Consequently, I met the couple again later and they asked if I got to see those big men. And I said, “Yes. And I got pictures!” They laughed again, cute couple.
So off we went in search of the games. They had not started yet. So we watched some bag pipers. I think there was a musician contest, but I’m not really sure. I missed that. There was a lot going on here all at the same time. It was very well planned out so that you could be kept busy the whole time. I walked up to a booth. I thought they were selling things. There were lots and lots of booths. When I got up to the table there was a sign in book and lots of historical artifacts and books. Then a man came up and asked, “Are you of the McCloud clan?” And I said something like, “Huh.” He explained to me that the booths were set up by clans. I said, “Oh, I’m not Scottish. I’m Irish and Norwegian.” He said he had a book that showed the meanings of old Irish surnames and he let me look mine up. Scahill means “Bright Flower” according to the book. Sounds magnificent to me.
We moved along away from the booths and the awkward explanations that I’m not really Scottish and my son is Mexican. The games had still not begun, but I noticed a lot of children with numbers on their backs. It looked like there were children’s games. I asked Tizi if he wanted to compete. And, being an Aries, of course he did. So I got him a number and lined him to up to compete in some big rock throwing contest. It was an excellent pitch, I must say. I’m not really sure if he won or anything because there were like a million more kids after him. And let’s face it, who wants to see other people’s kids anyways? Just kidding. They were all precious, but I opted for the big men, as the games were just beginning.
Tizi and I went to get some homemade ice cream and then found a place to have a seat on the grass and watch the big events. Well these men were abnormally huge. I mean 6’7” and muscular. They were lifting up what looked like telephone poles. And then they tossed them. I gathered that the pole had to fall forward and it was best that it touched a certain line or went over the line. Whoever flipped it farther won. It was fascinating, and I’m not just saying that because of the kilts and the heavy grunting…lol
So we ate the delicious ice cream and watched the games for a bit and then went to the facilities, port-o-potties. We walked by the children’s games again and they were doing a different game. So I signed Tizi up. It looked like a bleach bottle that had been duck taped all around to make it look like something else. It was tied to a rope and the kids are supposed to spin around and throw the thing. Whoever makes it go farthest wins. My son got a proud 5’7”! It was awesome.
Then we got thirsty. I really have to think about bringing bottled waters to these events from now on. The food booths were completely sold out of drinks, except for this one booth that had some authentic Scottish orange aid kind of sports drink. We were desperate. We had to drink it….Ugg. We still had those drinks when we got home that night. We went to the food places to get a snack. It was only about 2:30pm. The hamburgers and hotdogs were sold out. Oh no! We were forced to eat…gulp…Scottish food!!!!! EEEEAAAKKKKKK!!!! Oh man, I don’t know what that was. It was something like a beef pot pie or something, but one sniff and a tiny nibble and it was up from our picnic, waving politely to the nice booth owners, and discretely tossing that stuff in the trash can when they weren’t looking. We went to the danish shop and got a strawberry shortcake. And the hotdog/hamburger place still had about 4 bags of chips. So we got two bags of Doritos and that was our lunch.
Apparently the festival arrangers did not plan for the number of people that actually came. By 1:00 pm they had run out of armbands. The (normal) food and drink was all gone by 2:00 pm. This would have been a great venue for a booth. I believe most all of the shops sold out of their wares again by about 2:00 pm.
We ate our strawberry shortcake under a shade tree and I let Tizi go play on a children’s train caboose that was by the tree. Then we took our bags of Doritos over to the concert area, and sat on the ground and watched. We saw Scottish dancers and listened to some violin.
Then got up and went over to see what was happening with the games. The boys were still going. Now they were tossing some giant weight straight up in the air, right above their heads crazily. Whoever’s weight went the highest won. And no one died from blunt force trauma. Again awesome!
Then we turned around and the children’s games were beginning again. This time it was something called a perimeter race. (By the way, the children’s games were totally free. I thought that was wonderful.) I thought they meant the perimeter of a little roped in area for the children’s games. But alas, I was incorrect. The perimeter race was all the way around the whole Scottish Highland Games, about ½ a mile. But I had already signed him up and he was raring to go. I was thinking, “Oh Gosh, Do I run with him? Or do I just sit here while he runs around in the middle of the woods with a bunch of strangers.” I was wearing sandals and had a bag full of Irish Soda Bread. (It’s really heavy bread in case you were wondering.) I opted to let him run by himself. There were about 25 other children from ages 4 - 6 who were running with him. He would be fine.
So I watched eagerly as he ran. Then, he started to dilly dally. I could see him through the people and the trees running the path. He wasn’t keeping up with the other children. He kept looking back and slowing down and stopping. I think he must have been looking for me to follow him. So I started to run through the middle of the Highland games fields trying to run parallel to the track. Maybe he would see me and see that he could keep going. I got to the entrance of the games, and kids ran by, and Tizi wasn’t with them. I started to freak out, looking all around for my son. I started to double back to see if he was by the train area. When I got to the train area, I looked across the field and there he was on the other side still on track. So I followed the track back around. I started to run after him. He stopped completely towards the end of the race. He didn’t see me at the end. So he started to freak out. I finally reached him as he just stood looking ahead. And when I got to him, I grabbed his hand and kept running, dragging him along and said, “Let’s go!” He didn’t know I was behind him. He was happily surprised. A little blond girl shouted to my son, "Come on number 177. You can do it!" Some of the other mom’s on the side lines were talking and they said things like, “You’re a better mom than I” and “I hope that bag is not heavy”. As we darted passed them, I shouted, “Yes, it’s heavy. It’s Irish Soda Bread.” They looked as if they understood. We got to the finish line. I think we were second to last. But it was grand! Tizi was so happy. We just ran to the side of the track onto the grass and plopped down on the ground. We sat feeling accomplished and drank our nasty Scottish orange soda.
On the way out we took some time to look at the historical houses and buildings on the property. It was like stepping into the past, maybe 1890. There was an old cotton gin and old plantation house and an old reverend’s house (tiny, tiny, tiny). It was all lovely and interesting. The festivities as a whole were wonderful. We had a great time and we will most definitely be going to next years games.
