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My Life in Scotland
Part Fifteen: Safe Oot, Safe Home

We had lunch today at what may be the most beautiful spot on Earth for a picnic, better even than the hill overlooking La Jolla, better even than the fields near Bologne-sur-Mer. Just down the hill from the ornately carved Rosslyn Chapel is a grassy promontory that overlooks a valley of wildflowers and graceful trees. Over your right shoulder is a small village on the hill, albeit one that looks more English than Scottish. The bushes display handfuls of small white flowers and yellow buttercups are scattered across the soft grass. Crows circle above and sparrows dart between the trees. The sun is shining (which is noteworthy in itself), and there is a slight, warm breeze.

The Scots in the Borderlands have a saying that goes back a ways: Safe oot, safe home. It wishes those going out to foreign lands (in their case, England) a safe trip out, and a safe trip home. I'll have to keep that in mind.

My Life in Scotland
Part Fourteen: I See Dead People

Several days of exploring ruined abbeys means several days of exploring old graveyards, and that qualifies me as an authority. So here, at no charge to you whatsoever (beyond your usual ISP fees, for which I simply cannot be held responsible) are:

Steve's Helpful Tips for the Soon-To-Be-Buried

So you're dead, or soon will be, and you've decided on burial as your method of choice for disposing of your mortal coil. Frankly, I think that's pretty gross, knowing that your body will slowly decay into some macabre fodder for worms and horror films. But whatever. It's your body.

I wouldn't presume to offer you advice on your ceremony. That's dependent on your own personal mythology, of course, and, to be perfectly honest, I haven't learned much about ceremony from tromping about old graveyards. But I have learned about two things, with which I am happy to help you.

Your Casket

Since you've decided to be buried, it's almost a sure bet that you'll want to be buried in something. This is another thing I just don't understand. If it's to give your relatives something other than your stiff body to stare at during the ceremony then, again, that's your business. But if you harbor any fantasies about preserving your body, don't. Lying in that lead-lined hand rubbed teak coffin, your body will still decompose horribly and, ultimately, the worms, the bacteria, or both, will carry off what can be carried off. So go with the cheap stuff - pine or even cardboard - because, face it, from here on out you're not winning any beauty contests.

And don't worry about being buried alive. That was a faddish concern at the turn of the next-to-last century due to some hysterical newspaper article, Edgar Alan Poe story, or some such. That was back when they just planted you in the ground. These days, before you're planted, modern embalming techniques ensure that your blood is drained and replaced with formaldehyde. You can worry about being embalmed alive, if you want, but at the end of the embalming process, you are most assuredly dead.

In some places, and Scotland seems to be big on this practice, an entire family, over several generations, is buried in a single grave site. Not beside each other, like a queen sized bed for the dead, but on top of each other. You could scarcely stand to be in the same room with weird Uncle Willie when he was alive. Now you're going to commingle with him for all eternity? Don't.

Your Gravestone

Having cleverly skimped on your coffin, you can now turn your attention to what really matters: your gravestone. Again, this seems pretty self-important to me, figuring that people are going to come by for several centuries, stand on the place where your body is decomposing, and read some insipid verse you've had inscribed on a stone. But if that's your image of greatness, who are we to argue?

You'll be tempted to go with sandstone as the cheapest way to get long tracts of your breathless prose inscribed. That's what most of the folks have done whose gravestones I've wandered by in old graveyards. And I can say to you definitively: dumb choice. Dumb, that is, if you want people to find your grave a few years hence. After a century or so, less in hostile climates, sandstone starts wearing away, its surface starts flaking off, or both. In no time at all, your name is gone, or your birth date, or the lovely words of self-indulgent praise you so carefully arranged to last forever. A few more years and your entire life, everything that anyyone has ever known about you, is memorialized by nothing more than some misshapen sandstone nubbin.

So, trust me, go with the good stuff: granite. Aluminum might also be good, if you believe the environmentalists. Or certain high-tech plastics. But not sandstone.

And don't go planting yourself on the floor of the cathedral with a horizontal gravestone. Yeah, it sounds very classy at first. But imagine untold mucky feet like mine scraping across your classy horizontal gravestone for a hundred years or so, wiping away any trace that you are even there, leaving nothing but cow droppings. You don't want that. Go vertical.

So good luck with your impending burial. By following these simple tips, I'm sure you'll have the best possible time with it. And do let me know how it turns out, won't you?

My Life in Scotland
Part Thirteen: I Am Accepted by the Villagers of an Unpronounceable Town

After a successful day hunting rocks and ruined structures along single-track roads that wind around the fat, sheep-strewn hills of the Borders (that part of Scotland just north of England, the site of constant wars and skirmishes for many years), we ended up in the town of Hawick though, as we learned later, it is not pronounced like that.

We were walking back from dinner when we noticed an unusual number of people standing about and, even more oddly, a small brass band, members of which told us that a parade of some kind was going to be held at the improbable hour of 9 PM. So we decide to stick around.

No sooner do we get our umbrellas up than we are approached by a gregarious woman named Helen who, seeing that we are clearly visitors, wants to tell us all about the history of the town and the meaning of the parade. I'll tryta speak posh fer ye; iffen I speak Hoyk ye kinna understan me, she says in a rich brogue, laughing. But it's nae easy speakin Anglish.

The parade, we learn at some length, celebrates a time nearly five hundred years ago when the English had ridden north, killed off all the men of fighting age in the village of Hawick (not pronounced like that) and rode off with the town flag. That night, the young boys (under 15) and old men (over 50 - ouch) rode out, defeated the encamped English, and took their flag back.

Something like that. Anyhow, three evenings a week for several weeks each Spring, a small brass band precedes a number of boys and men on horseback (wearing English riding outfits - I wasn't very clear on that part), who represent those brave villagers, and whom the present-day villagers cheer. Afterwards, four of the riders (including the Cornet, a deeply honorific position appointed yearly specifically for this purpose) stand in a doorway and sing traditional Scottish songs (which I surmise must be patriotic songs, though I can't understand a word), then throw coins out to the crowd (I'm not clear on that part either, but you keep the coins for luck).

And here's the cool part. Everyone - everyone - above the age of three knows these songs by heart, and sings along, and cheers. And everyone in the little crowd of two hundred people, approximately evenly distributed in age from three to eighty, knows each other, greets each other, and stands in the bracing rain singing songs to commemorate this distant victory against the English.

Helen introduces us to the Cornet (and to twenty other townsfolk) during the course of the festivities, and we all hang around laughing and telling stories and cheering.

My Life in Scotland
Part Twelve: I Encounter Mysteries

In particular:

Miscellaneous food mysteries:

Boiled eggs with Marmite soldiers

For that matter, Marmite

Haggis fritters

A box of something edible named Eat Me (and no, we did not see a corresponding liquid named Drink Me)

In an entire culture of fresh fish, not a single sushi bar

Various potato chip flavors of undetermined lineage:

Curry (and its enigmatic cousin, Balti Curry)

Worcester sauce

Heinz 57 Tomato Katsup

Chilli (always with two Ls)

Assorted animal flavors:

Bacon

Beef (including BBQ Beef)

Flame Grilled Steak (made, no doubt, with real flames)

Steak & Onions

Chicken (and the exotic Firecracker Chicken)

Prawn (with cocktail sauce flavoring)

Sausage and Tomato Sauce

Marmite (there we are again)

Signage

Do Not Run And Try To Keep Calm

Butterflies and Carnivorous Plants

Tongue of Bombie

Expressions

Done and dusted

We appreciate your custom

The kukri in his dhoti

Pretty much anything having to do with cricket

My Life in Scotland
Part Eleven: I Am Nearly Eaten By Wolves

As soon as we entered the restaurant in Fleet for dinner, I knew we were in danger. We had dropped our bags at tonight's B&B, in whose back yard are the ancient Cairnholy burial chambers, and whose grounds, we are told by the proprietor, a white witch had pronounced spiritually good. But the restaurant, just across the river Fleet and some five miles along tiny roads from our B&B, must not have been included in this pronouncement.

Echoes of raucous laughter from the bar's dozen local patrons die precipitously as we enter, and silent eyes all turn towards us. The gaunt gray dog, asleep on the floor, is muzzled. The baby who had been there is quickly whisked away, its face covered. Dinner? we ask, and are escorted to an otherwise empty dining room as conversation in the bar picks up quietly again.

It's every bad Irish horror movie you've ever seen. (Not that they were Irish, and neither is this, but just the same.) Along some godforsaken country road, an innocent pair of travelers stop for dinner, or for respite from the storm, or because their car has mysteriously broken down. The locals eye them and take them in. By the time the travelers figure out that everyone in the village is a werewolf, it's too late.

We're in danger, I tell Helen. Let's get out of here before sunset. She agrees. And if the car doesn't start, run!

The waitress doesn't know what Chardonnay is. (Werewolves don't drink wine.) The dining room is festooned with hunting symbols. The menu is heavy on beef and venison, which are recommended rare. The proprietor has an unexplained lope.

We eat quickly and leave. Thankfully, the car starts.

My Life in Scotland
Part Ten: I Have the Honor of Emma's Acquaintance

Emma had spent the afternoon in the boot of the car - not the boot really, as it was a hatchback, but it was like the boot: dark and isolated and entirely hers - while the boys jabbed at each other in the back seat and the guests talked with her mother. They had stopped twice, once to walk around the ruins of an old castle by the sea, and again to look out over the fields to the distant islands in the direction of Ireland.

When they returned home, Emma sat in the corner with Brandy, the whippet that her mother had adopted from the rescue home five years previous when Emma was in Kindergarten, after he had been found, abandoned in a field, with cigarette burns on his hind legs.

The guests thought that Emma was shy, perhaps even withdrawn, but she was not. She was busy whispering the exotic tale of her afternoon to Brandy - of the dusty smell of the fields, the darker scent of the wet earth around the castle, of the musk of old stones in new grass, of hints of salt and seaweed, of the sweet flowers that lined the road, of the odor of petrol and her own body - while Brandy listened to her for nearly an hour in quiet fascination.

My Life in Scotland
Part Nine: I Am a Fashion Nightmare

It is at this rather advanced stage of life that I finally realize I am a fashion nightmare. This realization comes at the end of a day spent mucking through sheep pastures in several venues in search of cairns and standing stones. (The sign next to one said, Perhaps this henge was used as a dance floor. Or as place to assemble peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, eh? Great Moments in Archaeology.) This generally involves splashing through small streams, tromping through mud (and, as there are sheep around, much worse) and so forth.

We checked into our B&B for the night (nice view of Dundonald Castle) and started to take our boots off before entering. Oh, don't bother, said Robin the proprietor. Trust me, I said.

But the nightmare part is this: I wear these same clothes when going out to dinner, not just here but at home as well. I wear these same clothes when going to the theater. I wear these same clothes to work. I wear these same clothes when asking our Senior VP for ten million dollars for some wacky new project. Conversely, I don't wear a ratty flannel shirt to go sluicing through the sheep plop; today I wore a nice pink Oxford button-down and black chinos. I don't have the sense to wear anything else.

Oh, sure, I have a suit, but I only wear it when Helen tells me I have to. I'm pretty sure I have a sports jacket somewhere, and some wool slacks. At least I think I do. And I do have these awful dress shoes that make me hobble around as if they were Chinese binding shoes.

But what I wear to tromp around the sheep trails is what I wear everywhere. It's scary.

© 2001-2002 Steve R. White, All Rights Reserved