Saturday 5 December 2009

Thursday 3rd December 2009 - At last the 18th Century

          The day started with an email from the young man detailed to come and fix Rozzie's tackle.  (I'd had a voicemail the previous evening telling me his name)  I could hardly wait to meet him: he was clearly one of the most wonderful people ever to grace the planet; and I was also anxious to get up to the Historical Society.
          While I was waiting, I checked out the travel insurance, since the car insurance doesn't cover unattached objects.  The travel insurance doesn't really cover them either, if they're in an 'unattended vehicle'.  If they're locked in the boot, and I can find the receipts and current value (since the manuals went with it, I can't even remember the model of the camera), they'll reluctantly cough up a miserable hundred quid.
          And it was really my own fault for leaving them there.  Especially since I left my coats hanging up in the back, looking like I was packed and ready to go.  I got lulled and lazy and violated my own golden rule: it's not about alarms and deterrence, it's about prudence and camoflage.  These people are cunning and professional: it looked worth the risk, and so it was.
          It only took half-an-hour to fix.  And he put in tinted glass, so I didn't have to arrange tinting, which I thought I would.  He cleaned up well enough, but, of course, there will be little bits of glass popping up forever to remind me of my folly.
 
          So, finally, I got to use my weekly pass to take the number seventeen up to town to the Historical Society.  They have one of those wonderful, lofty reading rooms which turn out to be one of the joys of this trip.  And mountains of material about the McCalls, including two books by decendants with material about their Scottish origins.  (One includes a rather doubtful suggestion that they are related to the McAuleys.  This allows the production of tartans and coats-of-arms, orgiastic material for middle class Americans.  I shall certainly dismiss that, since it would make them distantly related to me through my paternal grandmother.)
          The Society has rules, quite rightly, about photographing material, and, as well as charging, likes records to be kept.  So I will have to use today to get organised, and come back tomorrow to photograph it all.  Digital photos are, without doubt, the best way to transport and maintain these sort of notes.  I'm even hoping some of it wil be 'pdf-able'.
          Sufficient to say at this point that that George's father was not a wealthy Glasgow merchant called Samuel: that was his brother.  His father was a wealthy Nithsdale farmer (near Sanquhar, about halfway between Ayr and Dumfries) called William. 
          Being as George arrived in Pennsylvania in 1702, at the age of 18, it is a tempting thesis that the brothers made some boyish, farsighted plan, seeing Glasgow as the obvious centre for colonial trade, which they actually managed to turn into reality.
          Given the commercial development of Great Britain (remember there isn't one in 1702) over the 18th Century, is it possible that these men not only created one of the Glasgows in Pennsylvania, they made a major contribution to developing Glasgow Scotland as well.
 
          Later that night I found what claims to be Philly's oldest tavern, McGillin's, which sells seriously good beer.  It's actually made by Stoudt's, McGillin's just pretend.  They sell some thirty draft beers, and when a waitresss asks which is which, the barmaid sniffs them and decides: very impressive.
          The sports channels, to do with the World Cup draw, were repeatedly showing France's cheat goal against Ireland.  You really can't get away with that, can you?  You can't run a system where everyone on the planet knows you got it wrong but you insist your rules trump that.  The right answer is to devise a system where the world doesn't get to see more than the referee, which is the right answer.  Some people still dispute one of the England 1966 goals, but nobody actually knows.
          Since I'm now studying 18th Century British Imperial glory, I say let's chuck the French out and let the Irish in.

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