Thursday 14th January 2010 - The Kentucky Dress Act of 2010

          I had to go to the print shop to get some more cards.  As usual, I had left it to the last minute.  This may be the last sizeable town I visit for some time.  The shop says they can do it, and want a ten dollar deposit, cash money of the United States: the first place I've visited here that doesn't take plastic.   I give them a twenty, and they gave me a badly-printed ten in change.  The borders were the most uneven I have ever seen on a currency note.  Remember, this is a print shop.  They wouldn't dare, would they?

 

          I studiously avoid being the tourist when I can.  I'm here to meet people, and look at and use the ordinary things of life.  But sometimes there are some special things one just has to look at.

          When I was but a callow youth, one of the regular contributers to 'Punch', Alex Atkinson, published his American Road Trip, which he called "Across America on a Rocking Chair".  At the beginning, in the section on New York City, he says something like "Manhattan is connected to the mainland by three bridges, each of which is the biggest in the world".  This turns out to be true: one is the biggest such-and-such truss, and so on.

          A few miles up the road from Glasgow is the Mammoth Cave.  The name refers to the size, not prehistoric creatures.  At nearly four hundred miles (yes, miles) of passageways, it is the biggest cave system in the world.  I thought that was a bit special, so I took the afternoon to go and see it.  And it's seriously impressive.

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          In the early evening, my spies had told me the high school band parents were having  meeting, and were going to discuss changing the band uniform.  The Scottie band currently disports itself in full highland regalia.  Apparently, at marching band contests, they get marked down in the 'appearance' section: the judges,it is said, like to see the hips and thighs and knees of the young people as they march (sounds a bit iffy to me).  This is a small town, and many of the band parents were themselves, in their day, band.  Their kilts etc. were what marked them apart.  It is a tradition about which they feel very strongly.

          Now, you can't win contests by spitting at the judges, but is seems a bit sad that they have a set of marking rules which strip schools of their tradition, one of the most effective sources of juvenile discipline.

          I was introduced, and induced to speak.  I told them about the similar tradition in Montana.  Fortunately, nobody asked me my opinion.  Neither side would have been pleased.

          Tartan was invented by Sir Walter Scott for the visit of George the Fourth to Edinburgh twenty-three years after Glasgow Kentucky was founded.  About seventy years after their like had passed the Dress Act to ban the kilt, and cleared the highlands, sending poor Scots off,as it turned out, to get their own back by wresting the American Colonies away from them.  Just as well they didn't ask.

 

          Later that night, I met another ex-band member.  He was quite dismissive: "It doesn't hide their marching: they can't march.  We wore the kilts, and we won regularly." 

          He also told me that a member of the USA rugby team comes from Glasgow.  Did you know that the USA were the current Olympic rugby champions?