Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Kilt talking

Not only do I own (and wear quite often) a kilt, but unlike a lot of kilt-lovers out there, I am actually authorized to wear a kilt, which is an important thing in many kilt-wearing circles and useless elsewhere. And where it is important, it is ahhh... important. I've seen what happens when scotch and unauthorized kilt-wearing mix at the Celtic Games around here and in Braemar: drunk men rolling on the ground kicking and gouging.

I remember a few years ago when a tipsy Coast Guard dude told a very drunk retired Marine that he was wearing the Edzell tartan because he "liked the colors." Soon the two were rolling on the ground: the Coastie yelling blue murder and the jarhead (who had been stationed at RAF Edzell) trying to rip his kilt off.

US Navy Edzell Tartan
That's the official US Navy Edzell tartan, an officially recognized and documented Scottish tartan (as opposed to plaids), which is authorized for wear to all personnel who were ever stationed or worked at the now closed Royal Air Force base in Edzell, Scotland, where I served from 1989-1992.

I have a US Navy Edzell tartan kilt (8 yards)... maybe I should post a pic of me wearing it.

And technically, I'm just saying, I could make claims to being entitled to wear also the Lennox tartan, as my mother's grandmother on her mother's side was from Clan Lennox and eventually ended in the Canary Islands during the Clearances.