Celebrating

An Old Married Couple: Reblogging “Date Night and the Wind Turbines”
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An Old Married Couple: Reblogging “Date Night and the Wind Turbines”

Wonderful post. Thanks to Jen Groeber for reminding us that we are “an old married couple, late in life, on date night; enduring, steadfast, everlasting, beloved.” Words to cherish even in the midst of a what seems at times like endless illness and care-giving. Love prevails and God is always there with a steady comfort and helping hand.

jgroeber's avatarjen groeber: mama art

IMG_9780 Wind turbines, out of focus
April 2014

I’ve been thinking about marriage lately. It may be the spring weather (finally), the birds looking for love in all the wrong places, mating for life and so on.

I think it’s the time in my life too, or our collective lives really. Among our friends our kids are mostly all in school (and by school I don’t mean clown school or college, I mean pre-school) and our parents are aging, looking to move, getting the scan or the X-ray or the biopsy. Some have even passed. We are the next “big” then, the next big mortal, permeable, vulnerable thing.

And I began thinking about marriage, how it’s so often like breathing or an old car or not throwing up.  It’s one of those things that you’re really not all that grateful for, at least not until it’s jeopardized, by illness or disregard…

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The Scottish Roots of Curling
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The Scottish Roots of Curling

Andrew McDiarmid has shared on his Simply Scottish blog this fascinating account of the origins of the sport of curling. Thanks for posting this Andrew. We are also enjoying tuning in to your “Sport in Scotland” series on your PodOmatic broadcasts on Simply Scottish.

It has been great watching both the CANADIAN MEN’S AND WOMEN’S OLYMPIC CURLING TEAMS take the GOLD MEDALS at the Sochi Olympics. We are also sharing this in honour of our son-in-law, Eugene (Carl) German of Winnipeg who is also a champion curling skip.

Andrew McDiarmid's avatarThe Simply Scottish Blog

Like a number of sports, the origins of curling are up for some debate. After all, who can say which person or people group were the first to enjoy skimming stones across frozen water? Because of the conditions needed, it seems a sure bet that it originated in a northern European country. Wherever it began, few will dispute the fact that the pastime developed into a modern sport in Scotland.

The first evidence of such a game in Scotland was uncovered when an old pond was drained in Dunblane. Two curling stones were found bearing the years 1511 and 1551 on them. Written evidence from 1540 records what seems to be a legal dispute that was settled on the ice between John Sclater, a monk in Paisley Abbey and Gavin Hamilton, a representative of the Abbot. The word curling appears in the work of Scottish poet and historian Henry Adamson…

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BIRTHDAY LIMERICKS

Ian 81 Bday cake

We celebrated IAN’S 81ST BIRTHDAY on May 2, 2013 with three other couples who have become very good friends to us since we moved to Vernon five years ago. Here we’ll share a few photos from the party, including one of friend Fernando accompanying us as we sang “Happy Birthday” to Ian. Usually our parties are centered around singing. This party centered around writing, with the theme  “Birthday Limericks.” We suggested that the limericks could center around one of Ian’s favourite things such as writing stories, singing, all things Scottish, his love of dancing or his favourite drinks – Scotch whisky and  good white wine.

LIMERICKS are a special kind of poem. Usually they have a five line cadence with a pattern of AABBA (in other words, the first, second and fifth lines rhyme and have the rhythm dah DAH, dah dah DAH, dah dah DAH; while the third and fourth lines rhyme and have the shorter rhythm dah dah DAH dah dah DAH. Ian is a fan of poetry ONLY when it rhymes. In fact, he claims a poem isn’t really a poem if it doesn’t rhyme. Therefore, the limerick is his favourite kind of poetry.

Bday Boy

Inspired by a fellow blogger (Flammeusgladius aka Tom Riley) Gayle had asked our guests to each write a limerick for Ian as a birthday gift. In thanks Ian has come up with the following limerick. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the Scottish use of the term “the noo”, that means “now” or “at the present time.”

Thanks to all for your limericks true

Heartfelt greetings from all of you.

You can tease, you can praise

And your glasses you raise.

but I’ll stick with coffee, the noo.

Gayle had corresponded with blogger Tom Riley prior to the birthday and, true to form as he puts his whole blog (Flammeusgladius)  into limerick form, he came up with this post on his blog for Ian’s birthday:

Birthday Dram

by flammeusgladius

(for Ian Moore-Morrans)

It’s with joy, and with no trace of sorrow,

That, upon an occasion I borrow

From your family, I drink

This Scotch neat.  And I think

You should add a new birthday tomorrow.

So here are the rest of Ian’s birthday limericks for your enjoyment:

From wife and editor Gayle:GayleIan Bday 81

Dear Ian, you’ve turned eighty-one.

Who says you’re too old to have fun?

We can sing, we’ll sip wines;

And we’ll both write some lines.

And that’s why I love you so, Hon!

From friend Nita:

Now we know that Ian’s Scottish.

As a dancer he was “hottish.”

He’d quick step; the girls would cling,

Then he’d do the Highland Fling.

But tell me, did he ever dance the Schottishe?

From our friend and accompanist Fernando:

Fer playing Happy Bday

Hey, Ian, I will play for you piano.

As long as in my ear you do not bellow.

Gayle has warned me, you sing loud.

When you entertain a crowd.

So go easy now, it’s better to sing mellow.

From Eric (a fellow Scotsman):

He wears a kilt

and sings wi’ a lilt.

He wears a tam

and likes a wee dram.

Now he and his lass

they are top class.

So sing for me

a tune that I luv

A song of my land

And that is “Misty Island.”

 (Note: “Misty Islands of the Highlands” is Ian and Gayle’s favourite song to sing together as a duet.)

 

From Patch:

Life of Ian

First poverty, then military.

The young Scottish millwright did marry.

Lived all over Canuck land.

Chased Incas with Gayle in hand.

Now as author in Vernon he’ll tarry!

 

From Gail (and Bill):

A task I’ve been handed for Birthday Boy Ian

He’s the best Scotch drinker that I’ve ever se-en

He’ll top up that glass

While he calls for his lass.

If I got paid for this, it’d be pretty le-an!

**

There’s Ian the Birthday boy in the kilt

When you hear him talk, there’s a wee bit o’ lilt.

He does talk to the dog

Then falls asleep like a log.

It just must be the way he is built!

**

If a young Scotsman moved across an ocean

Would it be Ian and would he have a notion

To work really hard and sing when he could

Perhaps write a book and make it real good

Then later drink a Scotch whisky potion?

**

OK, so we’re not pros at this limerick writing and maybe our meters and rhyming schemes were sometimes a bit of a stretch. But we really had fun and the topics were all very appropriate. We were happy, Ian was happy — what more could we ask for?  A good time was had by all! Once again, Happy Birthday Ian.

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ALL ABOUT THE “REAL” JIMMY, AN EXCERPT FROM “CAME TO CANADA, EH?”

As I (Gayle) am preparing chapters of Ian’s children’s chapter book “Jake, Little Jimmy and Big Louie” to blog, I’m also working on my second (and I hope final) edit of the sequel to Ian’s already published memoir: “From Poverty to Poverty: A Scotsman Encounters Canada.” I’ve already blogged an excerpt from the sequel which we have named” “Came to Canada, Eh? Continuing a Scottish Immigrant’s Story.” Today I’ve just completed editing a section in which Ian describes receiving his real-life bird, a cockatiel he also named “Jimmy.” I thought it might be appropriate to blog this section to give readers an insight into some of the things Ian learned about raising a bird and teaching it to speak and whistle. He later added some of these ideas to the children’s story that is now “Jake, Little Jimmy and Big Louie.” You will notice that certain things Ian experienced with his cockatiel Jimmy later were used in the characterizations of Little Jimmy and also of Big Louie. I’m also including a 1998 photo of Ian and Jimmy, the cockatiel.

Ian and Jimmy

Excerpt from “Came to Canada, Eh? Continuing a Scottish Immigrant’s Story”

by Ian Moore-Morrans

edited by Gayle Moore-Morrans

Copyright © 2013

“Mary and I went down to Winnipeg to spend Christmas with Audrey and Eugene and our three grandchildren, Tammy, Calan and Ainsley in 1997. Then, since Mary and I had been married on the 29th of December, we returned home to Creighton to celebrate our anniversary. We were at Shirley and Brien’s house for a quiet evening on our wedding anniversary when Shirley suddenly appeared carrying a great big bird cage.

” Inside was a beautiful, young cockatiel. He and the lovely cage were being presented to us from our two daughters, their husbands and all five grandchildren, including young Ian and Tiffany. I was invited to take the bird out of its cage and hold him on my hand. He came with no bother and Shirley asked me what I was going to call him (it). Without any hesitation I said ‘Jimmy’ (after the little budgie in my unpublished children’s book, not caring what sex the bird was!). He was such a lovely surprise gift for both of us. And he really was a ‘he’, we found out later.

“Jimmy took quite a lot of looking after, for I had to feed him egg almost continuously, and clean his cage almost continuously, too! He was on the egg diet a long time, longer than he should have been. Brien had obtained Jimmy from a friend at work who bred them. From what Brien learned, Jimmy should have been on seed when he was still enjoying his egg. I had bought some seed for him, but he didn’t seem ready for it. When I was cooking for him, I would generally put two, sometimes three eggs in the pot and boil them hard, storing them in the fridge, for Jimmy seemed to be always hungry. I would cut off a little bit and wrap the remainder for later, making sure that Jimmy also got some of the yolk (that is what he went for first) along with some white.  In the beginning I’d chop the egg up for him, but I soon found that doing so was a complete waste of time, for his little sharp beak would slice through the soft egg just like butter.

“Soon I set about teaching the bird things to say and whistle. Being a musician, I don’t think it is bragging to say that I’m a pretty good whistler as I’m able to do quite a bit of fancy stuff like grace notes, triplets, warbles and different things—a lot of stuff that I did on the trumpet.  Soon our bird was saying ‘Jimmy’s a good boy’ (just like in my little story), ‘Hi Ian, wot’s up?’, ‘Hello, Mary’, ‘I love Shirley’ and so forth. He also started whistling the verse of “Bonnie Jean” from Brigadoon that I was rehearsing for my solo at our upcoming concert in Flin Flon. (I didn’t teach him this, he just picked it up while I was whistling it around the house and going through the words in my head.) In addition, I taught him to whistle the first part of ‘The Mexican Hat Dance’; the bugle call that goes, ‘You gotta get up, you gotta get up, you gotta get up in the morning’; a series of notes from a ‘custom’ car horn, and a silly something we used to sing in Scotland when I was a wee boy that ended with ‘Wee Bobby Geachy’s……white drawers.’ The latter bit used the popular rhythm that everyone knows: ‘Dah Dahdah  DAH  DAH…dah dah!’ However, what I taught Jimmy varied in that I substituted a wolf whistle for the last two notes (the last ‘dah dah’). Jimmy really did it superbly. (Sometimes I would whistle the first bit and he would answer with the wolf whistle and other times it would be reversed, with Jimmy starting it off.)

” Jimmy really performed to perfection the day I was dressed in my kilt just prior to leaving the house for the dress rehearsal of the show I was in. Jimmy’s cage was in the dining room and as I passed the door opening that would allow him to see me, he went, “Wheeet-wheeoo”—a perfect, long, wolf whistle.  I burst out laughing. It was like he did it intentionally, his timing was so right. My answer was, ‘Hey, funny guy. You’ve never seen a Scotsman in a kilt before?'”

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Happy Hogmanay! Happy New Year!

For those who don’t know what “Hogmanay” means, it is the Scottish name for New Year’s Eve. To celebrate this Hogmanay 2012 and tomorrow’s New Year’s Day 2013, we want to interrupt our posting of the next installment of our children’s book, “Jake, Little Jimmy and Big Louie” to post an excerpt from our emails sent to friends in which we related the latest happenings during our extended stay in Mexico November 2004 to March 2007. (Who knows – maybe we’ll even find time some day to publish our Mexican accounts in book form.) This account is from early January 2005 when we were still living in our motorhome at a wonderful water park near Villa Corona, about an hour’s drive east of Guadalajara.  My remarks are in plain type, Gayle’s are in italics.( Our emails were usually a joint effort.)

“We were thrilled to be invited to a New Year’s Eve party at Bill and Eva’s home in Ajijic (just hiccup while you say it and you’ll probably get the pronunciation right). To recap: Bill and Eva are the lovely couple I met on the Internet before we left Winnipeg. We met them in person shortly after our arrival in the area. On our second visit to the “hiccup town”, we popped in again to see them. When we were leaving they told us they were having a New Year’s Eve (Hogmanay, to us Scots) party and that if we wished to attend we’d be very welcome.

“On the way home, after making a reservation for lodging that night at a local bed and breakfast, (We didn’t want to dodge cows, burros and various and sundry drunks whom we might meet on the dark country roads on New Year’s Eve.) Gayle and I talked about the invitation and I decided that, since it was Hogmanay, the biggest Scottish holiday except for perhaps Robbie Burns’ Day, I would wear my kilt, sporran, Argyll jacket and the whole kit and caboodle. Gayle had her tartan cape and formal kilt skirt along so decided to wear hers also.

“So, we got there around seven, started meeting the few that had arrived and then I met Greta! Greta is really a lovely lady but, when she met ‘your’s truly’, she couldn’t believe it. I THINK SHE WANTED TO TAKE ME HOME! I’m sure she’d never before seen a Scotsman in full Highland dress or heard first hand the Scottish burr.  ‘Does he REALLY talk like this all the time?’ she wanted to know. ‘What a wonderful accent,’ and ‘Oh, you’re so cute,’ she cooed. Then, kiss, kiss, kiss!

“(Obviously, Ian thought it was wonderful; I had a hard time keeping my cool!) I don’t know if it was Greta’s husband’s doing (a very nice guy) but they soon left as they were heading for another two parties.

“Then there was another interesting (?) couple – his name was Dan and his name was Tom! Tom was also interested in ‘your’s truly’. Specifically, he said, he was very interested in what I had under my kilt!!!!! (Actually I get this question from someone every time I wear it!) Gayle said later that I should have told him that I have a bumper sticker on the front of our motorhome that reads, ‘Happiness is under my kilt!’ – although I wouldn’t be the least bit interested in proving it to him! He was also interested in the ‘furry thing’ in front. I had to tell him it was my sporran and that he definitely was not getting it!!!!!

“It was a great evening where we were able to meet quite a few gringo friends of Bill and Eva’s, either snowbirds or permanent residents, who we know we’ll want to see more of in days to come. Eva had a wonderful spread of food and we enjoyed Bill’s bartending, the fire in their outdoor fireplace and the great evening air of around 60 (15C) degrees. Just before midnight we walked upstairs to their rooftop terrace perched halfway up the mountain and watched the fireworks being set off down in the town along the lakeside. Of course, we also participated in a good rendition of “Auld Lang Syne.”

“When the party was finally over in the wee hours of the morning, we left Bill and Eva’s to return to the Bed’n’Breakfast we’d booked into. The street was packed and we had to park about two blocks away. Almost next door to the B n’ B we encountered a full-blown Mexican street party. There must have been around two hundred souls, adults and kids all in an elongated circle, taking up the whole street and sidewalks on either side. A big bonfire was going just to the side a little bit and a rope was suspended over the street to hoist piñatas,  hollow containers made of paper maché or clay. Some looked like horses, some like stars and various other shapes. All, of course, were filled with candies for the kids.

“Gayle and I were winding our way through the party to get ‘home’, when I noticed a vacant chair off to the side. Calling Gayle, who was just ahead of me, I motioned  to her to come back and sit. She did, and immediately a chair was provided for me also. The folks were really having a good time and soon the Mexicans accepted us as visitors, everyone smiling and waving to us. We were each offered a glass of hot ‘Ponch’ and then a man with a tequila bottle came by and offered to top up the Ponch. And it was very welcome, I must admit, (not as good as Scotch, but not bad, to tell the truth – well, it was free! Anything alcoholic and free isn’t that bad, is it?) So, I’m thoroughly enjoying the tequila and watching the kids whacking at the piñata. After all the kids had had a turn, many of the adults volunteered or were coerced into taking a whack. Then, silly me, always ready for a “carry-on”, volunteered to try to whack the evasive piñata! This ‘thing’ was on a rope, raised and lowered indiscriminately, making it difficult for a (get this) blindfolded person to hit it.

“Okay, I’m there, Casey at the bat. I had volunteered to beat the piñata to death. It must have been the first time in history (well, in this century) that a Scot, in full Highland dress, was blindfolded and was attempting to destroy the candy container that was swinging from a rope. He did manage to glance a blow off it, but not good enough to break it. After a few minutes I gave up. The crowd then gave me a cheer (more in compassion, I think, than for his competence at being able to hit the target) and I went back to my seat and a wee drop more tequila. Not much later, Gayle and I went to our abode. This was in the wee hours of the morning of the first day of the year.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

copyright © 2005