Another week, another dollar. We are sitting here in our house after church and we are truly suffering. The house temperature is 65 and we can’t get the heat to go on. Every time we have some work done in the attic someone touches a wire and then the air conditioner or the heater doesn’t go on when we hit the switch. This house has a security system that was old and needed to be slightly rewired. That all happened Friday afternoon. I crawled around in the attic but I don’t know what I am looking at. We will have the contractor look at it again. We need to get a new thermostat.
We struggled along with work this week. I have been getting a lot done for the interview next week. This is the week I go to San Antonio for the NCTE conference. Our interview for the editorship of the ALAN Review is next Saturday morning at 10:00. We have done a lot of preparation and we hope it goes well. We have good support from our Universities.
Today we add a “linger longer” after church. Basically, people bring a variety of food and desserts. Then after church they sit around and eat and talk. It is nice for all of the people to get to know each other.
Saturday we went up to Jackson, Louisiana. It is about 20 miles north of Baton Rouge. They have a weekend once a year that sponsors Highland Games. They have piping, drums, dancing, dancing lessons and highland games. There are athletic games where big guys throw logs, giant stuffed bags of hey with a pitch fork over a tall bar, a modified hammer through, and a big rock. They also have a bunch of activities for kids—scaled down tools of the athletic games for them to practice with. They also bring in some musical groups from around the country. It is a pretty big deal. They bring in a judge for the pipes, the drums, pipe bands, and dancing. They also had some demonstrations with border collies moving sheep around. It was pretty cool. There was also a bunch of booths with Scottish stuff. One lady will measure you for a kilt and then they bring in the fabric from Scotland and make it here. They also have set up a bunch of clan booths. Dana asked about the history of Scots in the area. Apparently, one of the big migrations was between 1830-1845. One of the big settling points was in North Carolina. They seemed to migrate to a variety of places in the south. Quite a few moved to the New Orleans area, even before the Revolution, and got along better with the French than the English.
The biggest bonus was that the Baton Rouge Model Railroad club has a building up there. They have trains in every scale, including a garden railroad. It was fun. It was even a little windy and wet, so it even felt a bit like Scotland. One of the entertainment fiddlers said that usually he has to have people imagine the wind and the cold of Scotland, but today was pretty close. We should have taken some chairs, a blanket, and a cooler with food. Most people kind of set up a picnic area. I think next we will go more prepared for the whole deal. We might even dance. Dana is a Highland Lassie from way back.
There was also a small four day bluegrass festival in a small RV park about 4 miles out of Jackson. We stopped by to check it out. It looked like there were a bunch of old people, yes older than us. There was a small building and the bands rotate about every hour. There seemed to be about five bands. We might go next year and stay overnight. It was a fun day. We are trying to spend some time getting to know the area around Baton Rouge. We haven’t been to the Tabasco plant yet, but it is close in New Iberia.
Amelia set us up with a blog a few weeks ago. I have been experimenting with it for a bit. Here is the web address: http://louisianabicks.blogspot.com/
I have posted a few house pictures and some pictures of the highland games, including two fine shoots of some Highland Coos.
Mitch was upset that I haven’t mentioned the Jazz. Go Jazz. They sit at 6-4. They seem to be having a little trouble on the road.
Go Utes! They a have done great. BYU managed to win against Air Force. LSU had to have their superior athletes score 30 points in the last quarter to beat a lower division Troy. I think that it just showed that bigger, stronger, and faster, especially in skill positions paid off. I know you are all dying to hear about the dawgs. They managed to hold off Auburn. Auburn has had a horrible year and Georgia should be able to take them apart. Georgia is starting several freshman on the offensive line. And the defensive secondary is young. They really are hoping to just get through the year. Florida, unfortunately, looks like the real deal.
We love you take care of each other.
Love Dad and Dana
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