Restoring the soul

This fine fellow is dressed as an officer of the 42nd regiment of the Black Watch which was sent to New York in 1776 to put down the rebellion in the colonies.

There was a drizzle permeating the air as we rolled over Mohawk Mountain and came to the little village of Goshen in northwest Connecticut where we attended the Scottish Games. This was the culmination of a soul restoration program over the past month that had taken us deep into the backwoods of Maine.
We had canoed in the silent, still waters of Acadia National Park. We had fairly stuffed ourselves with awesomely cheap Maine lobster. Because of over supply, the price has fallen sharply and we were happy to the beneficiaries of the sweet meat at $3.95 a pound.
We had launched our canoe on Sebasticook Lake in the middle of the state where we stayed with old sailing friends. And we had criss-crossed Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, admiring the screaming scarlets and magentas and orange leaves of the maple trees as they prepared to shed their beauty for the coming winter.
Now, on this drizzling day, we came to Goshen. The misty meadows seemed a fitting place for the Highland Games. And the visiting preacher noted the occasion by thanking God for making the day a "perfect replica of what we might experienced were we standing on the beloved old country."
We had come for the sheepdog trials and watched, laughing, as a woman shepherd called to her dog to "come by" and to "stay down; stay down" as he rounded up three geese and tried to bring them down the field. The geese were having none of it, though, and they had to be declared the winners.
Another dog did a great job of rounding up the sheep and bringing them home to the pen.
We watched rugged men and even-more-rugged women throw the hammer across a field. The women were hefty and did a pretty good job. But it took a powerful black man in a plain dark blue kilt to win the event with an awesome throw of 124 feet.
In one of the tents, Jo held up a silver goblet and asked me what it was for. I told her it is a "quaich" and that it's formally used for toasting friends. The owner of the tent spoke up: "You're the first person whose ever pronounced that correctly," he said. I explained I was a native of Scotland, which led to the questions about where. It turned out he and I were from the same town, Inverness. He wanted to know where in Inverness and I told him Haugh Road. He not only knew the road but knew the old grocery shop over which we lived 60 years ago. He and his wife told us they had come over from Scotland 10 years ago. She said Inverness is the fastest-growing town in the whole of Scotland because of a huge spurt in jobs from a medical supply manufacturer.
We wandered over to Camerons, the pie-maker. We bought our Scottish meat pies, some sausage rolls and Forfar bridies. These will be used slowly as we wander south to the warmth of Florida.