Issue #23, The Highland Games in Mesa

Highland Games at Mesa Community College
Ending parade Ceremonies The events were  hosted by Clan McBain of Phoenix

During the last weekend in February, we took a drive down to Mesa Community College (Phoenix area) to watch the ending hours of the annual Highland Games.  As we have been having a rather raining season so far, it was nice to have a sunny and comfortable day for our trip.  We like going to the games as it keeps us connected to Nancy's family history.  We try to go at least one day each year, and this time we met up with our daughter and her friend.

The right-hand picture shows Scottish country dance competition.  The laddie in the middle is flanked by two lassies.

We took bets among the four of as to who'd win the sword battle in the first picture.  Nancy went for the Scotsman in blue. The Green Knight won...... As to the shot in the middle, who let the Redcoat in ?!?  The three lads on the right had a lot of fun with their mini battle swords, practicing for when they can take on the Green Knight, I'm sure!

This year we were privileged to hear many fine musicians, including legendary Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser.  We first heard Fraser's fiddling on the "Thistle and Shamrock" radio show airing Saturday nights on PBS.  Fraser mixes classical sounds with country fiddling like that heard here in the Appalachians and the hill country of Tennessee.  Click here to watch a segment of his performance.  The AVI is over 17MB in size, it may take awhile to load... This is my first (and maybe last) attempt to use film clips created on my digital still camera.  I don't know if this is going to play for you, so I'm sorry if it doesn't. However, if all things work out, I hope you'll enjoy the music as much as we did!

The group on the right is called Craicmore.  The gal also does a traditional tap dance.

We've watched the gal in the yellow tartan kilt compete in the games over the last ten years.  We first noticed her as she threw the hammer, a mere forty-some pounds.  She's buffer now and after one unsuccessful toss of a 77-pound caber (straight tree trunk), she was successful in flipping the 17-foot pole end over end.  The audience whooped for her.  Her competitors were not as successful in the tossing competition. 

The crowd stood at attention as the pipe band played "Scotland the Brave" - as close as Scots can get to a national anthem.  I attempted to place a link with the picture on the right of a piece I put together using a video editing program on my computer.  Unfortunately the thing was about 365MB in size and not something I can send over my 56k modem without taking all night to upload.  Downloading and viewing is another problem!

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