Ambivalent
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- Joined
- Jul 15, 2009
- Posts
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Kyle, sweetheart -
Thank you for the kind and lovely message. I appreciated it, and it warmed my heart, so very much.
Yes, I am a Canadian, but also a Scotsman. My Grandfather came to this country from Scotland, in 1904, as a wee lad, and all his sisters (of course) with him.
Grand-Dad expired, when I was just a tot. But my Scottish Great-Aunts took me in hand. "Aye, A", they told me, whenever I misbehaved, in their rather thick Lowlands accent: "We've no room for a wee Englishman in this hoos, so ye'd better behave a as a PROPER SCOT. And not DISGRACE US!"
They are all gone, now. Aunt Edna was a famous couturier, who fashioned frocks for the rich and famous of this arctic land. (She also drank a quart of Scotch a day, and smoked a pack or two of Rothmans King-Size, every day: and, miraculously, lived to be 94 years old, her vices, notwithstanding.)
Aunt Marion was quite the opposite - temperate and abstemious. (My family runs to extremes, you see.) She was good and kind, and loved the Queen (as Scots abroad tend to do - the Empire found us homes, you see): and loved to do the New York Times crossword puzzle. Once, when I went to visit her, she enlisted me in this effort - but my crossword-puzzle-skills are baleful, at best (success in these endeavours has a lot more to do with skill in mathematics, than verbal facility): and she said, "Lad, ye're no really good at this, are ye?"
Probably, though, my favourite of them all was dear, dear, Aunt Jessie. She was kind, and sweet, and very frail. As a little lass, they were so poor (back in the old country) she developed rickets, and had to be carried about upon a pillow, until she was nine years old. Because of her frailty, she took to the library, and knew all the works of William Shakespeare, and Sir Walter Scott, from memory. (She had, like my dear sister, a photographic memory.)
Oh, Aunt Jessie loved me well. And though she is long, long gone, I miss her, so very much. She was, Kyle, the very incarnation of gentle kindness, and wisdom.
And, Kyle, you shall laugh. But some Sundays, when I sat in the parlour with my Scottish Great-Aunts, with the sun streaming in through the stained-glass window - the routine was always the same. I would play them a little piece upon the piano: usually something easy, by Handel. Then, Aunt Jessie would crank up the Gramophone - I'm not kidding you, this was in the early 1970's, but they still had the Gramophone my Grandfather purchased for his ailing sister (who didn't live) 40 years before - and we'd listen to Enrico Caruso. And then, all of them would tell me stories of Scotland, and bring out maps, and say:
"A - it is called the British Empire, but laddie, never forget: it is WE Scots who devised it, paid for it, managed it, and bled and died for it. England would be naught, but for the likes of US!"
Such fond, fond, memories, Kyle. They are all long-gone, now, all those Scottish Aunts, of mine. The last to depart was Aunt Marion, and, at her funeral reception, her children displayed fine photographs - tintypes, actually - of ALL THOSE sisters, when they visited Paris - eight decades (at least) before I first did. (They got to go on a grand European tour, because, my Great-Grandfather was a very good and successful farmer, and could afford it, as few Canadians could, in those days.)
Kyle, I was held in sheer fascination to see these ladies I knew and loved as very old ladies ~ young and vibrant, and beautiful, with extravagant hats, and parasols, walking down the Champs Elysees - amidst the horse-carts, and the quaint automobiles, of the day. For me, it was sheer MAGIC to have this little glimpse, into the past. . . . .
************************************************** ***********
Kyle, the world has obviously changed - and it has changed a lot. I am a minor civil servant, who scribbles feverishly in a small cubicle, always writing, always hoping to please my masters.
I have no great hope of advancement - let alone wealth - but what I DO HAVE, is the love and friendship, of friends like you. I will never be rich. I will never be famous. But I feel. . . such a quiet CONTENTMENT, knowing people in the world, like you: with good and gracious hearts, and brilliant minds, who are such GOOD friends, to me. And who love to share, and hear, the beautiful stories of ALL our lives.
This is truly, a blessing beyond compare. Thank you Kyle, for being - YOU. And thank you so much for the beautiful, and very special, message you sent to me.
Love, your friend,
"A" XOXOXOXOXOXO
*This is one of the songs my Great-Aunts used to play for me, on the old RCA Victor gramophone records: Enrico Caruso singing, "E lucevan le stele". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TjEoAXzJ9E
*And here is another one they loved - quite silly - "Grandfather's Bagpipes": but this was always played ONLY after I had passed my tests of piano-playing and recitation of verse: and when we were well into tea and scones!
Thank you for the kind and lovely message. I appreciated it, and it warmed my heart, so very much.
Yes, I am a Canadian, but also a Scotsman. My Grandfather came to this country from Scotland, in 1904, as a wee lad, and all his sisters (of course) with him.
Grand-Dad expired, when I was just a tot. But my Scottish Great-Aunts took me in hand. "Aye, A", they told me, whenever I misbehaved, in their rather thick Lowlands accent: "We've no room for a wee Englishman in this hoos, so ye'd better behave a as a PROPER SCOT. And not DISGRACE US!"
They are all gone, now. Aunt Edna was a famous couturier, who fashioned frocks for the rich and famous of this arctic land. (She also drank a quart of Scotch a day, and smoked a pack or two of Rothmans King-Size, every day: and, miraculously, lived to be 94 years old, her vices, notwithstanding.)
Aunt Marion was quite the opposite - temperate and abstemious. (My family runs to extremes, you see.) She was good and kind, and loved the Queen (as Scots abroad tend to do - the Empire found us homes, you see): and loved to do the New York Times crossword puzzle. Once, when I went to visit her, she enlisted me in this effort - but my crossword-puzzle-skills are baleful, at best (success in these endeavours has a lot more to do with skill in mathematics, than verbal facility): and she said, "Lad, ye're no really good at this, are ye?"
Probably, though, my favourite of them all was dear, dear, Aunt Jessie. She was kind, and sweet, and very frail. As a little lass, they were so poor (back in the old country) she developed rickets, and had to be carried about upon a pillow, until she was nine years old. Because of her frailty, she took to the library, and knew all the works of William Shakespeare, and Sir Walter Scott, from memory. (She had, like my dear sister, a photographic memory.)
Oh, Aunt Jessie loved me well. And though she is long, long gone, I miss her, so very much. She was, Kyle, the very incarnation of gentle kindness, and wisdom.
And, Kyle, you shall laugh. But some Sundays, when I sat in the parlour with my Scottish Great-Aunts, with the sun streaming in through the stained-glass window - the routine was always the same. I would play them a little piece upon the piano: usually something easy, by Handel. Then, Aunt Jessie would crank up the Gramophone - I'm not kidding you, this was in the early 1970's, but they still had the Gramophone my Grandfather purchased for his ailing sister (who didn't live) 40 years before - and we'd listen to Enrico Caruso. And then, all of them would tell me stories of Scotland, and bring out maps, and say:
"A - it is called the British Empire, but laddie, never forget: it is WE Scots who devised it, paid for it, managed it, and bled and died for it. England would be naught, but for the likes of US!"
Such fond, fond, memories, Kyle. They are all long-gone, now, all those Scottish Aunts, of mine. The last to depart was Aunt Marion, and, at her funeral reception, her children displayed fine photographs - tintypes, actually - of ALL THOSE sisters, when they visited Paris - eight decades (at least) before I first did. (They got to go on a grand European tour, because, my Great-Grandfather was a very good and successful farmer, and could afford it, as few Canadians could, in those days.)
Kyle, I was held in sheer fascination to see these ladies I knew and loved as very old ladies ~ young and vibrant, and beautiful, with extravagant hats, and parasols, walking down the Champs Elysees - amidst the horse-carts, and the quaint automobiles, of the day. For me, it was sheer MAGIC to have this little glimpse, into the past. . . . .
************************************************** ***********
Kyle, the world has obviously changed - and it has changed a lot. I am a minor civil servant, who scribbles feverishly in a small cubicle, always writing, always hoping to please my masters.
I have no great hope of advancement - let alone wealth - but what I DO HAVE, is the love and friendship, of friends like you. I will never be rich. I will never be famous. But I feel. . . such a quiet CONTENTMENT, knowing people in the world, like you: with good and gracious hearts, and brilliant minds, who are such GOOD friends, to me. And who love to share, and hear, the beautiful stories of ALL our lives.
This is truly, a blessing beyond compare. Thank you Kyle, for being - YOU. And thank you so much for the beautiful, and very special, message you sent to me.
Love, your friend,
"A" XOXOXOXOXOXO
*This is one of the songs my Great-Aunts used to play for me, on the old RCA Victor gramophone records: Enrico Caruso singing, "E lucevan le stele". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TjEoAXzJ9E
*And here is another one they loved - quite silly - "Grandfather's Bagpipes": but this was always played ONLY after I had passed my tests of piano-playing and recitation of verse: and when we were well into tea and scones!
