NOTE!

THIS IS OUR 2005 SCHEDULE.

Read on to see where we've been so far...

April 8, National Capital Tartan Day

  April 30, Savannah Scottish Games

May 13-14-15, Houston Highland Games

June 2-5, Glasgow Highland Games

July 7-10, Grandfather Mountain Highland Games

August 19-20, Triad Games

September 17, Charleston Scottish Games

September 23 - 25, New Hampshire Highland Games

September 30 - October 2, Middle-Tennessee Highland Games

October 15-16, Stone Mountain Highland Games

October 22-23, Richmond Highland Games

April 8, Our first time to be special guests of the National Capital Tartan Day, Lyceum Museum, Alexandria, Virginia ... and we couldn't go! Carolyn came down with the flu, or food poisoning, or something similar, and we had to cancel at the last minute. Our apologies to Martha Walls and the other folks there. We would love to try again, maybe next year?

April 30, We attended the Savannah Scottish Games & Highland Gathering, J. F. Gregory Park, Richmond Hill, Georgia, and had a middling day in progress until the skies opened and rain poured out by the bucketsful. Most of those in attendance left, and didn't come back when the rain ended. Sadly, we packed up and left, too.

We met a lot of great Scots, though, like Dick and Chris Lucas, the folks with the fine blades at The Scottish Armoury, our neighbors across the way. They carry 'most any kind of medieval weapon you could want, from unusual sgian dubhs for the top of your hose to... well, you name it. 

Below, you see Randy at our location beneath the large picnic shelter at the park.

May 13-14-15, We set up our displays for the Houston Highland Games & Celtic Festival, in the covered arena at the Houston Farm & Ranch Club, Bear Creek Park, Houston, Texas. Our first trip to Houston, at the invitation of Vizi Lange, a Bruce descendant and Vice President of Ways and Means for the games, was fun, and we met a lot of nice Scots, too.

Our "next door" neighbor was Houston resident Cornelia Amiri, a prolific authoress of spicy novels with Scottish settings, or as she says, "Warrior Women, Long Swords, and Hot Heroes". Visit www.authorsden.com/visit/author.asp?AuthorID=4165 to see more of Cornelia's writings and info.

We even got up at 4:30 Friday morning to be  with Jonathan Walton on Houston's Channel 11 News' early morning edition. Several early-rising visitors to the games mentioned seeing us and some of them bought our books! Yea!

We acquainted ourselves with Jim Walters of Caledonian Kitchen, dubbed "The Haggis King of America" for his prize-winning (even in Scotland!) haggis. Also check out his Barbados rum, chocolate bourbon, drambouie, and single malt whiskey cakes, all of which can be ordered online from his website: www.caledoniankitchen.com.

Here is the plain truth...

[CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE!]

June 2-5, at the Glasgow, Kentucky, Highland Games, Barren River Lake State Resort Park, Glasgow, Kentucky, we were to have lectured on Thursday and Friday, but due to a mix-up in speakers' schedules, we didn't lecture a single time! Still, we signed and sold books all four days.

Below we can be seen presenting books to Robert McKenzie Harrison, President of the Glasgow games... 

...and Robin O. Blair, LVO, WS, Lord Lyon King of Arms, who is the authority on Scottish (heraldry) arms and their use, while Bob Harrison and John Murray, the 11th Duke of Atholl (to whom we also presented a book) look on. Tread lightly around the Duke, who maintains the only legal private army in Europe! 

July 7-10, We greatly enjoyed our first time as vendors at Grandfather Mountain Highland Games and Gathering o' Scottish Clans, MacRae Meadows, near Linville, North Carolina. Once again we climbed the mountain in our faithful minivan and set up shop among the vendor tents, this time independent of our friends and former hosts at the games, Fran and Darryl McDonald and the others at Dunedin Scottish, whom we missed tremendously.

This was our best weekend ever, even exceeding last year at Stone Mountain, Georgia! (Though, to be honest, Stone Mountain was only a two-day event...)We had more sales of our books and shirts than at any other games we have attended. For this we thank the folks in the North Carolina highlands and all those who came from other places to be there. We had a great time.

Carolyn and Randy with Frank and Jean Vance at the end of the day on Sunday. Frank is the General Manager of the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, and we at last were able to have a quiet moment with the Vances. It was a great conversation in which a great many ideas were exchanged in what seemed to be a very short amount of time.

Carolyn chatting with some of the thousands of games visitors at Grandfather Mountain.

Our Angus Mackilt shirts made their debut there, and we found two retailers to whom we could wholesale our wares. Since then, we have found a few more, but are still looking. Angus Mackilt is our original character, and we have three different shirts available in sizes Medium through XXXL. The first shows Angus angrily waving a golf club and shouting, "Who Said Skirt?" Sales on these were very successful at Grandfather.

Since then we have two more designs, one showing a jolly Angus tripping the light fantastic with his flask in hand, and the statement: "SCOTCH: Makin' White Men Dance Since 1494". The other shows a sleepy-eyed Angus leaning against a stump and says, "I'm Fixin' to..."

To appreciate them, you really have to see these shirts. Go to http://www.Mackilt.com

At left is the actor Blake Braswell, to whom we were introduced by Joe McKenzie of Clann an Drumma (note the T-shirt). Blake is an ambitious young guy who is interested in playing the title role in the movie of Rebel King, when we get it made. He's familiar with medieval weaponry and is a proficient horseman, so we're told. What do you think?

Here modeling one of our Angus Mackilt T-shirts is the Caledonian Kitchen's Jim Walters, the "Haggis King of America". Jim is a great guy, and he has a sense of humor, too!

If you're looking for something special, for yourself or your spouse, or anyone with Celtic heritage, check with the folks at R.E. Piland, Goldsmith, whom we met at Grandfather Mountain. He has original designs of Celtic heritage, in both gold and sterling. You won't see these in the local jewelry store. Carolyn and our daughter both have Piland pendants of a recent design he calls "Bruce's Axe"... of course. He created it after reading a novel of the exploits of Robert the Bruce.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT

August 19-20, HOT! That's the one word that best describes the Triad Games at Greensboro, North Carolina's Bryan Park this year. With the heat index up around 110-115 degrees, hardly anyone moved who didn't have to. Still, those muscular men (and a few women) in kilts were out there throwing things, some pretty impressively, or so it seemed from where we were. Unfortunately, the people stayed away in droves, leaving the vendors (except those selling cool drinks, perhaps) with little to do but think about the heat! Then, the thin crowds grew thinner and the clans started "folding their tents" and heading out, and we did, too. Good thing for us, because we had barely reached the hotel in town before the storm came and inundated the whole city and environs with heavy rains, thunder and lightning. We watched the rain fall for about, oh, three and a half minutes before we crashed, exhausted from the heat of the field.

Next day we trundled out to the Guilford Courthouse Battlefield Park to see where Randy's and Carolyn's great-great-great-(great?)-grandfathers fought alongside Nathaniel Greene and Daniel Morgan against Cornwallis and Tarleton in March 1781. Edward Hale and James Cannaday (Kennedy) were part of the force that led to Cornwallis' Pyrrhic victory, and later that fall to his defeat at Yorktown, Virginia. 

September 17, We pitched our wee tent at Boone Hall Plantation, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, for the Charleston Scottish Games & Highland Gathering 2005. We missed it last year because of the foul weather predicted to be there... but wasn't! In other words, we chickened out! The day turned off lovely and pleasant, and we sat at home and grumbled. This year we determined we would be there, rain or shine, and the day was just beautiful. It was a bit too warm, but, hey, this is summer in the lowlands of South Carolina!

We had a fine time, met more Scots, sold some books, and marveled at the beauty of the historic house and grounds. We took a few pix, as you can see below.

The drive leading to the plantation manse is lined with ancient live oaks dripping with Spanish moss.

Off to the left as one approaches the main house is a row of nearly identical houses, built to house the plantation's slaves.

The Bruces man the fort from behind a barricade of Rebel King books.

Carol and Jim Graham joined us at the Rebel King tent for a far-too-short visit Saturday afternoon. Jim and Randy have been fast friends since mere boys in high school... a few years back. Carol and Carolyn are more recent friends of only about three decades or so.

September 23, 24 & 25, We went into the New Hampshire Highland Games at Hopkinton State Fairground, near Contoocook (pronounced briskly as Con-took-cook, it's a small town near Concord), New Hampshire. It was our first foray into the great New Hampshire Games, or even the great New Hampshire, and we thought we were headed into a place where we would be strangers, with our Southern accents and all. Nay! It turned out that we were received with genuinely warm Scottish hospitality and, to our pleasant surprise, many Rebel King readers come by and asked when Book Three would be out! We were not strangers, we had kinfolk there!

For the whole of three days, we shook hands, sold and signed our books, and chatted with folks from all over the Northeast, from New Hampshire, of course, but also Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey! We had a fine time, and the New Hampshire Games have now taken first place in our rankings, accounting for more sales than any other event, so far.

Mother Nature cooperated with outstanding weather, but we had hoped to see a bit of color in the lovely northern woods around southern New Hampshire. Not this year. Like Virginia's, New Hampshire's leaves were green and lush. I think it had to do with reduced rainfall in both areas.

Here we are with Jamesie of Clann an Drumma, the most excellent Scottish band, out of Glasgow, Scotland. To catch them in performance, click here to go to their schedule.

September 30 - October 2, We traveled to the Middle-Tennessee Highland Games at the Tennessee Renaissance Festival Grounds, Triune, Tennessee (southeast of Nashville, near Murfreesboro), a woodsy site, too. The vendors' and clan tents were mingled, mostly among the trees, but there were others along the games field. I understand it got a bit hot down there, but we in the trees were fairly comfortable both days. Yep, both days. For the first time these games were held on two days. Sunday was a bit slow, but it takes time for the public to become aware of such changes.

The Middle-Tennessee Highland Games are far smaller in attendance than the New Hampshire Games, so we even had time to "set a spell" now and then.

Scenes of the same ilk as this beautiful farm, which lies on the way from our motel in Franklin to the games in Triune, TN, are common wherever we have been, and we just couldn't resist getting a photo of it. Hope you enjoy it, too.

Well, that's where we have been this year. We have two more games scheduled (see below), and then we'll take off until next season. We'll not be resting at all this winter, though, as we have committed ourselves to publishing Rebel King, Book Three, Banok Burn by the first week in July, 2006!

Just Ahead:

October 15-16, Stone Mountain Highland Games, Atlanta, Georgia, here we come! Yahoo! Since this is our biggest two-day success yet, we're certainly looking forward to it. Come by and see us! As we have been here toward the autumn end of the season, we're running a special on hardbacked Rebel King, Hammer of the Scots, and Rebel King, The Har'ships: one of each for $50, for a savings of almost $8.00 over the individual prices!

We cleaned up pretty well for the Friday night gathering at Stone Mountain, where your authors (at right) posed with pals Mark and Dorothy Maclaine, whom we proudly count among our staunchest supporters. We're looking forward to seeing you all next weekend for another evening of good fun with lots of Scots!

October 22-23, Richmond Highland Games and Celtic Festival, Richmond Racing Complex, a.k.a. the Virginia State Fairgrounds, Richmond, Virginia, Lastly, for this season at least, we intend to be at the Richmond Games in our home state's capital. Hope to see a lot of friends and family there, and make a bunch of new friends, too. This will be our third time at Richmond, but our first time there as an independent vendor! Do stop by and see us!

Watch for Rebel King, Banok Burn, in 2006, mid-summer... we hope!

KEEP CHECKING THIS SITE! We'll be adding news and events as they are scheduled!

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