Thursday, March 11, 2010

Scotsmen and their sports



I've written before about my sports allergies, they're real. Caused me to miss the Olympics. Every last second of them.

What stuck with me though while I wasn't watching was how many normally clear thinking people blogged, wrote and talked about how they saw that their future involved Curling. At the time that struck me as odd, even for Americans.

Over a short whisky one evening, the reason this madness had taken over, became as close as the glass in my hand. It was the winter Scotch madness. Allow me to explain.

Much like Catholics, if you weren't born Scottish you're unlikely to become one. They're different from you and me, and we'd never catch up.

To an uncluttered mind the Scots are known for 3 things. Whisky, golf, and funny clothes.

Let's begin with the whisky. A natural product known for bringing courage to even the dourest of Scots. Some even develop a smattering of a sense of humor, in a dry, droll sort of way.

At home Mrs. T and I call it the "boy's and beer" excuse. Most things bad, can generally be blamed on a mixture of young males and too much beer. It's not much of a stretch to go from boys and whisky to swell games like caber (telephone pole) tossing.

You can pretty well imagine how this got its start.

A few telephone pole throws can play hell on your back, so even a blind man can see the appeal of looking for a similar game only with a smaller stick. Hence golf.

The aesthetics of Caber tossing required the old family kilt, but being male, golf participants needed an entirely new set of threads and toys, something to show off not only family pride, but also great bravery and daring do.



Somehow this madness caught on, and whole fields of the similarly attired can be found throughout the world on any given day. Some people even travel great distances, just for the opportunity to wear such duds.

Well, like sands through an hourglass, every year the seasons turn and eventually it becomes unpleasantly cold chasing a harmless golf ball around a field, so participants retire to a smoky room to reminisce and plan the next years clothing.

One year, after a bit of too much courage, a golf boy told his friends about how Italians play a game called boccie. A few persuaders later they rose as one from their den into the cold to give it a try. Wooden balls on snow didn't work. A few more persuaders and someone said, let's try it on the loch, and so they did, and it was good.

Being that they were male they needed new attire for this toe curlingly cold, ice boccie. A quick look into their sporting lockers gave all the inspiration needed.



Toad

9 comments:

Jg. for FatScribe said...

ice boccie! love it. nice read, Toad. -Jg.

ADG said...

And of course, Robin Williams sorted out the genesis, courtesy of the Scots, of golf.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qPrR49qsDc

James said...

Toad you are a hoot! Thank you for starting my day with a good laugh.

LPC said...

Some of this madness may also be caused by the legendary Scots frugality. From which, unfortunately, I do not suffer. Thank you for a good start to my day.

JMW said...

As a Scotch-Irish gal, I loved this post! Hubby and I like a good whiskey. And, we had a bag piper at our wedding - he greeted our guests at the reception and led the wedding party into the hall. I had to have at least one man in a kilt at my wedding. ;)

NCJack said...

Did you notice that each women's curling team had at least one real hottie?

I thought at first that might be a bunch of runway models in the last shot, then saw that the woman on the left had a real figure, so...

Anonymous said...

I don't particularly like Scotch of any kind, but this is pretty funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnSIp76CvUI

(Yeah, yeah. He's the sort of guy you want to headbutt and leave for dead on a distant planet. Still.)

Anonymous said...

I never even thought about it, I'm part Scottish and I'll be damned if I didn't feel like I was born to enjoy all three.

tintin said...

Where did you ever find that Scotch?