Here are a few of the many activities coming up the next couple of months:

• A Scottish Afternoon, on March 29th, a very popular Scottish variety show!
• Tartan Day, April 5th at Borders Books near Fisher's Landing
• Vancouver USA Dinner Dance, our 24th! on April 19th, at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Vancouver.
• Perl Holmberg Workshop for Teachers and Musicians, the weekend of May 9-11, get your registration forms in!
• Thistle Ball, the evening of May 10th, up in Vancouver, BC. Time to register for that, too!

For more information on these events, see articles below and/or the Calendar.

So -- we were at the Day of Dance for Heart Health in February and I was so pleased, so gratified, upon watching all the demonstrations of all the other kinds of dancing, that I am a Scottish Country Dancer.

I know a lot of this has to do with the music. I think I could listen to Scottish music (and I am especially fond of fiddle and piano music) to the exclusion of all other kinds of music. Of course I wouldn't, but the prospect of listening to rock music with a driving beat while you step up on a box, step down off the box, step up on a box, step down off the box, while pumping your arms, sends me running back to dance class.

And our dancing is never boring or repetitive, but is infinitely interesting. Although there are figures that we understand and can execute, they are different depending upon what other figures are placed around them. And as soon as you think you have mastered one thing, another thing appears that needs to be mastered -- all the time, of course, working to improve or even perfect the footwork.

I have just dragged myself out of bed after attending the Portland Workshop and Ball. What a blast! What a gift to be able to spend a whole day listening to fabulous music, examining the complexities of Scottish Country Dancing, and enjoying the company of really wonderful, warm-hearted and brilliant people. Yes, my feet still hurt. But better still, my cheek muscles are sore from smiling so much, and the smiley lines around my eyes are a bit deeper.

Scottish Country Dancing is just the BEST.

African dance uses feet AND arms!

On February 23rd, over 60 people attended our second annual Folk Dance Potpourri to sample the dance traditions of different cultures. The whole evening was relaxed and informal, as the instructors gave brief lessons and led the group in simple dances. Through the course of the evening, we had fun trying out Estonian, Western Line, Scottish Country, Ukrainian, West African, and English Country dances.

What could be better?!!

Sip tea* and munch on authentic McCloud shortbread cookies while you enjoy an afternoon of entertainment at a bargain price.

This year A Scottish Afternoon will take place on Saturday, March 29th from 2pm to 4pm at the Luepke Center at 1009 E. McLoughlin, Vancouver, WA.

For $8 you will enjoy a Scottish variety show including dancing for everyone, bagpipes and drum, fiddle and piano, a wee bit of Scottish storytelling, and, yes, songs from Brigadoon!!

If you want to be truly Scottish, save $4 and buy three entries for $20. Each attendant will get one complimentary prize draw ticket. Additional draw tickets for some outstanding prizes will be sold at the door, so bring a bit of extra cash for the fun of it.

You may make reservations by contacting Marge Van Nus at (360) 892-4366 or Susan Shaw at (360) 576-5678 (We recommend reservations, especially for groups of people.)

*Tea, hot cocoa, spiced cider, or herbal tea

A new Scottish Country Dance class has begun in a part of Clark County never served before -- Battle Ground. The Thursday evening class is offered through Battle Ground Community Education and was advertised in their catalog as "Ages 8-adult. A great family activity!"

Indeed, this seems to have struck a chord, as the class has 28 students. There are several families in the class, including nine children. Students hail from across northern Clark County, from Ridgefield to Venersborg and north to Amboy. Two of the students are from my Wednesday night Marshall Center class, and one or two others have done SCD before. The rest are brand new to our form of dance and seem to be enjoying it.

As the teacher, I am also learning a lot. New to me are the challenges of handling so many students at once, creating lessons that work for both children and adults, and communicating in a large, echoey room (a gymnasium). The Battle Ground class is a wonderful opportunity to add to my own skills, and to introduce SCD to lots of happy new dancers.

[Originally from The Scottish Dancer, by Gary Lautens, Toronto Star, 1971 -- and found in a 1988 issue of the Atlanta Branch's Petronnella News.]

When it comes to the tourist game, nobody tops the Scot. The Italians, the English, and the French attract thousands of visitors every year to see things like the Spanish steps or the Tower of London or the Champs Elysees. Not the thrifty Scotsman. He has built his tourist industry on things that don't exist, thus cutting down on a lot of expense.

Instead of the Mona Lisa (which costs money to keep housed, cleaned, guarded, etc.) the Scotsman tells you to come to the Highlands and not see a mythical village called Brigadoon, a make-believe place that emerges out of the mists every 100 years or so for a single day and then disappears again. The advantages of Brigadoon are obvious. Since it doesn't exist, the Scottish tourist people can say it doesn't exist in any one of several locations throughout the countryside. But the French with their Mona Lisa are stuck with Paris is their chief tourist center. They can't say the Mona Lisa is in Calais when any darn fool knows it's in the Louvre.

Besides a village that doesn't exist, the Scots have built a brisk industry around a monster that doesn't exist -- the Loch Ness Monster. I myself detoured hundreds of miles out of my way on the way home from London (where I saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the rest) in order to tell the folks back home I went to Loch Ness and didn't see the monster. Not only didn't I see the monster, I spent two days not seeing him, which is longer than I dallied in front of Rembrandt's Night Watch in Amsterdam. The best place not to see the monster is at a ruin called Castle Urquhart where the guide (after I paid the 35 cent admission fee) admitted he had never seen the monster either. That's the awful part of the Scot -- his honesty! He doesn't even pretend there's a Loch Ness monster, not after you've booked a room or bought a boat ticket.

Besides a town and a monster that are nonexistent, the Scots are particularly proud of their scenery, which is also only a figment of some tour guide's imagination. Oh, it's probably there all right -- but nobody ever sees it because of the weather. We were on a tour bus on Edinburgh's harbour on a foggy afternoon, and you couldn't see the driver at the front of the coach. That didn't daunt him. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "you're looking at one of the finest views in the world. If it wasn't raining at this moment and very misty, you'd see a wee island just where my finger is pointing, another one over there, and behind them some of the most marvelous hills in the world." We all craned our necks. "There are beautiful ships probably in the harbour right now, and the water itself is so blue and clear it looks like a jewel." I thought I could see the water through the windshield wipers, but it turned out to to be rain, not the harbor.

Unfortunately, I also missed the view from Edinburgh Castle ("unequaled in Europe on a sunny day") because of the mist, and the heather on the hills ("beautiful and breathtaking -- but not at this time of year"). However, I did see the house where John Knox may, or may not, have lived during his teaching career ("If he didn't live in this house, he lived near this house").

There are so many things not to see in Scotland, it took me over a week not to see them all. Scotland sure knows a tourist attraction when it doesn't see one.