Our Man in Europe (James Bond incognito wearing Thrift Store clothes-disguise), now in Belize, Dave Delacroix: "Brigadoon!"
(dedicato: Johnnie X in Glasgow. He showed me - late 1970s- the town/Glasgow/Rene Mcintosh architecture, Glasgow University, Gibson St. for YOWSA Indian Curies, the (Pub) Stonehaven: Arrayed with 200 Single Malt Whiskies. (We made a dent in that?) We actually met/worked together out on the Oil Rigs in the North Sea off Scotland/Norway. Oil Platform construction. Wild West stuff. Helicopters landing/taking off day & night. Oil Rig construction in those days was a battlefield. Dead or Disfigured bodies airlifted OUT daily. Accidents. Fires! Guys going NUTS with Fire Axes! BIG SHOT Texan Engineers whining over the radio waves to their wives in Scotland: Short-wave, everyone could hear. And cabin Sleepwalker, Epilepsy-dudes? All the OIL COMPANIES, Chevron, Texaco, etc. All they wanted was semi-skilled cannon fodder...Johnnie & I survived. We don't whine about PSTD. That's for pussies, As for Military pussies who SIGNED ON to USE a Gun, can U spell BULLIT!!!?... JOHNNIE & MY own enemy was raw nature, 90ft waves...Nobody (THE STARE? HORROR!) walks away from that; 200 colleagues, upturned, drowned on a North Sea barge, seated/gathered in the cinema room watching "The Sound of Music" or some Porn flick? Lads we knew from previous offshore construction gigs. They didn't have a chance. We mourned these BROS, pitched in our Wages for their bereaved families... we didn't whine or need therapy. OUT THERE, the North Sea, U know what U R up against. Big DANGER-BIG BUCKS! ....BURRRT there IS..."Brigadoon!" (Swirl-Swirl-Swirl!)...The Ghosts in our lives. Do we get to meet them again? And if so?
"BRIGADOON!"
...FORGIVE ME. I WAS PREPPING a "Coq au vin" (chicken stew-thingy), chop-chop veggies, slice-slice and all necessary condiments, VINO-Blanco, coriander, black pepper, bay leaf, oregano, onion-garlic, a potpourri of gastronomic (Rive Gauche!) meets April Fool's Day, easy on the DIJON?
It's always a FACIA to unexpectedly rendezvous with your OWN "Brigadoon", that legend-SOTTISH-myth, that New years' (Hogmanay?) whoosits enjoyed with Haggis, a rotting cheese, washed down with a Single Malt (Whisky)?
That "single malt" served sparingly, we serve to the BAIRNS in a teaspoon, the Gals in a Glasgow "STEAMIE" doing laundry, but on a Saturday night we "highland Fling", their Joy, our Ladies, is our respectful CLAN-HUZZAH~! St. Mungo! his voice perhaps caresses the river, the bonnie Clyde.
And your OWN- CLANSMAN, "Och-aye!" my Highland brethren, did U wreck Bonnie Prince Charlies soul, invaded Egland, got as far as the Midlands then PULLED out his Soul; probably, in the way of things, Royalty - incestuous - dog eat dog - even normal families have been known to murder their own, but I guess it'll never get U an INVITE to Brigadoon:
BRIGADOON! BRIGADOON! We ECHO, that legendary Scottish Myth that only APPEARS but once a year, when bagpipes WAIL, the Princesses of the Highlands SWIRL, a season-exclusive, that Holy "CEILIDH", a Club, a refuge of honored souls to re-enact a sacred dance, all enshrined, to sanctify the ghosts of the past who annually gather, a BRAEMAR, a Brigadoon to rejuvenate, to ne-er forget the BRAW LADS who died at the battle of Culloden mowed down by the English King Georges bayonets, musket & ball.
It is an uncanny TATTOO, Edinburgh's annual Castle Pipe & Drum/marching regiments, annual HOLLER-BAH-LOO- where-in-UNDER me-thinks lurks that BRIGADOON to prick the conscious of Edinburgh's-TATTOOED-tomorrow's fools? For better or worse, Scotland has SCARS, what bleak legacy has known extreme deprivation, persecution, a latter-day KILT emblem, a TARTAN, a Sporran to hold ya ducats, a few mists & yarns. "Lochie-Ness", the high road or the low (Loch Lomond) ...
...and what remains in their (the Scots) of this RENTAL we share of our brief eternity? A BRIGADOON! A Brigadoon. A bridge to a one night's paradise. A St. Walpurgis night. An Equinox? The stuff of Poets locked in a room where only imagination's Swallows escape, their wings, noiselessly, rise into the sky, Pipes wail across the Glens?
Brigadoon! Brigadoon! Hogmanay! That night of the year. A mystical place, Lochs, Scottish mists, then smoke/bonfires but ONLY ONCE, no "Cock-a-leekie Soup" only your Truth. Invited to this mystic Ceilelh, as highland ladies dance around your "sticking post" to decide if your Highland heart be true or false.
Brigadoon. Brigadoon. Nary for SOME -Joy! But for OTHERS? A bleak dawning comes too soon.
c.2026. Dave Delacroix. (April Fools day.)
