Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Of ceilidhs and books

This has been a good week so we're still on a bit of a high. Saturday we went to the McCracken Ceilidh - a Scottish Club celebration of the life of George McCracken who for many many years taught and promoted Scottish ceilidh dancing in the Twin Cities. The dancing mantle has fallen on his son, Andy, and a tradition has developed of holding a typical ceilidh evening in his memory with dancing and amateur music, readings etc. This one was held at Kieran's Pub in Minneapolis and we ate shepherds pie, drank good ale, and as part of the program, Jack did a short reading from our book. It was a delightful evening.

On Sunday Jack and I gave a talk at the St. Paul Public Library downtown. In spite of the beautiful fall weather and a Vikings game, a fair number of people came - some of whom were friends we hadn't seen for many years. Liz and Paul had visited us when we were living in Coigach, and we had been in a cross-country ski club together for many years before that. The audience was very responsive, asked a lot of good questions and we had a lot of fun. As usual our dear daughter, Eileen (knotallthat.blogspot.com), came and helped out with the book signing afterwards - she has been a great help and supporter!

And then this morning we got another wonderful e-mail, this time from a reader in Australia who had been captured by Coigach as we had, and had spent at least a year there - something she hadn't planned on at the time. She had been a good friend and helper for Alasdair West (Jack's mentor during our Coigach years, and a beloved friend) and had stories to share. She had come across our book while visiting Coigach this summer and since every copy was sold out there, had to order it when she got home to Australia. It is such a day brightener and joy to hear from people who knew the folks we tell about in the book - and to have them say that yes - these are the people they knew and loved - and our stories brought them some tears and laughter. That's really why we wrote the book - to celebrate the lives and stories of a passing generation that was so very special and so worth remembering.

1 comment:

Eileen said...

Oh, oh, how wonderful!! It's such a gift to hear about it when someone is touched by your efforts, and that you have been able to bring back to them some small part of the places and people that you love(d)...