Miscellaneous Anecdotes
As noted in the introduction, I know a number of amusing anecdotes, but presenting them in the main text struck me as being awkward, especially since I anticipate these will be of interest to only a limited number of people (all involve my Scottish Country Dancing social circle). So I’m plopping them down here, serving them à la carte as it were, where there is no danger of them sidetracking the main storyline.
One of my closest friends from Scottish dancing is Sheena MacQueen (nee West). In a group that was noted for being friendly and outgoing, Sheena was one of the most friendly and outgoing. I believe it is very common for women who are of a similar age and outlook to consider themselves as “sisters” and this was certainly true of Sheena and Maria Corse. But unlike most others, Sheena had this remarkable quirk of spontaneously acquiring multiple relatives among our dancing acquaintances, and after Maria, her next relative was me: she received a letter from me when she was expecting one from her cousin, so I became her “uncousin” … and then somewhere along the line the “un” disappeared. A mutual friend of ours is Marjorie Easton McLaughlin (nee Kistemaker), and when Sheena remarked she had an Aunt Marjorie (West) whom she had never met, after just a beat or two Marjorie embraced her and announced she was Sheena’s Aunt Marjorie (thus, making her my mum). Sometime later at a dance, out of the blue Kevin Lesko (NCRSHC member1) walked up to Sheena and introduced a third party to Sheena as his “twin sister” … so Sheena now had another sibling. Then one evening in the Edinburgh Castle (a Scottish-themed pub in San Francisco) Cathy Sponseller approached me as I was talking to Sheena, and ask me to lend her a couple of bucks. When I obliged, she offhandedly said “Thanks Daddy”, and turned and left, leaving Sheena and I to realize that I had just gained a daughter. During a car ride to a dance in Sacramento, as Sheena and I were sitting fairly quietly in the front seats, Cathy and Kim McGarrity were in the back seat, chattering away like nobody’s business. At the same instant, Sheena and I looked knowingly at each other, and I turned to admonish them “Will you kids be quiet back there?”, not only cementing Cathy’s role as our offspring, but introducing Kim into our family as well (nobody quite knew how Kim was related, we just knew she was). Sheena’s family was Scottish, descended from the Balfour clan. So we also happily accepted into our dancing family our common friend, Natalie Balfour as some sort of cousin to Sheena. Sometime later we also realized that another good friend of all of ours, Arlene Baxter, must be related as well, but like Kim, nobody could figure out exactly how. Since then, all of us have married, but our spouses are mere in-laws – not the nine blood relatives that we were (Figs. A.1 and A.2).
The San Francisco Branch of the RSCDS sponsors a fall workshop. It had been held at the Asilomar conference grounds in Monterey County, but in the mid-1970’s, it was held elsewhere. But with a rise in membership, Marjorie Kistemaker arranged for us to return to Asilomar for the 1977 workshop. It was a very exciting moment, and I was honored to be one of Marjorie’s assistants that weekend, and as such, I would spend a fair amount of time hurrying around, helping where I could. Most participants were housed in rooms holding four persons, and my roommates were slated to be Roy Kaitner, Ken McFarland (Fig. A.3), and Marjorie’s father, Tom Easton. Both Ken and Tom were smokers, and when I arrived on site, they were already there, conversing just outside the front door, while enjoying a cigarette. On the one hand, I didn’t want to break into their conversation, and on the other, I had a lot to do in aiding Marjorie, so instead of breaking stride and socializing, I just walked past them, and deposited my bag in the room. Due to the cigarette smoke, I thought it best to open a window to assist in the ventilation of the room, so I did so, and then quickly walked out again right past them again as I headed out to the car to get more stuff, never saying a single word. Well, Tom had never seen me before in his life, and you can well imagine his consternation as a complete stranger silently marched right past him into his room, opened a window, and then just as quickly march right out again, without saying a word. But eventually we were introduced and everything was copacetic, although in a picture of us, you can see him holding on to my arm to ensure I stopped long enough for the photo (Fig. A.4).
In March 1978, the Cabbage band was honored with its first (and only, I believe) international gig when it was invited to play for a SCD ball in Victoria, British Columbia. So Barbara McOwen (violin), Caryn Palmer (flute), Roy Kaitner (drums), Sherry MacGregor (dancer) and I (groupie) all piled into Barbara’s mother’s full-sized station wagon2 and made the two day drive up to Canada. We were joyously heartened by the sign outside the venue announcing the dance was sold out. Well, it turned out there were TWO local RSCDS branches in the area, and in the tradition of good old Scottish feuds, they didn’t see eye-to-eye with each other, and the sign was an attempt to discourage anyone from the other branch attending. We only discovered this on the day after the ball, when Barbara, myself, and David Gok (another dancer from the Bay Area) visited a Scottish shop in town. David saw something of interest and called out “Barbara” to share his find. And THAT caused the shopkeeper to exclaim, “Barbara? Not THE Barbara?” It turned out that the shopkeeper was a member of the other branch, who had been aware of the dance but had been frozen out. And so, ever since our Barbara has been THE Barbara.
In the San Francisco Branch, one of the most exuberant dancers is Kathleen MacAdam (see Fig. A.5) (of the Lafayette class), who had a bustling energy and friendly nature that few could rival. In 1980, Sheena and I returned to British Columbia to attend another dance event, where we met Gerry and Katie Dunn (Fig. A.6), of the Victoria (British Columbia) Branch. And the minute I met Katie, I was struck by her similarity to Kathleen – she was extremely energetic and welcoming. It was during this visit that Sheena and I were introduced to a fun group that Gerry and Katie formed – S.P.U.D. (the Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Dancing). One of their amusements was to have a contest to see who could grow the largest potatoes. Inspired by their efforts, once we returned to California, we founded a southern Branch of that Society: besides ourselves, our ranks included Carolynn Harvey, my roommate Roy Kaitner and his then fiancée Lola McCrary, Geoff Palmer, Don & Lin Pettingill, Robin Outzen, Becky Ratcliffe, Cathy Sponseller, Bea and Lynn Watson, and Ellie Wood (Fig. A.7), although we managed to meet only twice. We attempted to rival the BC folks success in growing potatoes … with gallingly lousy results: I grew the biggest potato (one pound, 10 ounces), while Roy & Lola had one at a measly 2mm x 3mm (our other amusements included decorating Mr. Potato Heads, and having a race wherein the winner was the contestant who could cross the room first, holding a potato between their knees). So we totally flopped when it came to challenging the Dunn’s group, but it did inspire Sheena and me to write a dance in their honor3. And just to complete the story, I later learned that Katie and Kathleen had been good friends for many years.
And speaking of Bea Watson, she (probably in the early1980s) was scheduled for a back surgery at the UCSF Health Center on Parnassus Avenue, so I thought I’d try to do something to cheer her up … on the theory that a person wearing a lab coat and holding a clipboard can get one almost anywhere. I already owned a white lab coat (for a chemistry class I took), but to make it look more official, I special ordered a name tag, reading: “Bob Zuparko W.B.C.S.” (Fig. A.8) (I chose these letters almost randomly, but decided they should stand for SOMETHING, so I invented the “Westlake Beachcombers Society” – a group dedicated to those of us hang glider pilots who unintentionally landed at the beach at Westlake, where it was almost impossible to relaunch and get high enough to fly back to Fort Funston). So, donning the lab coat with its official-looking nametag, and with a clipboard under my arm, I marched into Bea’s room and after briefly “consulting” my clipboard, said in jovial voice “Don’t worry Mrs. Watkins – we’ll have your gall bladder out in no time.” Well Bea enjoyed the joke and burst out laughing … although the woman she was sharing the room with was horrified.
Natalie Balfour and I shared some interesting moments at two social events. In October 1977, HRH Prince Charles visited San Francisco, and the British Consulate sponsored a meet and greet at the rotunda of the City Hall. Among the invitees were the officers of various local societies that had some sort of association with the United Kingdom. One of these societies was the San Francisco Branch of the RSCDS, and as I was the treasurer then, I received two invites (each officer was allowed to bring a companion). At that point I had no girlfriend, so I asked Natalie if she would like to accompany me. Initially, she was not overly excited (her term for the guest of honor was “old craggy face”), but she agreed and so one evening we made our way into the City, invitations in hand. Champagne was made freely available to all that night, so many people had a glass in their hand, including Natalie when she and I went through the reception line. The Prince, noticing her empty glass, remarked “You look rather dry”, and poured the contents of his glass into hers. Well! Natalie was instantly charmed (and never used “old craggy face” again in reference to the future King of England), but she was slightly concerned about possible germ transmission from this simple act. So I relieved her of the glass and covertly emptied the champers (possibly in a potted plant – I don’t remember exactly). But we retained the glass itself, which I snuck it out of the building under my overcoat, and thus Natalie was able to retain the “Prince’s glass” (as it was termed by Natalie’s mother) as a souvenir for many years.
Then there was the time Natalie and I crashed a wedding … accidentally. Robert and Barbara McOwen had moved to the east coast in 1978, where I visited them several times. On one of these trips, after visiting with them in the Boston area, I went down to visit Natalie who was then living in Washington D.C. Robert and Barbara virtually followed me there, as they were playing for a Scottish dance in the area. It is my memory that they invited us to the dance, and Natalie and I were overjoyed to be back dancing together to their music. There was just one little thing. It wasn’t until we showed up at the venue that we learned that this was not a public event, but rather part of a wedding reception for a pair of people whom we had never met – Freddie Moretti and Karen Duncan. Well, luckily SCD crowds are always very sociable4, and the reaction with everyone we met was “the more folks joining the celebration, the better”. Which would have been fine as far as that went, except, it seemed that every time Natalie and I were dancing together, we’d turn around only to discover we were smack dab in the middle of the photographer’s focus as he was taking pictures of the guests. We could only imagine the frustration of the married couple thumbing through their wedding album years in the future: “There they are again, dear – who ARE those people?”
Early in our relationship, Carolynn and I went out to dinner at the Nut Tree restaurant in Vacaville. After the main course, we then turned our attention to the dessert menu. Carolynn wasn’t “officially” interested in desert, so it was just me. Regrettably, my stalwart choice (anything chocolate) wasn’t offered, so I was a little disconcerted and eventually settled for apple pie. I think I was still focused on the (lack of) chocolate when the waitress asked me I wanted it “ala mode”, and I started to say no. But Carolynn was looking at me and nodding her head, and knowing her taste for ice cream, I chivalrously changed my mind and said yes. But then the waitress asked her follow-up question: “Do you want it heated?” Well, my focus was no longer on the pie, but rather had shifted to the topping, so I asked her incredulously “What the ice cream?” and she automatically reacted with, “No, the pie stupid.” Carolynn later told me that she saw the waitress go beet red when she realized that she just insulted a customer, but I never noticed as I was rolling on the floor laughing.
I had two problems when driving my first Honda Civic for winter ski trips in the Sierras. I can’t remember the date of the first one (probably late 70’s or early 80’s), but I think Arlene Baxter and Maria Corse were my passengers. We were returning to the Bay Area on Highway 50, and it was late afternoon or evening, so my headlights were on. But the visibility was absolutely terrible – I could barely see three or four car lengths in front of me. So I was driving well below the speed limit, and was nonplussed as we were continually passed by other cars blithely traveling at the speed limit. “What the hell is it with those folks?” I pondered as car after car passed me by, “How can they possibly drive that fast under these circumstances?” I wondered if perhaps it was my car, so I pulled over, thinking that perhaps I needed to clean my windshield, and that’s when I discovered that my headlights had a coating of snow and/or rime on them. And with a quick wipe I got them cleaned and thus was able to keep up with the flow of traffic, repeatedly mentioning to my passengers how wonderful it was to be able to see again. So now whenever I pull into a service station and clean my windows, I always take a few extra seconds to attend to the head and taillights as well. May you all learn from this.
Then there was the long weekend in February 1984 when I picked up Carolynn from Davis and drove up in my Honda Civic to join fellow dancers Calli Morrow, Alan Twhigg, and Lynn Watson for a ski trip at Donner Lake. I couldn’t get the car to start once we were up there, but waited until it was time to come back on Monday and had AAA tow it to a service station, where they installed new points, cap, and rotor. We were able to then get underway but soon she began backfiring and stalling out. We made it to Soda Springs, where a mechanic thought the points needed cleaning, which he did. So we were quickly off again heading downhill … when the backfiring and stalling started again. We pulled into another station where they were able to tow us to a THIRD service station at Nyack. They couldn’t help us immediately because it was snowing, and they had their hands full dealing with stuck cars that needed towing. On the opposite side of the freeway was a vegetarian spa where we could have stayed the night, but that didn’t appeal to me (the spa part might have been OK, but not the vegetarian part). Luckily the service station had a car they could rent to us, so we grabbed that, leaving my car behind for them to work on once they got the chance. The rental was an traditional American car, and seemed to be about twice as wide as my little Civic – Carolynn and I, sitting on the front bench seat, almost had to shout at each other in order to converse on the way back. I dropped Carolynn off at Davis (where she was still attending vet school), and I got back home at 10:30pm. The next day I had to work, and put in my 8 hours, after which I called my local mechanic5, asking their thoughts about my car. They suggested it might be a matter of simply adjusting the points, something I was quite familiar with. So grabbing my car tools and a full-sized shovel (which fit comfortably across the rear seat of the rental), I picked up Carolynn and we drove back to Nyack. Sure enough, they had been too busy towing other cars to attend to mine, so I returned the rental, shoveled my car out from the snow, adjusted the timing, and got back down the hill, dropping Carolynn off at Davis again, while I staggered into Berkeley at 1:30am.
Alisdair Fraser is the director of the Valley of the Moon’s Scottish Fiddle School, and he leads the participants in public concerts here in the Bay Area. Carolynn and I attended one of these concerts, which was held at the Freight & Salvage (a well-known venue for traditional folk music) in Berkeley. It turned out that Jean Redpath was in the audience that night as well, and at one point during the evening she was prevailed upon to sing a little, from the audience. Sadly she passed on soon thereafter, which meant we were privileged to attend her final public performance.
And then there is Jazan Higgins (Fig. A.9). Jazan is a very quiet, sweet person, but for some strange reason, I have witnessed the most outré (or at least highly unusual) experiences in her company. It started out simply enough: in 1978, Jazan and I were driving from Washington State down to the Bay Area (I was returning from a SCD workshop at Ford Worden, while Jazan was returning from a visit to her then boyfriend Kevin Lesko in Seattle). Our first day brought us to a city in Oregon where we stopped at an apparently unprepossessing restaurant for dinner – the neighborhood certainly didn’t look very classy. We walked in and were immediately seated. It was only when we were presented with the menus did we realize this was a high class establishment, and in fact the meal prices were well beyond Jazan’s price range (“I can’t afford this.”). And so for the first time in my life, I walked out of a restaurant without even ordering. We found a cheaper place down the road though and ate there. By itself this wouldn’t be a remarkable story, except for the fact that it happened again on the very next evening. After the long drive from Oregon we reached Vacaville around dinner time and opted to try the Nut Tree (this was long before the pie incident with Carolynn mentioned above). Again we were immediately led to a table without a chance to consult the menu first. And for the second time in the space of about 24 hours, we found the menu beyond our budget, and just as quickly departed (luckily, the Coffee Tree restaurant on the other side of the freeway was much more affordable).
Then there was the time that we had lunch at a coffee shop on University Avenue in Berkeley. There was no problem with the prices here, but two fellows, who had walked over from a car dealership across the street, came in sat down in the booth directly behind Jazan. We never heard much from one of the guys, as the other one did all the talking. He was explaining to his companion how his father taught him to never make a bad deal, since “…if it’s a bad deal for him, he won’t come back, and if it’s a bad deal for you, you won’t come back. Never make a bad deal.” Well, this was reasonable, but then the guy then went ahead and ordered lunch for the both of them … in the most oddball fashion you ever heard of. I can’t remember the exact items, but his order was something like this: “I’ll have the tuna sandwich. He’ll have some coffee and a salad, I’ll have some milk. He’ll have a hamburger”.
In 1979, Jazan moved to Boston. Afterwards, I made one of several trips back east to visit her and the McOwens. One day, Barbara, Jazan and I drove towards downtown Boston looking for a venue featuring Gaelic music. But we were confused by the numbering system on the road as it went through various suburbs and neighborhoods. So at one point we opened a window and asked a pedestrian for directions, and he answered “That’s in Brookline, this is Brighton – lock your doors.” We did.
But my most memorable Jazan story was about a sheep I never met. One day I was with her when she asked me for assistance, which required me to move from point A to point B and do something quite minor. But as a guy, I treated this as an opportunity to help a “damsel in distress”, and so I “rushed to her aid”, singing a tune that I associated with a rescue sequence I heard in old cartoons6. And it just so happened, that my tune reminded Jazan of a story a guy had told her. One day, this guy and a gal were hiking in “Arthur’s seat”, a peak within Holyrood Park (a royal park near Edinburgh, Scotland). They had gotten slightly separated, and the gal was in some minor need (much as Jazan had been with me): nothing dramatic or critical, she just needed help with something. So the guy, just like me, rushed to assist her, singing the same rescue music. But he wasn’t familiar with the terrain, and as he hurried around a blind turn, he came to a sudden precipice, and was unable to bring himself to a stop. He would have gone over, except … there was a sheep there, which he ran straight into. The creature stopped his forward progress, and thus saved him, but the sheep wasn’t so lucky. Sheep don’t have a lot of vocal options when it comes to unusual events, and as the force of the collision sent it over cliff, all it could do was to utter a plaintive “Baaaaaaaa…” as it descended. And the next day, there appeared in the local paper, an item about the mysterious death of one of the Queen’s sheep at Arthur’s seat.
1. See Chapter 4.
2. A stick shift, that was VERY temperamental when it came to shifting into or out of first gear.
3. Section 9 (The Irish Potato).
4. Well, at least with one exception: see previous anecdote about my 1978 visit to BC.
5. Berkeley Minicar, at the intersection of San Pablo Avenue and Dwight Street in Berkeley – I highly recommend them.
6. I’ve been going crazy these last couple of months trying to track down the name of this tune. Ellie Briscoe was able to pick it out on a piano with the hope that I could try to ID it via the Shazam app, but no joy there. If you are of a certain age, I’m sure you’d recognize the tune – it goes: dumbedly dum, dumbedly dum, dumbedly dumbedly dumbedly dum (then shift to a higher register) dumbedly dum, dumbedly dum, dumbedly dumbedly dumbedly dum, and so on. See, you know it right? If ONLY I can put a name to it.