The Last Best Place by John Demont Page B

strength of my arms; I will be exhausted
And in a short while an invalid before my children grow up.
    Lord, talk about despair. And the feeling lingers. One hot muggy afternoon I sat with Elmer MacKay in a Tim Horton’s in the coarse little steel town of New Glasgow. Formerly a federal cabinet minister, he is now a lawyer and runs the family lumber business nearby. He’s a well-read, thoughtful guy who sprinkles his chat with quotes from Machiavelli to Casey Stengel. A good person to have a cup of coffee with and discuss the Scottish Highlanders—his own people—who arrived in the late 1700s after the break-up of the clan system. “Highlanders measure wealth not by how much money they have, but by how many people will follow them,” he intones quietly. “They tend to be melancholy, because deep down a lot of people did not want to leave Scotland. A lot of what is called Scottish pride is that they do not forget. They have long memories. They remember.”
    By the time I saunter down to the field in Antigonish they are all here. Or at least they will be before the night is out. Even the people cutting hay in the fields stop everything when the Highland Games begin, because in Antigonish County only two things are really sacred: the Catholic church and their ancestral Scottish homeland. Which makes it entirely fitting that after spending a few minutes down at the field watching some young pipers and drummers going through their paces, I find myself at one of those long church-basement tables in the beer tent listening to a couple of MacDonalds chattering about the church and its troubles. The usual stuff: a bunch of priests being charged for taking liberties with choirboys; the latest foibles of former father Brian MacDonald, whonow lives crosstown with his wife, the former Mrs. Conrad Black; the editorial policies of the most magnificently named of all Canadian newspapers, the Antigonish
Casket
, an organ of the local diocese. Everywhere are tartans—Beaton, Gillis, Cameron, Chisholm, MacDonald, Macdougall, MacEachern, MacInnis, MacIsaac, MacLean, MacLellan, MacLeod, MacNeil, MacGillvary. I dodge the dancing kids, step around the old men with the Hiberian visages, leaning on their thick canes, and make my way to the bar for another round. When I return, the MacDonalds—not the D.D.s—invite me back for dinner.
    Afterwards the man of the house drives me to the outdoor military tattoo, which for many people is the highlight of the whole event. Lots of gunfire, drumrolls and the peal of bagpipes, which always reminds me of small animals being pounded with mallets. Little girls highland fling upon a wooden stage; great bearded kilted men stride across the grass under the star-filled sky. At a stop sign after the show ends I ask a car full of people for directions. They say get in and drive me through the St. F.X. campus right up to the Student Union Building. Inside a Celtic rock band named Rawlins Cross is in full flight.
    They’ve got two speeds—fast and faster. The effect is a sound so loud that it almost sucks the air right out of your lungs. Ian McKinnon, the leader and bagpipe player, once told me about a tour they made of outport Newfoundland. “Now you have to know that we don’t play ‘I’se the B’y,’ ” he patiently explained to the owners of the clubs, Legions and restaurants who booked them. Whichwas fine until they landed in some hiccup of a place on the Great Northern Peninsula where they opened with a couple of their signature tunes, which fuse rock rhythms with traditional Celtic instruments. A few minutes into the performance a huge fisherman lurched towards the stage, slammed down a hand that McKinnon remembers as twice the size of his own and said through clenched teeth, “Play something I can fuckin’ dance to, will ya?” A test of artistic commitment. The boys from Rawlins Cross looked at him, they looked at each other. Then in perfect unison they sang: “I’se the b’y that builds