Robbie, Me and a Giant Haggis(?)

 It’s very gratifying to have a whole nation note one’s birthday. Of course, I’m sharing the day with the exalted ploughman-poet Robert Burns. To honor the bard we hopped a train to Ayr, a 50-minute ride, where townspeople gathered Saturday for the ceremonial passing of a giant haggis (in reality an outsized papier-mache sculpture that looked like a pale, misshaped meatball). Stuffed inside were well wishes from Burns fans around the world. In front of the eponymous Tam O’Shanter Inn, a half-dozen pipers greeted the haggis, which was then carried on a two-mile pilgrimage to Alloway, Burns’s birthplace.

A recent $30 million investment has spruced up Burns’s childhood home and added an extensive, lovely museum with state of the art exhibits tracing the short life of the farmer-writer-lover-patriot. We learned that besides writing Auld Lang Syne and some 200 other poems, songs, and stories, Burns found time to have nine children with his wife and four illegitimate offspring before dying of heart disease at 37. Apparently his talent was recognized early; a report from his tutor comments that the 6-year-old Robbie’s writing is “remarkable for the fluency and correctness of expression” though his singing voice was “dull” and out of tune. A short distance from the museum is an imposing monument donated by fellow Freemasons, the ruins of the old church with the gravesite of Burns’s father (an uneducated tenant farmer who nevertheless valued booklearning for his seven children), and the picturesque brig o’doon (or bridge over the River Doon). Sadly, we missed the village's haggis hurling competition (world's record of 217 feet!) for a truly Scottish outing.

 Fair and full is your honest, jolly face,
Great chieftain of the sausage race!
Above them all you take your place,
Stomach, tripe, or intestines:
Well are you worthy of a grace
As long as my arm.

So goes the Address to a Haggis, the star of Burns dinners around the country today.  We did our part, sharing in a 3+ hour Burns Brunch (instead of a dinner) with about 60 Scots in a well-finished basement dining room. Led by a piper-poet we all stood to honor the haggis on its arrival, marking the occasion with a dram of  whisky. Between courses Johnny the Caledonian Cowboy recited Burns' poems and added his own ribald stories in which body parts featured prominently. Neeps and tatties (parsnips and potatoes) accompanied the haggis, which was made more savory by whisky sauce and little pour of spirits besides. Rudy the Braveheart cleaned his plate while Rhonda, a coward, went with a vegetarian option that simulated haggis with lentils and oatmeal. Having come through this rite of passage we feel we've earned the privilege of staying here.