Famous Ankles

I got a one-day notice of the 2008 Scottish Day parade, or the Tartan Day Parade, or whatever you wanna call it.  (That’s better than the notice I got for the Greek Parade – about 4 hours notice from my doorman.)

The Tartan Day Parade is always a fun one, but generally a small one.  This year proved no different, but I guess I didn’t have as much fun as last year when I spotted a dog I knew in the parade (or rather, his owner spotted me and came over).

The NYC Events Calendar did have the parade on its website so I knew when and where.  It was in the usual spot:  Sixth Avenue.  The parade starts at about 47th Street and goes up to 58/59th.  All-in-all it is a small parade with the distinction of having more bagpipers than per marcher than any other parade.

Sixth Avenue in that area is what most people think Manhattan looks like everywhere, but it is a special sort of view.

(This is gonna be odd.  WordPress has a new editor and I’m already having trouble with it.)

The parade started out just about right on time.  Good for them.  Of course, being good Scots they know their timepieces and all sorts of other mechanical contraptions.  Here’s the parade leader, one of those new fangled Model A carriages.

(This new WordPress editor is going to drive me crazy!  It could take days to finish this post!)

The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis provided the first set of bagpipers.

(This editor is horrid!!!!!!  Okay, I mean the software editor is horrid!!!!!! I’m going to have to try something else.)

The Parade’s Grand Marshal was in the next group.

(I hate this new software! This is just a pain! I can see the picture (which gives me the visual clue of whether the Grand Marshal is walking or riding) or I can see the picture’s name (which tells me the picture is of the Grand Marshal). But I can’t do both without switching between editing views. This is absurd.)

More bagpipers.

The St. Andrews Society of New Jersey.

The Caledonian Club bagpipers.

More bagpipers.

The Scottish-American Foundation.

This group has the banner proclaiming “The Gathering – Edinburgh.”

I rather liked this group’s name. They are the Local 608 Carpenters pipe and drum group. Yeah, a bunch of carpenters from one of the local NY unions.

The Clans did show up. First, Clan Currie.

Then Clan Durie.

Then, Clan Gunn. Their banner said they were the “discoverers of America.”  Apparently, they’ve got some strong Viking links in that Clan.  Well, those Vikings were pretty far ranging.

Clan Gordon provided some bagpipes.

Folks, this new editor is going to kill me. It is almost as if they’ve designed it to prevent my type of posting. I can’t see what I’m posting, it puts it into the wrong spot each and every time. I like to “tell the story” between pictures, but it won’t let me do that on the fly, instead I have to post the pictures and then write the text. I presume I’m doing something wrong; at least I hope so. I can’t blog with this editor.

-H

This entry was posted on April 6, 2008 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Events, Manhattan, Mid-town, Parades. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.