Showing your stuff in a 17th Century kilt

I went to the Tucson Celtic Festival and Scottish Highland Games thinking I’d take photos of the women’s sports events. You know…sports that are usually the men’s bailiwick like hammer throwing or caber tossing. [Cabers being narrowish logs.] You can see an example of a young woman in action in the photo at the top.

An athlete in the family

And I did, in fact, discover a new Campbell ‘cousin’ who was competing in some of those events held at the Rillito Horse Racetrack infield. I call her a ‘cousin’ because we are both Campbells, although has been several generations since my family’s last name was Campbell. Anyway, here she is, between events, wearing a Campbell Clan kilt.

But I began to realize that the amazing array of kilts and fashion were more interesting than women doing the Sheaf Toss in which a burlap bag stuffed with straw is heaved over a high bar using a pitchfork. That’s definitely a sport that had Scottish farm laddies as OG’s.

So a fashion photo shoot it turned out to be

I’m just going to show you a bunch of beautiful kilts and plaids starting at the front gate:

Then there were the kilts. And if you think of kilts as “skirts” keep in mind what a historian once told me: “Rome conquered the world with men in skirts, wearing sandals.”

And then there were people who seemed to have fallen out of some Hollywood movie or maybe a Ren Faire leaving bystanders gawking.

And what would any festival be without food? Highland beef from Kansas and deep fried Oreos and Twinkies from State Fairs all over the U.S. Plus music courtesy the Wicked Tinkers who managed to include an Aussie digeridoo into their sound.

And one last image just because I like it. (Oh, it was 90F 32C when I took this picture. That’s a hot day even for Tucson in November!)

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Tucson has a professional hockey team called the Roadrunners that plays at the Convention Center. I may go see them once I have a Covid booster shot.