Interesting how participation has declined over the years.

[tripleblessed]

We are a small country a welcoming one.

I certainly felt welcomed. I stumbled into the Niel Gow fiddle festival in Dunkeld and Birnam and had a wonderful
time. Ten years later met a fiddle player at a mountain festival who is best friends with one the fiddle players we
met there. A reminder of how small and connected this world is; close ties everywhere. Behooves us all to be open.

On the other note, small country, the Atlanta, Georgia metro area is now home to more people than live in Scotland.
There are maybe ten counties in Georgia with populations larger or roughly equal to that of the Highlands. In the metro
area here we have one of the largest Highland games on this continent. The metro area is home to likely one and a half
to two million folk with Scottish bloodlines. The current census estimate on percentage of folk who identify as Scottish
descent is twenty percent, and it's thought the actual percentage is higher. So here in the States, about seventy million.

Most who came to these shores did not leave by choice, and arrived with nothing, many without even their freedom;
some never were free, though their children were. We have raised here a great, albeit flawed, society. Much of who and what we are today is traceable to Scots. Yes, we feel that connection, and treasure it. Whether it might seem genuine to Scots is not something we control.