Scotland

A letter home that I'll blog instead.
I'm on the train to Ayr right now, passing through what's known as "The Roman Frontier". It's the home of Hadrian's Wall, where the Roman emperor Hadrian built a wall running the entire breadth of the country to protect his soldiers from the Scots Reivers (of whom I and consequently our children are direct ancestors). There isn't a Scot alive that doesn't know the story of the vanished Roman Legion that disappeared completely from the Borders, only to be found 1000 years later at the bottom of a loch in Scotland.
Sleeping across from me is a sight all too common on the West Coast. A young tough with a nearly shaved head is snoring away peacefully. I say sleeping but he's passed out with a half finished tall boy of skol in front of him and the smell of beer and cologne thick and sweet. He's wearing heavy workboots that have never seen a day of work. Much like me he's wearing them for insurance against confrontation rather than compensation. I come by my paranoia honestly you know. I'm going to try to snap a pic of him.
It's amazing how quickly the train cleared of English people at Carlisle. I'm surrounded by thick glasgow accents, black hair and blue eyes right now. It's a good feeling.
Earlier I passed by a Scottish school that was just letting out. It looked identical to the one I'd attended, and it's cold and wet in Scotland today. It brought back memories, but almost no positive ones. I'm going to work on building some here this time. I owe it to my dad, my kids and myself. I just get a feeling of penultimate sadness driving past all the poor and rundown areas by the tracks. I hope I can reconcile it.
The guy across from me just woke up. He slept through his stop. When he got up we had a nearly unintelligible conversation and then he asked about the accent.
"So you from America?"
"You won't believe me if I tell you where I'm from." I said and I told him Ayr and that I'd been in Canada for 25 years. And then it was all big tough guy barroom warrior handshakes and much love and smiles. Bastards like that turn on you in a second here though so I stayed wary but warm. And that's not me being paranoid. Everyone else on the train seems nice enough however.
I have to change trains at Kilmarnock. My route through Scotland has been Carlisle, gretna green, annan, dumfries, sanquhar, kirkconnel, new cumnock and auchinleck so far, with the next stop being Kilmarnock. Kilmarnock is where my friends and I used to sell the scrap metal we stole from the salvage yard in Ayr. (Just got a picture of the glasgow drunk before he woke up btw.) I've recently found out that the yard we stole it from belonged to a man my dad went to school with. Feel a bit horrible about it now.

Just changed trains at Kilmarnock. I had a few minutes between trains so I walked around a bit looking for a coke. A young guy about 20 was changing trains too, and he came up and said (in a good Glasgow/west coast accent) "Nae bar here?" I said not that I know of and he said "FUCK'S sake!"
ah home.