Tossing WHAT?!

One of my great grandmothers was born in Northern Ireland, which makes me 1/4 Scots-Irish. As such, of course, my children are the next smaller fraction. So it shouldn't be a total surprise that my kids get a kick out of attending the frequently offered Scottish events in our local area. What WAS a surprise was that the younger of my two adult sons decided--with no advance preparation whatsoever--to participate in the heavy athletic events that were offered at the annual St. Patrick's Day-connected Scottish celebration here in town.

For those unfamiliar with this concept, let me elaborate: heavy athletics includes tossing things most people who've never lived on a farm would never consider tossing. For example: the hammer throw, one of the field events in Olympic track and field (the hammer weighs 22 pounds). There's a bale toss, which item weighs somewhere around 11 or 12 pounds and is slung from a pitchfork up over a bar some 15 feet in the air. There are heavy (52 pounds) and light (28 pounds) weights tossed through the air and the distance measured. Yes, the weights are odd--they base them on how many "stone" they are. A stone is 14 pounds and is used to measure people's body weight among other things over in Britain, as I found out in my 3 years' stay over there (my goal is to weigh closer to 11 stone than I currently do!).

I've purposely left the most interesting part for last: the tossing of the caber, which is a roughly 18 foot long, 100 pound "miniature telephone pole" they pick up, hold erect, run several feet with while holding it in this manner, then toss end over end away from themselves. (A relative of mine remarked, after once seeing this done, that he now understands why the Scots drink!) This was the part I was most interested in seeing my offspring attempt, as I knew this in particular would be far from his normal activity! To put it mildly, his efforts were quite laudable; the results, well...

The first time he tried it, he could barely lift the stupid thing from the ground. The second time he managed to get it to the point that it was over his shoulder, though he almost immediately dropped the thing (and really, what reasonable person is surprised by this?). The final time he DID get the thing nearly to a 90 degree angle, but again dropped the oversized pole almost immediately.

Personally, I'm impressed that he even TRIED this! I certainly never would have (and yes, there was ONE female among the heavy athletics participants--as a demonstrator because most of her peers are also involved with indoor track & field, which season has not yet concluded for the year).

My older son made it easy on himself--he went to a whiskey-tasting event and sampled the wares. Far less strenuous than trying to pitch a pole end over end, no matter how heavy the dram! ;)