George and Kate Findlay's Steadiness During Uncertain Times

We're now about 7 months since the WHO declared COVID-19 a worldwide pandemic. These have often been described as "uncertain times," and it's remarkably strange how wearing masks has become a normal part of our day-to-day lives (though I may never get used to social distancing). 

In late September, I was able to meet up with Grandma Ella and Grandpa Ralph, and Grandma shared about the steadiness of her folks (George and Kate Findlay) during another uncertain time, World War II, when she was a youth. As a youth, rather than wearing the face coverings you see in the video below, she would bring a gas mask with her to school, and that became a remarkably strange but normal part of her day-to-day at that time. 

Although Grandma's memories of specific events are fading, I loved hearing how the hopeful and steady natures of her parents are etched in her heart. 

 

Filmed 27 September 2020 in Park City, Utah.

Young Ralph and the Floating Hat

Over ice cream at the local Dairy Queen in Centerville, Utah, an August afternoon in 2019, Ralph shared a hilarious memory from his childhood growing up in Mesa, Arizona...the story of The Floating Hat. 

The Thistle as the National Flower of Scotland

Thistles growing in Park City, Utah

Recently, while on an evening walk with my family in Park City, Utah, my girls asked what these spiky, purple flowers were. Oh girls! Let me tell you!

These delicate but defiant plants are the national flower of Scotland. And though no one knows for sure how that came to be, but it's played a significant part in Scottish history and folklore since about the 13th century. So the legend goes (this is the source of the following version) ...

One of the best-known thistle legends takes place in the mid 13th century during a surprise invasion by the soldiers of the Norse king, Haakon, at Largs (one of western Scotland's coastal towns).

 

The story has it that after coming ashore, this Viking force planned to creep up on the Scottish Clansmen and Highlanders and overcome them while they slept.

 

This amount of stealth required that they go barefoot - which proved to be their undoing.

 

Unfortunately for these unwary invaders, one of their soldiers bare feet came down hard on a Scottish thistle and his cries of shock and pain were enough to wake the sleeping Scots.

 

Leaping to their feet, the clansmen charged into battle and the rest, as they say, is history... and yes, the fiery Scots were victorious :)

 

Legend has it that because of the heroic role the plant played in the outcome of the battle, the thistle was immediately chosen as a national emblem.

 

Now, how much of this is truth no-one knows, but we do know that by the 15th century the Scottish thistle was being used as a national emblem.