The Pipes are Calling

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I went to my first Pacific Northwest Highland Games almost twenty years ago with my buddy Dave. We each found our clans, caught some caber tossing, and got a full dose of bagpipes and drums. When we got some food, he bought me some haggis because he knew I’d never had it.
 
All I knew about haggis is that it’s disgusting. You stuff a sheep’s bladder with all the parts you would otherwise throw out (including the lungs), bury it in the backyard for six months and then boil it.
 
I tried a little bit and it was so bad I wanted to wretch. I expected him to finish it off and call me a pussy, but when I offered him the rest he said he was full on onion rings. That’s when I learned the Secret of the Haggis- you talk it up like it’s a national treasure and if somebody demurs when you offer it to them, you get offended. When they take a bite and wonder why you’re not eating some you tell them you’re not hungry.
 
Dave died a couple years later. I hired a bagpiper to play at the memorial we had at his shop. I didn’t tell anybody it was gonna happen so when people started to hear the piper approaching, somebody opened the big shop door to see a piper walking toward us playing a somber piece. Then he played Amazing Grace and the dozens of us tried to keep it in. But then the piper burst out a jig, turned around and faded off behind the block.
 
That’s when I decided to make bagpipes. Crazy, funky bagpipes that would have made Dave proud.
 
It took a few years before I figured out how to do it. The first one was the Guinness Pipes. They came out great. They were beautiful and they sounded as good as a tradition Great Highland bagpipe made of wood. I was so sure this was a winner I closed down my boat business and set up a bagpipe shop in the Fenpro building in Ballard.
 
I took the Guinness Pipes down to the Highland Games to show them off and get some orders for more. I made an order form and contact list and guessed, based on how many pipers would be present, to get orders for between 20-30 custom-made bagpipes.
 
I walked them around and made sure every piper got to see and hear them. I ended up in the beer garden and while nobody ordered a single set of pipes, I drank free all day.
 
I had lots of help from a couple pipers, first Tyrone and then Don. Without them I probably never would have figured it out. I also met Aaron, of the Wicked Tinkers who seemed to get a kick out of them and enthusiastically encouraged me to keep going. I made him a set of blue and white pipes that looked like they were swept back (based on a drawing their drummer Warren made) and a set of Percussion Pipes, which was basically a two man bagpipe.
 
The last year I was there I had six or seven sets of wild looking pipes, all fully functional. Instead of just laying them out on the picnic table for display, I thought it would be cool to have them sitting on a stand. That was one thing that surprised me about going to these games- pipers would be walking around with their pipes and when they’d stop for a beer or a to take a piss they would just lay their $3,000 pipes on the ground! 
 
So I made a few bagpipes stands. They were really cool and not easy at all to figure out. They displayed a full set of pipes beautifully.
 
When I set up shop in the beer garden people kept coming over to check out my pipes but kept asking how much I wanted for the stands. I’d tell them buy a set of pipes and you can have the fucking stand for free.
 
I came home from those games with orders for about thirty bagpipe stands and still not a single order for a custom-made bagpipe.
 
I filled the orders for the stands but was so put off I stopped making pipes and have since given them all away. Except the Green Marble bagpipes, those should be in a museum or something. And the Pictish War Pipes, which I plan to spring on Aaron in two weeks at the first Highland Games that I’ll have been to in four years.
 
It’s been too long.