Back in the early 1980's I served on a submarine that made patrols out of Holy Loch Scotland. I met people there who told me that there was an Anderson tartan. I knew that my father's side of the family had come to America in the middle 1700's from Scotland, but it never occurred to me that there might be that much of a link to the "old country".

I thought of buying a formal kilt outfit at the shops in Dunoon, but as they say in that part of the country the price was "verra dearrr...". I did buy some Anderson tartan cloth in an acrylic fabric which my sister used to make a few articles, but I eventually finished my tour in Scotland and pretty much forgot about it for a number of years.

A couple of years ago I stumbled across an add somewhere for a kilt by a company called NuKilt, or something like that and started searching for them on the internet. I never found them, but I found Sportkilt.com and bought my first hiking kilt in their Pacific Trail tartan. I wore if for a day around Yosemite National Park and got several positive comments, although my wife and kids think I'm daft.

After that I ordered another Sportkilt in the Anderson and shortly thereafter a Jacobite shirt and some hose and flashes and wore the whole outfit to the Highland Games in Vista, CA last June.

Sometime last fall I got up the nerve to wear the kilt and the Jacobite shirt to a party for our handbell choir at church and except for a couple of teasing comments about my "skirt" from the men the comments were mostly favorable. Of course, by this time I'd decided that I liked it whether anybody else did or not.

The wife finally relented and bought me an Argyll jacket for Christmas and I wore the kit to church a couple of weeks ago and have decided that it will go into the normal rotation with my suits.

I've since ordered a semi-traditional in the US Navy (Edzell) tartan from USAK and can't wait to add it to the collection.

I'm now on the lookout for a 5 yard kilt in the Polaris Military tartan and will probably follow that up with a full 8 yard kilt in the Anderson. After that, who knows?

A few months ago I was thinking it was time to replace a couple of my older suits, but now I believe I'll replace them with kilts instead.

I haven't worked up the nerve to wear one to work yet, I'm sure I'll take quite a bit of guff from my co-workers, but it's only a matter of time before I'll bite the bullet...