Favourite 401

Off to Maxville this afternoon for Friday and Saturday at the North American Championships, piping and drumming Mecca for many North Americans. Ontario, like many other parts of Canada, is having a heat-wave, and it’s 36 degrees and humid in Toronto today.

I’ve often joked about a Seumas MacNeill report about a summer school in Ontario that appeared in a Piping Times in the 1970s. Seumas described the motorway that cuts across most of Ontario as “John MacFadyen’s favourite 401 highway.” It’s funny because, to most people who live in Toronto, “the 401” is this clogged, stinking mess of a road that’s nobody’s favourite.

But thousands of pipers and drummers, including me, will be driving the 401, resisting stopping along the way at The Big Apple.

Provided there’s a decent signal, I should be able to connect from the field without much trouble, and plan, as usual, to post results as I get them.