I am going on a little trip. This coming Saturday I will be off on the first leg – to North Carolina. I depart from New York on Sunday.

It has been some time since I last visited Scotland; 1971, in fact. I lucked out and left the States the day after Nixon allowed the Dollar to float. No one had any idea how much it was worth relative to any other currency. It was a time ripe for ripoffs.

I exchanged some pocket money at Kennedy Airport prior to departure – a ripoff. Luckily, the Royal Bank of Scotland had a branch in the airport at Prestwick. It turned out to be about the best rate available anywhere. Later, we learned that the biggest gougers were the American hotels in London.

With both Crawford and Harris being Scottish names, it should be no surprise that my genealogy points in that direction. Other family names include Fraser (from around Loch Ness), McJunkin (Scot-Irish) and Morgan (Welsh, but also Gaelic).

The most success in tracing our genealogy has come with the Frasers. In that part of our family was a U.S. Representative, his father, a Governor and Senator. Further back, Simon Fraser, chief adjutant to William Wallace, he of Braveheart fame was found to be in our family.

I will be visiting Sterling, site of the famous Wallace victory of Sterling Bridge. Braveheart was a wonderful movie but atrocious history. Its Battle of Sterling Bridge was filmed in Ireland, with no bridges anywhere in the vicinity. I will also visit Culloden Battlefield, site of a horrific defeat for the forces of the Jacobite Rising of 1745. It was the last battle fought on British soil.

It is also where we got the phrase ‘beyond the pale.’ Pale means white or light-colored. It came to be used as referring to a paling fence. Then such a fence became a pale, meaning a safe enclosed area. Being ‘beyond the pale’ was to be in a bad situation. There was a pale at Culloden.

Our Harris family is a sept, or sub-clan, under the Clan McLeod. There is an Isle of Harris. You may have heard of Harris Tweed, sometimes called iron cloth. The name is protected by the British Crown.

The lead picture is of the rear of the Castle Dunvegan, home of the head of the clan. It has been the home of that family for over 800 years. That makes it the residence continuously occupied for the longest period of any in the world. Immediately above is a picture of its entrance.

While the interiors for the recent movie, Maid of Honor, were filmed at Dunvegan, the exteriors were of a nearby castle, Eilean Donan. It is the most photographed castle in Scotland.

Much of the staff of the Castle Dunvegan was used as extras in the movie.

I will be taking a netbook, a laptop, a video camera and a still camera. If I have a few down moments, I may try to post a few pictures and a minimal travelogue. Don’t count on it though. I hope to spend my time enjoying what likely will be my last visit there.

My hope is that it won’t be the last. While there I will be contacting literary agents and booking agents. It would be great if I am able to put together a book tour. That might pay for a return and a 2-3 month tour of Europe. Wouldn’t that be nice?

My wife refuses to fly. But, she says, she is concerned that I might enjoy myself so much that I would decide to remain over there. No, it wouldn’t be for the universal healthcare. After all, I am on Medicare.

More likely it would be due to the beauty of the country, the sense of history, and the chance to get away from the birthers, the deathers and the teabaggers.

Don’t begin celebrating prematurely. I’ll be back.

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It seems that I have reached the age where history and autobiography become the same.

Senator Joe McCarthy’s antics permeated every aspect of the politics of his time. He was none too bright, as Joseph Welch and Ed Murrow showed. His accusations came from whole cloth. He played upon the fears and ignorance of the time for his own aggrandizement and agenda.

Today we have a bunch of little McCarthys running around. We call them deathers or birthers or Sarah Limbaugh and Rush Palin. Actually, we have lots of other names for them, both general and specific. They are playing upon the fears and ignorance for their own personal aggrandizement and agenda. It’s as though I’m experiencing déjà vu.

Though I am on Medicare, I have no concern for the claims of the deathers but it does bring back a very personal threat I experienced during the 1960s.

The philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I learned from it the first time. Why am I being punished because of all the dullards out there?

These bullies, these public hoodlums are able to scare even the most powerful. Eisenhower put up with attacks on General Zwicker and Ike’s own mentor George Marshall (yes, chief of the armed forces during WWII and also known for the Marshall Plan). It is not possible to overstate that power he exercised or for those who didn’t live through it to fully apprehend and appreciate it.

Even such a progressive stalwart as Hubert Humphrey was somewhat cowed and co-opted. The Communist Control Act of 1954 was introduced by Senator Walter McCarran, the idiot and charlatan for whom the Las Vegas airport is named. Humphrey tried to offer a substitute to ameliorate its harm. His bill was incorporated into McCarran’s bill.

One of the aspects of this act was to require the Attorney General to keep a list of subversives, based largely on the lists of the House Unamerican Activities Committee. It also provided that the internment camps used for Japanese citizens during WWII be used to hold those on the lists in the event of a national emergency. The capacity was in the neighborhood of 100,000 persons.

My name was on that list. Why?

I was studying the Chinese language then at UCLA. The Chinese government was developing a simplified set of characters for their language. I could find nothing in this country that provided help with this new character set.

The Chinese government produced many publications designed for foreigners. One periodical had a monthly section introducing this character set. I subscribed. The post office would hold each issue at a San Francisco facility and notify me that “unsolicited mail” was being held. I was required to affirm each time that I wanted it before they would forward it. Such affirmation put my name on the list.

Yes, it contained propaganda. That propaganda, however, was so primitive and laughable that no one could possibly believe it. It was primarily such stories as how all of the smiling people pictured were rejoicing at the increased productivity of a rural charcoal factory. No. Really.

Whether it was Tailgunner Joe, back in the day, or the mini-mes of today, these people are dangerous to America. They have no interest in our values, our rights, our laws. They are enemies of democracy. They are enemies of freedom, except for themselves. They insist that, despite their minority status, their way must be enforced upon the rest of us. They are tools and fools.

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