The new year brought many social events for us at JSCSC. The first on the list was a black-tie dinner name "Burns Night" after the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns.
The dress code called for tartan (family or clan plaid pattern for a kilt, trousers, bow tie or shawl) if you had one. Laura found a pretty pattern that matched her red dress.
The evening began with drinks in the forum while everyone mingled. Then a bagpipe player and drummer from one of the Scottish regiments began to play for a few minutes to get everyone in the Scottish mood. We then filtered into the dining room to elaborately and elegantly decorated tables. we sat with Jamie and Fliss (Britain), Dave and Bree (Australia), Clayton and Vanessa (Canada) at our table.
The first course was of course haggis, that revered and feared Scottish dish that has something to do with sheep that you don't want to think about too much. Tyler was brave enough to try it and it was actually delicious!
I can't remember what else we had, but it was good as well. The entertainment for the night included more bagpipes, a dancing Scotsman, a dueling set of toasts, and a recitation of Burns' poetry in unintelligible broads Scots dialect. After the meal was finished and we had sipped some whiskey, we all moved back into the forum for some reeling.
There was a band playing and giving difficult to understand instructions for each of the four different dances. We danced for about an hour in various couples dances such as The Duke of Perth, The Dashing White Sergeant and The Reel of the 51st Division. We had an excellent evening and could have kept dancing if they would have let us!
The next big event was Waterloo Dinner hosted by the Army celebrating the famous victory over Napoleon in 1815. It wasn't a guest dinner, so Tyler went alone.
He didn't realize until he scanned the seating chart that he hadn't actually signed up to attend the dinner. He approached the organizers thinking he had been left off the list and they knew of a certain person who had canceled. The seat was with a bunch of guys from ICSC who he didn't know, but luckily his mates from his syndicate came over after the prayer and 'jailbroke' him out of the table and carried all of his silverware and crystal over to their table and made a spot for him.
In March, Tyler's division (C-Div) had a dinner date night at the college. Its theme was Oscar's awards night.
We had a wonderful time at dinner sitting with Tyler's second term syndicate. After the dinner, Laura heard Tyler's band "Red Light" play for the first time after enduring many hours of practices. Tyler managed to sneak away for a few songs to dance while the rest of the band played.
Just two weeks later was the Commando Dinner, also a guest night. It began once again in the forum, but this time with a group of Royal Marines demonstrating hand to hand combat on a mat in the middle.
There was lots of flipping, kicks and beatings with baseball bats...an odd, but highly entertaining start to the evening. A marching band of Royal Marines then played for about 15 minutes.
After a nice meal, a man playing a toilet like a bugle and a bizarre speech where a retired general stated that he was Capain Jack Sparrow, we retired to the Forum for a drum performance by the band that had been serenading us all evening.
The lights were dimmed and the drummers used lighted red and green sticks to play.
We then moved to the Henderson Bar next door and danced the night away for about an hour before we made our escape - a great evening once again!
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