WHA’S LIKE US? DAMN FEW AND THEY’RE A’DEID
Alistair MacIsaac provided the following story, and provided it as a reference for his appeal to commence the original 1973 restoration. We are not sure who wrote the piece.
The average man in the home he calls his castle, slips into his national costume—a shabby raincoat—patented by chemist Charles Mac Intosh from Glasgow, Scotland. En route to his office he strides along a lane surface with a material developed by John MacAdam of Ayr, Scotland, or he drives a car fitted with tires invented by John Boyd Dunlop Dreghorn, Scotland.
At the office he receives the mail bearing adhesive stamps invented by John Chalmers of Dundee, Scotland. During the day, he uses the telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell, born in Edinburgh, Scotland. At home in the evening, his daughter pedals her bicycle invented by Kirkpatrick MacMillan, blacksmith of Dumfries, Scotland. He watches the news on television, an invention of John Logie Baird of Helensburgh, Scotland and hears an item about the US Navy, founded by John Paul Jones of Kirkbean, Scotland.
He has now been reminded too much of Scotland and in desperation he picks up the Bible only to find that the first man mentioned in the good book is a Scot—King James 1—who authorised its translation.
Nowhere can he turn to escape the ingenuity of the Scot. He could take a drink, but the Scots make the best in the world. He could take a rifle and end it all but the breech-loading rifle was invented by Captain Patrick Ferguson of Pitfours, Scotland. If he escapes death, he could find himself on an operation table injected with penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming of Darvel, Scotland and given an anaesthetic discovered by Sir James Young Simpson of Bathgate, Scotland.
Out of the anaesthetic he would find comfort in learning that he was as safe as the Bank of England, founded by William Paterson of Dumfries, Scotland. Perhaps his only remaining hope would be to get a transfusion of Scottish blood which would then entitle him to ask— WHA’S LIKE US?
Alistair was visiting PEI with his family who originated from the Rock Barra region. He and his father found the sandstone monument of his ancestor Flora (Mac Isaac) MacPhee. Flora had emigrated to PEI in 1791 with her eleven children. Her husband Roderick Mac Isaac had died at sea. She arrived at Tea Hill and made her way to Tracadie to stay with friends who had arrived there earlier.
Flora (born a Mac Neil from the Isle of Barra) had an aunt who lived in Rock Barra. She went to Rock Barra with her oldest son John M. Mac Isaac and thus began the Mac Isaac clan at Rock Barra. Many of these people are buried in St. Margaret’s Pioneer Cemetery.