But one thing is certain: Whenever I hear a bagpipes - and I've been at weddings, funerals, and civic events where bagpipes are played - I get washed in a proud yet melancholy wistfulness. I feel nostalgic for standing on a rugged green hillside, wearing something plaid, facing into a damp breeze off a rugged, rocky coastline I've never seen before. I feel like taking a stand and liberating someone or something.
I'm sure there are many places in Maryland where bagpipes are routinely played. The hills of Glen Burnie. The cliffs of Aberdeen. The woods of Glenarden. And can't you just hear the bagpipes of Lonaconing?
Maybe you can't. Perhaps you prefer to stick to mainstream instruments such as the piano or the trumpet and avoid fringe ones such as the bagpipes and its associates, the mandolin, the accordion, the triangle, the ocarina and the second violin.
