I got drinking with an old Scottish bloke named Colin last night. You know the type: worn and weathered exterior, story filled interior. He's been a brick layer and tramp for most of his life. He's apparently lived in every city and town in Great Britain and rates London as the worst.
We started on a pair of whiskeys and he informed me that all of the girls working behind the bar were his family.
"You see that tall blonde girl", he said. "She's Latvian. I call her my granddaughter." Another girl came over and collected some empty glasses. "This is another of my granddaughters. She's Polish." She smiled at us and walked away with her hands full of empties. He then pointed over to a short brunette serving food. "That small girl there is Brazilian."
"Another granddaughter?" I asked.
"Yep, and a very lovely girl," he paused, "but she's spoken for."
I told him that his granddaughters all seemed delightful.
After we'd been chatting for a while longer he reached into his jacket and gave me a badge with a miniature Australian flag attached and a miniature whiskey bottle on a key ring. For some reason I didn't find it at all unusual that he would carry miniature gifts around with him. He was glad that I knew there were six stars on the Australian flag. He said that most Aussie kids he'd asked didn't and that it was an important thing to know.
He then said he couldn't understand why my country threw itself behind the causes fought by, "this small island they like to call Great." I told him that I thought these sort of things were never straightforward and that everyone back home didn't necessarily agree with it. We then spoke about the diggers and Gallipoli and about how he lost a grandson in Desert Storm.
After a short while spent silently sipping on our whiskeys he said to me, "I have five children, eleven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren and here I am talking with a complete stranger." I nodded and we saluted each other with our glasses and sipped some more.
As he stood to leave I told him I still owed him a whiskey. He said that I could get it for him next time. He then told me that I should go up and spend some time in Scotland. I told him that I would. We shook hands and he left.