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The following is a thread that I have been working on to explain the family tree of piping as it pertains to the younger pipers of Ontario. The impressions of youth are certainly different than the vantage point experience brings...and... it appears that many of our junior set believe piping began in 1990. I wish to impress upon our youth that in piping, we REALLY come from somewhere....that there is a long and rich history meshed with the music.

Today's pipers in Ontario like Bill Livingstone, Bob Worrall, Gail Brown, Chris Anderson, Michael Grey, Reay Mackay, and so many more were taught by the great John Wilson, who emigrated after WWII to Hamilton, Ontario in 1949. From his Saturday morning classes at Fort York Armouries in Toronto and his private tuition, came the foundation of Ontario's competitive piping scene. In some cases , like Bill Livingstone, these players rose to rival their teacher in Gold Medal glory. For many others, they took their spots as instructors and Pipe Majors of many of the province's top bands. In all cases, John's students are having a major impact on the piping world about them today.

Now John Wilson came from somewhere and that was Roddy Campbell. At this point every bit of piping history starts to explode, because prior to Roderick Campbell, we are back to the great generations of Camerons ! Yes, Sandy Cameron, Donald Cameron and the Cameron school as so many talk about.

I just received an email from a close friend of mine, Shon Sanson. Shon is a piper with the Red River Pipes and Drums of Shreveport, Louisiana. He is a medical doctor, by profession, working in Monroe, Louisiana. His account of the New Orleans disaster is below. I am sure you share his dismay. Read on:

The workshop is the weekend before Ash Wednesday. I will have to get a calendar and get the exact date for you. I do believe the fishing trip is canceled. My hospital has been involved. Every hospital in the state is on standby. I have been sitting in on the conference calls that all the hospitals in the state are connected too. Our area has only received about 150 patients because right now it takes about 8-10 hours to get from New O. to Monroe. That is too long on a bus for sick patients. We do have about 20,000 refugees in the area though. I have been seeing about 10 of them a day in my private clinic. I worry about the economy here now. A quarter of the state's population is out of work now. As you know many of the refugees from N.O. were very poor. They will not have any where to go back to for years, so most are expecting that they will get on the welfare rolls in whatever town they have ended up in. This is going to bankrupt many of the cities and towns in Louisiana and Texas. Another problem we are dealing with here is a shortage of gas. Half the gas pumps in town are shut down right now. I am glad you got to see Biloxi 2 months ago. I liked that town a lot and now it is completely gone. I hope things did not get too bad for y'all up there. I know last week there was a true sense of panic here. People were acting crazy. It was as if it was the end of times. Things are starting to just now calm down. What's going to be the most disturbing is the body count in N.O.. Thank God they have not showed it on the news, but police and firemen returning from down there say that bodies are stacked up like cordwood in places were water was flowing and the dead bodies would get caught. The death toll will most likely be in the thousands. I will keep you updated. Thanks for your prayers, Ken. Shon.