Actually, Bill, I don't think the Great Dane even knew the Yorkie was there. Really sad.

Close, Mike, very close.

Well, lemme see, now. My great grandfather came from the Orkneys, rounded the Horn, and went to work in the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound for the Hudson's Bay Company. He was the First Firth in these parts. He settled there, returned to Orkney to bring his sweetheart back to the San Juans with him. Among their nine children was my grandfather. He was the Second Firth. Then my father. Third. Then I came along. The Firth of Fourth.

Somebody once said that the reason my great grandfather like the San Juan Islands so well was because it reminded him of the Orkneys. But with trees.

The story has it that the Orkneys are practically bereft of trees because of the constant winds off the North Atlantic. Those who've grown up on the Islands are constantly compensating for the perpetual wind. So much so that whenever they leave the islands for someplace without the constant wind, they habitually tend to lean to the West.

One (at least one) of our Mucatters is from Orkney. I asked her if this was true about having to compensate for the wind, and she allowed as how it really was.

Don Firth