January 25 is Robert Burns’ birthday, one of the most celebrated, and certainly the sentimental favorite poet of Scotland. Every year, fans of the man and his works celebrate his birthday by holding a Robert Burns Supper. Since his arrival in Coronado in 1959, my father George Sanger has been looking for someone with whom to celebrate this festive occasion. For a few years he would hoist a few wee drams with Paul and Rita Hathaway, but when they moved away, he resigned himself to phone calls to Scotland. This Saturday, however, his dream came true. The home of Captain and Mrs. Ed and Anna Klapka was the site of a genuine Robert Burns Supper. 
The tradition of celebrating the poet’s birthday calls for a supper that follows a script, and Anna prepared her home and the guests to follow the tradition to a “T”. The haggis was piped in and properly addressed. The guests were in tartan, there was a “Toast to the Lassies”, and amid many glasses of scotch, there was a sumptious meal catered by Ganosh Gourmet with cockaleekie soup (chicken, leek and barley soup), haggis (if you have to ask, you probably shouldn’t eat it), neeps and tatties (in this case, mashed potatoes and a turnip and apple bake) and beautiful desserts contributed by guests. After the meal, guests read poems, songs, letters, and told stories about what the poet meant to them, with many jokes and tales about Rab’s life and loves. The guests drank, talked, danced, drank, told tall tales, and drank a wee bit more until they had finished an evening that Rabbie Burns himself would have been proud of.
Here are my mother and father after a few toasts, and right before my father recited the famous poem “A Man’s A Man For A That”, one of my all time favorites, and an appropriate thought to be reminded of at least once a year.
Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a’ that,)
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s coming yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.
Thanks, Anna, for making my Dad so happy, and for bringing a bit of the heart of Scotland to the Crown City!
