LONE PIPER FROM THE WRONG COUNTRY

Although I don't have a chance to attend the local Oktoberfest, I do get to enjoy watching people head down the street on foot from the satellite parking lot that just happens to be in the industrial park across the street from my house.  My weekend is too packed to make it down to the actual venue, but I do have a few moments to vicarious listen to the frivolity wafting through the trees and past the old mill buildings.

(I know - crappy picture - but there really is a bagpiper on the loading dock.)

As I am outside packing up my car and getting myself ready for a day of misadventures, the German music is suddenly interrupted by the sound of bagpipes.  Around my neighborhood, the sound of bagpipes means one of two things: a wedding or a funeral.  Occasionally, bagpipers set up on the steps of the Catholic church at the end of my street.  If it's on a weekend, it's a wedding; if it's on a weekday, it's a funeral.  This is Sunday.  It must be a wedding.

But, I am wrong.

I follow the sound to the industrial park across the street.  Standing by himself on a concrete loading dock is a lone bagpiper.  He is serenading the people parking in the satellite lot as they trek two-tenths of a mile to the brewery down the hill.  It's a shorter walk than the mall during holiday shopping hours.  Still, apparently, it must be good business to hire entertainment for all those terribly weary people who have to hoof it around the corner.

I'm not begrudging the brewery.  I like the bagpipe music, though it's somewhat eerie that this poor guy is just kind of standing there piping, being pretty much ignored by the Oktoberfest revelers.  It's a little weird, though.  I'm thinking maybe an accordion player or a small Oompah band might be a better fit. 

That's just me, though.  It's probably just my mindset that I should be singing along to Roll Out the Barrel or She's Too Fat For Me if there is an Oktoberfest afoot.  Somehow Scotland Forever and Loch Lomond don't have the same effect with the smell of bratwurst filling the air.