The Charaxian Piping Chronicle now gets a drastically needed update. I now have the bagpipe we'd recently expected to buy. Our band's pipe sergeant bought it from an acquaintance, the pipe major of a Winnipeg band, for US$1000 (which my mother had made in a royal flush on a poker machine & offered for this purchase). Word is it appears to be a Henderson, made in the heroic year of 1943 or '44 & worth twice what we paid for it! Materials are traditional, except for the yellowed faux ivory, & I'm told the bag is rather large. Our PS & others--like his dad, a distinguished piper from the Auld Country--agreed the drones were "sweet."

The reeds are hardly original, & they presumably make playing easier. So far I've been instructed in sounding the instrument without its chanter. The PS says I'm the only student he knows of--after himself--who's started on all three drones! There does seem to be something natural about playing the thing. Now, besides chanter practice, I'm supposed to just blow the drones every day, & the former endeavor is coming along: By now I've more or less memorized a set of 4/4 marches.