It's Celts and kilts at the annual Highland Games

When it comes to celebrating Celtic culture around Chicago, people of Scottish descent always seem to be overshadowed by the Irish.

There's no national holiday like St. Patrick's Day when "everyone is Scottish for one day." It would also be impossible to dye the Chicago River plaid.

Yet Scottish culture and traditions strongly persevere locally, thanks to efforts of the Illinois St. Andrew Society, a nonprofit charity organization dating back to 1854. The society's biggest and highest-profile event is the annual Scottish Festival and Highland Games, now celebrating its 22nd year.

Nearly 15,000 people are expected to head to the Oak Brook Polo Grounds to share in Scottish traditions. And you don't need to have Scottish heritage to get in on the fun.

"There are a number of things going on at the Games that would appeal to the general public," says Lombard resident Wayne Rethford, a former society president from 1997 to 2005. Now 81, Rethford has seen the Highland Games add activities such as scotch whiskey tasting seminars and a British car show competition, plus a general boom in Celtic music bands and genealogical research.

"What's also been interesting is the transition from an older group to a younger group of people," Rethford says. "You'll see families with small children much more so now than when I first became acquainted with the Highland Games. It really is a family kind of day."

New at this year's two-day festival is a youth soccer tournament, a "Dogs of Scotland" tent and a Kilted Mile Run/Walk (bring your own or make one before the event). But at the heart of every Highland Games are the centuries-old competitions and traditions that make Scots who they are.

Traditionally sporty

No one knows exactly when the gathering of the Scottish clans began, but some historians suggest they date back before recorded history. Along with wearing of kilts and the playing of bagpipes, "Heavy Athletics" competitions have always played a part of Highland Games.

One theory behind these feats-of-strength contests was so the clan chief could pick out the strongest men to serve in his army. Another notion is that many of the competitions grew from everyday activities developed by self-reliant farmers.

Naperville resident Kevin Neis has been the St. Andrew Society's athletic director for 22 years and he's seen the level of Highland Games competition grow.

"About 20 years ago they were a bunch of drunk guys throwing around weights - very few serious competitors," Neis says. "Now there is a database of North America alone where there's got to be 600 to 1,000 competitors; now it's risen to the same level of dancing and piping competitions."

Nowadays Highland Games heavy athletics competitions have become codified to a seven-event heptathlon. (The Illinois Highland Games hosts the Heavy Athletics U.S. Open Championships this year.)

Most contests are throwing-distance feats with a variety of different stones and weights (Neis is quick to point out that the modern-day shot put and the hammer toss in track and field can trace their roots to the Highland Games).

But the most iconic event is the tossing of the caber, a telephone-pole-sized log. Competitors must get the caber to flip completely around and try to get it to land in a 12 o'clock position.

Neis says there are many theories about how the caber sport came about: in battle (so invaders would have an instant ladder to castle battlements), to cross rivers (why it's necessary to get it to land at a 90-degree angle) and even house building (so you could move beams up to the second floor on your own).

Though the Olympics are bigger and garner more publicity, the heavy athletics portion of the Highland Games offers a great show of amazing feats of strength.

"They're a lot cheaper, too," Neis jokes. "If you're Scottish, that counts."

Traditionally arty

Centuries of Scottish arts and culture also flourish at the Highland Games, particularly with competitions in piping, drumming and Scottish dancing. True, most people aren't as familiar with Scottish dancing as they are with Irish step dancing (a certain global phenomenon called "Riverdance" is the reason for that).

"Actually, we've ridden a bit on ("Riverdance's") coattails," says Downers Grove resident Nancy Strolle.

As a director of the Thistle & Heather Highland Dancers in North Riverside and a teacher in Glen Ellyn (and a former Illinois St. Andrew Society president), Strolle knows Scottish dancing doesn't command the attention of step dancing (she says Irish dancing has thousands of students in the Chicago area while Scottish dancers can be counted in the hundreds).

"The sheer numbers are very different," Strolle says. "We're small, but mighty."

Unlike Irish step dancing, which is largely about percussion, Scottish dancing is more balletic and tied to rituals.

Some dances are warfare related. If you touched one of the intersecting blades in the "Sword Dance" before battle, that was seen as an omen. The "Highland Fling" is a victory dance (the reason it's confined largely to one spot is because it was performed atop a defeated enemy's shield).

Other dances are tied to historical events, such as the celebratory Sean Triubhas, which marked the repeal of an English law forbidding the wearing of the kilt following a Scottish rebellion in 1745.

Strolle says the love of Scottish dancing for many students goes beyond personal Scottish ties.

"I have a lot of kids who do it because they love it," Strolle says. "With some of them, a friend got them started and they've continued long after their friend has left."

Downright silly

The Scots are fiercely proud of their heritage, but they're also able to laugh at themselves. Unlike some Italian-American organizations that protested HBO's "The Sopranos," you would be hard-pressed to find Scottish groups protesting Mike Myers' fat villain in the Austin Powers films or the surly groundskeeper Willie on Fox-TV's "The Simpsons."

The Highland Games features a Knobbly Knees Kilt Contest for the men, no doubt laden with lots of jokes about the fact that Scots typically don't wear anything under their kilts. (A Sexy Legs competition for women was dropped a few years ago due to complaints, however.)

A lot of jokes also stem from Scottish food - particularly haggis, which is a dish made from a the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep mixed with vegetables and cooked inside the sheep's intestine.

There's a haggis-eating contest to see which contestants can eat a pound of haggis the fastest, and a haggis hurling contest, too (this is a distance-throwing competition and not a cause-and-effect result of the haggis-eating contest).

Apparently, Scottish wives used to toss haggis across rivers to reach their laboring husbands (or so says director of events Apryl Niksch for the Illinois St. Andrew Society).

Elk Grove Village resident Amy Wojak competed in the Haggis Toss two years ago, but not willingly.

"My husband signed me up without telling me," Wojak said. "But once I started watching it, I really got into it."

Though she didn't win, Wojak wants to compete again this year (she'll have to register fast because they only take 50 contestants). Wojak might also get back at her husband, Kevin (who loves wearing his kilt even though his heritage is Polish).

"I should sign him for the Knobbly Knees competition without him knowing it," she says.

The festival runs from 4 to 10 p.m. Friday and from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday at Oak Brook Polo Grounds, 31st Street and Polo Drive, Oak Brook. Includes Heavy Athletics U.S. Championship, Highland dancing, Celtic music, food, contests, whiskey tastings and crowning of the 2008 Heather Queen and Court. Admission is $8, $3 for children, $18 for a weekend pass and $70 for a patron weekend pass on Friday. On Saturday, admission is $13, $6 for children and $55 for a patron ticket. Parking is $5 per car on Saturday and available at the Polo Grounds and remote lots with free shuttle service. Call (708) 447-5092 or visit chicago-scots.org.

FRIDAY

4 to 8 p.m. HEAVY ATHLETICS FRIDAY NIGHT FLING

4:30 p.m. HIGHLAND DANCE COMPETITION

5 and 6:30 p.m. GENERAL AND MASTER WHISKY CLASSES

6 to 10 p.m. CELTIC ROCK ON THE ENTERTAINMENT STAGE

7 to 10 p.m. CEILIDH, A CELEBRATION OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC AND DANCE

7:15 p.m. CROWNING OF THE 2008 HEATHER QUEEN AND COURT

SATURDAY

7:30 a.m. KILTED MILE RUN/WALK

8 a.m. to 2 p.m. SOCCER 5 V 5 YOUTH TOURNAMENT

8 a.m. to 5 p.m. HIGHLAND DANCE COMPETITION

8 a.m. to 6 p.m. PIPING AND DRUMMING COMPETITION

9 a.m. HEAVY ATHLETICS U.S. CHAMPIONSHIP

10:30 a.m. CELTIC ROCK ON THE ENTERTAINMENT STAGE

10:30 and 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. DOGS OF SCOTLAND

11 a.m. and 12:30, 2, 3:30, 5 and 7 p.m. GENERAL AND MASTER WHISKEY CLASSES

12:30 to 12:50 p.m. PARADE OF TARTANS

1 to 1:30 p.m. SHEEP HERDING DEMONSTRATION

6 p.m. CLOSING CEREMONIES AND MASSED BANDS

- Elisabeth Mistretta