Friday, May 6, 2016

Where the Present Meets the Past

Less than a mile southeast of the Glasgow, Scotland Airport, the intersection of Renfrew and Dundonald Roads in Paisley, Renfrewshire, is a place where the present meets the past. Where those two roads cross sits a Kentucky Fried Chicken store. Next door is an Esso gas station, and beyond that, a Tesco Express grocery. Directly across Renfrew Road from the Esso station is a stone cairn, sitting on a concrete triangle that splits the lanes of Dundonald Road. The cairn contains a plaque commemorating an event that happened on that spot seven hundred years ago – long before anyone bought gasoline or ate chicken made famous by a Kentucky Colonel.