A great deal is said about the “Celtic love of learning.” Too much is said about it and every time I hear about the Celtic love of learning I am again beset by the dark shadow of the probability that I was a doorstep baby.

With an Irish mother, though, and a born-in-Scotland father, my father ran true to form. Though he was expelled from high school only days before he was to have graduated, he entertained his visitors in his last days, shortly before his 93rd birthday, by reciting page after page of Caesar’s conflict among the tribes of Gaul. He recited them in Latin.

The only Latin I remember is how to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

I can’t remember anyone ever asking me to do it. If anyone ever did, it was a request made only once.

Despite my obvious shortcomings in academics my father had hopes for me. Not realizing that the crash of 1929 had anything to do with my education he planned big. Two years at a posh women’s college, where I would learn “to walk gracefully down the stairs rather than sliding down the banisters.”

He was a little undecided from then on. A couple of years at a good university, possibly University of Nebraska or, even better, Northwestern where they gave swimming scholarships.

I was a pretty good swimmer, after all he had taught me, and the possibility of getting a scholarship on it was the only slight touch, and very slight touch, of reality in his whole plan.

It got worse. He valued travel as a form of education perhaps even superior to mere classroom instruction. Should he, he wondered, forget the college altogether and use the money to send me on a tour of Europe? Better yet, he decided, finish four years of college in this country and then do graduate work at the University of Edinburgh.

This last plan was my favorite. I didn’t grasp how daddy was going to square it with his plan for my subsequent career as an electrical engineer. The Celtic love of learning seemed sadly lacking in my scheme of things.

I was so fed up with high school by time I graduated that I couldn’t face the thought of anymore of it. If I went to Scotland, I thought, I could with any luck, fall overboard, be eaten by a shark and never have to enter a classroom again.

I did rather regret losing the chance to travel, though.

I was in my late 40s or early 50s before I ever got our of the Midwest. Then I visited a friend in New York, took a refresher course at Tufts University near Boston, attended a meeting of Newspaper Women in Mississippi. I also, having acquired a car of my own, took my mother and two friends for a drive into Canada.

In August 1980, I finally fulfilled my father’s dream for me and visited Ireland and Scotland. I went first to Ireland and then met Eleanor Wong Telemaque in Edinburgh. We also visited England and Wales.

The recent terrorist attack brought back our days in England sharply. It was not a comfortable time to be visiting there. The relationship between England and North Ireland were at an all-time low. No one was happy with the situation. There was scarcely a newspaper that did not report another bombing.

Whatever else one can say about the English, though, they are not an excitable people. Indeed in a book of cartoons from &uot;Punch,&uot; dealing with the British character is a depiction of a ship, one of the big ocean liners.

It has obviously hit an iceberg. A group of people, attired in formal dinner wear are playing cards. So much water has washed into the room that the card tables are actually afloat.

The card players are totally interested in their game. Caption on the cartoon reads, &uot;The importance of being calm.&uot;

Eleanor and I did much of our going about in what in this country would be called a subway, but there is known as the Underground. A little note was pinned to each of the seats and Eleanor and I read the little note in an absent sort of way every time we availed ourselves of that form of transportation.

I don’t know how many times we read them before it dawned on us what we were reading. I don’t remember the exact wording, but I’m pretty close to it:

&uot;If there should be a package on a vacant seat, do not touch it. Do not pull the stop cord. Do not discuss package. Wait until you reach the next station, leave the car without undue haste, or loud talking and report the package to the station guard.&uot;

I think that Eleanor and I recognized at the same moment that these little notes were talking about bombs, big fierce, mean bombs. I’m not sure what her reaction was. I wanted to scream loudly, pull the stop cord, race from the train, talking loudly and get away from the vehicle as fast as possible.

Never mind the guard. Just get away and stay away. I’m calm, but not that calm.

(Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column runs Thursday.)