Robert Burns dinner raises funds for historical society



Blake Mayo slices into the Haggis, a traditional dish of Scotland

CANASERAGA - There is more than one Robert Burns dinner in Allegany County, the Fawcett American Legion Post 1582 Canaseraga hosted a dinner to raise money for the Marjorie Dieter Mastin Historical Society.

Why is there a Burns Dinner in Canaseraga celebrating Scotland’s bard who passed away over 200 years ago, because the village exists in the Town of Burns. Residents conjecture that with no founding families named Burns, the town’s fathers chose to name their home after the iconic poet because of their Scots/Irish descent and its similarities to the Scottish Highlands.

“Robert Burns was a common man, a farmer and bard who was widely popular among the common man,” noted historian Lauren Oliver who gave “The Immortal Memory Address” commemorating the poet, a traditional part of any Robert Burns Dinner.

The group celebrated with songs, poetry, bagpipe music and more than one “wee drams” of scotch. Several were dressed in traditional kilts or wearing their clan tartans including bagpiper Chet Norton who played authentic music for the event. Andy Carbone of JC’s Café in Hornell catered the dinner.

With odes to his many paramours and the common life of the ploughman farmer Burns’ poetry is familiar to most people in the words of the song, “Auld Lang Syne,” which concluded the evening.