“Radford” itself sounds a bit like a merger of Radcliffe and Harvard — or Hartford, but it’s six or seven hundred miles from those old post-Tarheel and pre-Tarheel stomping grounds of mine.

The university’s namesake, the city of Radford, spans the New River in southwest Virginia, an area proud of its Scots-Irish heritage and its own Blue Ridge highlands. (See a Google Maps map)

The university is part of the Virginia public higher education system, and just south of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.

To celebrate my arrival at a school whose teams are “The Highlanders,” I put a Scottish tartan behind my home page, as explained there. While that version of my grandmother’s family tartan is mostly green; Radford uses a more red and blue tartan in some of its publications.

I was disappointed to find that you can’t buy a kilt (or at least a plaid tie) at the campus bookstore — in fact, I get the feeling the simple-design-minded “college memorabilia” and “sports marketing” folks have pushed the university toward adopting a simpler solid school color or two.

Someone also has been promoting “RU” as a nickname for the school for sometime, which started to annoy me as soon as the “RU…?” puns stopped being cute. Why have a two-letter, two-syllable abbreviation for a school name that is already only two syllables?

There are plenty of schools that could call themselves “RU,” even if Radford does head the list. Google the word “Radford” and you find the university listed before the city name, unlike Boston and BU.

Maybe I can start a little business on the side with “Radford: Plaid and Proud” T-shirts. Hmm… Maybe in time for National Tartan Day next spring.

This weekend I was watching more pyrotechnics from atop another hill, the one I live on now. I’m so new here that I don’t even know if the hill has a name, but it gave me a new perspective for a fireworks show that competes for excitement and audience with Boston’s Independence Day.

Knoxville calls the Labor Day event Boomsday. A sponsor also calls it “the biggest single-day event in the state of Tennessee and the largest fireworks show in the southeast United States.”

Whille Boston fires its rockets from a barge in the river, these fireworks are launched from a high bridge over the Tennessee River — a bridge that just happens to be anchored to my new hilltop. Down along the river, the city closes a stretch of highway, turning it into a midway for the day, stretching off toward the university stadium. Hundreds of thousands of people join in the fun, and the “Tennessee navy” drops anchor in the river — about 200 powerboats that stay for Sunday’s Big Orange football game.

The Boomsday show doesn’t include the Boston Pops, Stars & Stripes Forever or the 1812 Overture cannons… but I read that there was some Gershwin broadcast to coincide with the most elegant part of the display, and at a more climactic point I did hear a few people singing along with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” Next year, maybe I’ll find a seat closer to the sound system.
Beyond the Esplanade …