On Paisley

 

Every 8 weeks or so I'll get an email from 23andme, the genetics people. They seem to know more about my aversion to broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables than I do. These bimonthly emails also show me new relatives in the crooked and unruly Siegel Family tree.

With more than 99% certainty these new relatives are other folks of Hebraic Seasonings (Greenbergs, Feldsteins, Steinsteins, you get the picture) who escaped the cold, woodsy area of southern Poland/Western Belarus/Northern Ukraine. One however came up as a distant relative from my mother's side, and the wee bonnie country of Scotland.

Into the peaty Rabbit Hole I jumped.

Sadly, my mother did not talk much about her family who lived and stayed in Paisley in the County of Renfrewshire.

She would often correspond with them in hand written letters on blue airmail paper that folded into its own envelope -- the legendary Scottish thriftiness. She'd stay up late, smoke cigarettes at the kitchen table, crack open a Heineken (or two) and weep as she read each missive from the family she left at the age of 19.

Hate to ruin your image of me as a burly manly man but I think I caught a whiff of her sentimentality. Or maybe it's because I became a 'writer' and didn't pursue a promising career as a forklift driver (true story.)

As an example about the hushed nature regarding her family, she had three sisters and three brothers. In all my 66 years I only had the pleasure of meeting two of them. In fact, I can barely name her brothers. I believe they were Jimmy, George, and Paul, or some Beatles-like variation. The distance from Liverpool to Paisley is only 227 miles.

I was equally unschooled about my mother's native religion -- Presbyterian. In fact, I can't tell you what separates Presbyterians from Lutherans from Baptists from Methodists from Catholics. OK, I know Catholics believe in the papal system, but other than that I got bupkis.

I do however have a shiksa official girlfriend, Ms. Muse, who is somewhat knowledgeable on the topic and drew a Venn Diagram for my edification. I was happy to learn that the majority of my DNA (51% British Isles, 48% Eastern Europe and 1% Curmudgeon) stems from people who were not at all dogmatic about their religion. 

Their fehhhh attitude mirrors my agnostic secular grasp of Judaism. 

Sorry, I refuse to take my world view and wisdom from the 3000 year old divine transcription of goat herders and brain-addled village elders.

I was also pleased to learn that I descend from men who not only wore kilts but also wore their fierce political beliefs on their sleeves.  One of the granddaughters of Robbie the Bruce was born and raised in Paisley. 

It gets too complicated from here and is above my historical pay grade, but the rebels of Paisley had some thing to do with the Jacobbites and the fight for independence against the King. I think. I could be reading the various Wiki pages all wrong.

It's my background and I'll interpret -- or distort it -- anyway I like. I choose to believe they were freedom loving, principled people with good brains and even better hearts.

Also, Fuck Trump!