N.O. Pundit

The Scots-Irish Vote

Just read The Scots-Irish Vote on The Opinion Journal by James Webb.

My father's side of the family is 100% Scottish. My dad is so very proud of his heritage that he singlehandedly prepared a geneology of our family back to 17th century Scotland and gave bound reports to us kids for Christmas last year. Very thorough, and very thoughtful.

At first, when I spotted the link on RealClearPolitics, I thought it was going to be a humor piece (really!). My suspicions were not dispelled when sighting a caricature of a cigar-chomping, kilt-and-sporn-wearing hillbilly holding a double-barrel shotgun and a beer, complete with a tam-wearing hunting dog at his side.

His essay though is flattering of this ethnic group. One particularly admirable trait that Mr. Webb paints is one I bore witness to as I grew up, and that is to live one's life in the service of God, family, and neighbor, and that there is no room in the day for complaints.

My paternal grandparents were farmers (as were all my paternal ancestors since their emigration from Scotland in the mid-19th century). They lived in the township of Caledonia, Illinois. Down the street around 10 miles is the township of Argyle.

In the same way that fish would not have a word for water if they could speak, these Scots I watched as I grew up certainly do not have a word for the daily, moment-to-moment dignity with which they conducted themselves. My grandfather was the walking, talking, hard-working personification of dignity. From the age he could lift a pail he rose well before dawn every day of his life to perform the daily chores of a farmer, first for his father's family, then for his own. Come fall, all the farmers would band together to make shorter work of each other's harvesting than if they worked alone, all with no money trading hands.

This is not to say that this group was a farmer-tanned version of the Stepford Wives. My grandfather drank. Yes, he drank one glass of Harvey's Bristol Cream every Christmas day, clearly hinting of a dependency problem. He had a tremendously sly wit. But he wasn't a joke cracker. There was a time to be serious. Grandpa and grandma were extremely devout Christians who participated in the Scottish Presbyterian church as parishioners, volunteers, and elders.

They knew their job was not to raise us grandkids, and when we slept over (a rarified treat indeed), we could pretty much do as we please. Being out in the middle of rural Illinois, though, there was not too much mischief to get into. Grandma would always have frozen dinners in the freezer and we would heat them up, always remembering to take them out five minutes before they were done to carefully peel back the foil on the peach cobbler so the top would crisp.

One of my very earliest memories (perhaps '65 or '66) is being present when grandpa was cutting down hay with a very dangerous farming mower (think of the blades of a barber's clippers, one toothed blade stationary, one reciprocating, six foot across, being dragged behind and to the right of a tractor). He killed a kitten that had unfortunately tried to hide in the grass because of the racket. It was sheared nearly in half. He held it and took it away. I am too young to remember exactly what he did with it, but I imagine he simply dug a small hole and buried it. What I do remember is his face. Or should I say countenance. He held the kitten chest high, and looked at it as he walked away. He did not hold it high, in some histrionic ritual of forgiveness, nor did he hold it near his thigh, as if it were just some field stone that merely needed tossing over the fence. His face reflected both pain and peace. I imagine he was talking to God just then, and he was being forgiven.

Perhaps that's the essence of the Scottish soul. A profound respect for life, human and animal. Livestock were accorded their special place, and were not just property. My grandparents slaughtered well into their adult lives. Slaughtering was a ritual borne of necessity, and thus the animals who gave of themselves were accorded a very special level of respect.

My grandfather got angry at me exactly once. I was visiting on a sleepover stay, and to pass the time I got out the garden hose and started pointing the spray at Silver, grandpa's Samoyed dog. Silver tried to get away in the fenced yard, but was more or less cornered along one fence line. My grandfather tore out of the house (I had never once see him do anything other than walk), ran up to me, swatted me on the butt, yelled right in my face, "Don't do that!", and walked back into the house. That's it. Don't do that. I was absolutely dumbstruck with shame, for I knew quite well that what I was doing was wrong. I walked back into the house and it was as if nothing had happened. We watched TV for a while, and then he asked me what I wanted to eat for dinner. My behavior was not discussed. Words would have diluted the lesson I received that day: you don't disrespect life.

Like the word "dignity" above, the word "respect" does not convey that which I had the extreme privilege of witnessing as a child. In the Protestant benediction, the final line spoken by the minister is usually something like, "Father, grant us the peace which passes all understanding."

What is "peace which passes all understanding"? In plain Scots talk, it might mean peace you can't explain, peace you can never explain. In my experiences, there are (precious few) times when I am in that plane of peace. You're golfing, or rehabbing your kitchen, or visiting old friends at your high school reunion, and some fun and bubbly person comes up to you and asks most innocently: why are you so content? There you are retreating at the speed of light ass first out of the tunnel. The question itself utterly destroys the state. To contemplate it is to end it.

For my grandfather, respect for life is what you breathed, not what you thought about. Who thinks about air, fer crying out loud? I saw in my grandfather the day the kitten was killed, the day I teased Silver with a garden hose, and every day God blessed me with his company, a respect for life which passes all understanding.

Posted by nopundit at October 23, 2004 07:41 PM