You may know the expression, “the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree?” In my case, it applies well regarding the nut.
Seriously, though, around this time of year, I always get weepy and my shrink gets concerned and uses names like “excessive lability ”…well, as he is a Scot, he should know that it’s the romantic in me, and not the neurotic.
Being part German doesn’t help and, to confuse the field even more, there is a Belgian in there for balance.
Every fall as the leaves turn gold and orange and the rain comes with the wind whipping against the window, all I can think of is family and the close of the year.
Halloween is upon us and every spooky thing jumps out to bother me as I am a haunted man. Single malt scotch helps, proving time and again that the Canadian landscape, so like the Highlands, grip us in the same way. I can hear the bagpipes over the glen.
I am moved and distressed to hear that Knox Church, that bastion of Presbyterianism, has been sold. I imagine Playfair rolling over in his grave and wanting to rise up against the low, low church of the evangelists and shake his fist in frustration.
My forefathers were Scots Presbyterians as well as Congregational Ministers… pulpit orators all. We grow silent about the other side as they could never reconcile themselves to the Catholicity of the Belgians or Bavarians as they were caught between Hanoverians and Jacobites.
My aunt Mary Philip was a staunch Catholic and could never understand my mum marrying one of Rupert’s own.
Note well: The Jacobite line is the “rightful king” of Britain, as Mary of Modena’s son was Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. Like Alice we are down the rabbit hole and that is what melancholia looks like.
Suffice to say, the Scots are in the ascendent on our family shield, with a demi-rampant Talbot..yes, a breed of dog.
Keep Faith it states….Keep Faith. It is Halloween again.
René Hackstetter, October 26, 2022.