PATRIARCH OF THE CLAN [Sat, 7-24-21]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

I have been the patriarch of the McFarland clan for several years, even though I didn’t know it. Now, though, I’ve been looking at the calendar, the one our granddaughter made, on our coffee table, the one my father made.

The calendar is a spiral-top stand-up, with a different family photo for each month. Each day for almost the entire month of July I have seen a quite large group of McFarlands gathered for reunion six years ago at Spring Mill State Park. The park is in Indiana, but the people in the photo came from three of the US coasts—California, Florida, and Canada—and many of the states in between. There I am, in the front row, seated, as is the wont with old people at family reunions. Yes, I am not only the oldest male in the photo, I am the oldest male in our family, anywhere. I am the patriarch.

Or maybe not. Can you be a clan patriarch if you are a bastard? [I’m talking lineage, not behavior. Lots of patriarchs have behaved badly, but they were still patriarchs.]

When I was 65, my father told me that I was the one of his four children who was not really his. My first reaction was chagrin: how come the bastard is the one taking care of you in your old age while your legitimate kids horse around having good times in far-away places? I didn’t say that to him, of course, for this was on the telephone, and he started crying and had to hang up. I assumed he’d get back to me on it, but he never did.

I’ve never worried much about it. I look like a McFarland—my father, my brother, my uncles, my cousins. And even if John F. McFarland were not my father biologically, he certainly was in all the ways that counted. Except…

…what if one of my male cousins challenges my claim to clan patriarch, because I’m not legitimate? Jerry David and Arthur are dead, but the others are a gnarly and suspicious lot. What about Paul? Or Don… Phil… Pat… Tim… Michael… Or my brother, Jim? Yeah, Jim would probably be the one. Except his wife, Milicent, wouldn’t let him, so I’m okay there. And my cousins are all too smart to want to be clan leader, with all the work thereof, and the traditions to uphold.

The McFarland clan in Scotland, MacFarlane back then, was the brigand clan. We lived on the western and southern shores of Loch Lomond and, by the light of the full moon, which to this day is known as MacFarlane’s Lantern, would go down to the lowlands and pillage, which apparently amounted to stealing pigs and women.

We were at a banquet in Scotland once, and when the folk singer/entertainer saw my name tag, she became quite frightened, and sang a song in Gaelic which was translated for us as: “Grab your spears and grab your wife and run for your life because the McFarlands are coming.”

That’s a lot to live up to as clan patriarch. I like bacon, but I would not want to deal with all those stolen women.

John Robert McFarland