Ra Faither!

Christmas Eve 8:36 p.m.
My old man died on Christmas Eve about forty two years ago. I was about thirteen going on fourteen, or a year older.

I try to think about my old man at this time of year, but only since I got older have I been in this habit.

When I was a kid, for a while I thought my old man and my sister, who was the invalid, were both saints. Some schoolteacher must have told me God loved folk who suffered, or were ill, or something like that. This might have been about the time I thought beams of sunlight coming through the clouds were grace coming from heaven; when I was about seven or eight.

I can't remember what grace is supposed to be, Jack. It's supposed to be good whatever it is, Hotboy. Hail Mary, full of grace ...

A sign that God loved you was that you were funged. This is the opposite of the calvinists. A sign that God loved you if you were a proddie was that you were a rich, bourgeois basturn.

The proddies invented capitalism. God was so good to us that we're all going to die of the warm earth syndrome. Give it thirty years and it'll be a living hell, so it will!

My old man was a devout catholic. Sometimes he got us to kneel and pray for my sister. He was five foot two, a humphy backit, sparrow chested asthmatic with chronic bronchitis thrown in. A natural flyweight. He had five boys and two girls. He was a pict among vikings. My auld maw when she was fair, fat and forty was twice his weight and six inches taller. His first two sons were six footers.

He was brought up in a room and kitchen in Mossend in a family of eleven down by the Woodend Hotel. My auld maw got a job in the hotel when she left school and that's how they met. My old man was a bricklayer. He enjoyed helping to build the Sacred Heart Church in Bellshill. My brother Silvest, row of forty medals on his chest, big chest, wanted them to go to a better paid job, but I think my auld man liked the idea of helping to build the chapel.

My old man had a great sense of humour. He and the auld maw did laugh a lot, both of them. I think they thought children were funny.

It is very hard for me to aspire to be as good as my old man. It is not an impediment to admire your parents.

Merry Christmas from the HotboyMadyamikaS.O.B.