December 11, 2023
Greetings from the gloaming,
There are a few words that mean a great deal to me, all for their own reasons. Some are complex, with rich history, others simply a bookmark that reminds me of a thousand other words. Some weeks ago, my sister sent me a note asking about ‘Wee Jim’. In that sentence, I was instantly connected to a flurry of history and people, as if the room had exploded in a whirlwind of living.
There is a town in central Scotland named Hamilton, only a short distance from Glasgow. It is famous for a few things, chief among them that it was where our Dad was born. By the time we met, some twenty-six years later, and thousands of miles away in another town in Michigan, Dad’s Scottish brogue had been softened, and he’d adopted the language of his new home. But throughout our life, it would resurface,
Oor Hume. He was known as Scotty, but to all of his family, those to whom he belonged, he was Oor Hume. That among all the people named Hume, he was ours. It is an endearment that holds a spectrum of relationships, from friend to uncle to son to neighbor to father.
Whenever Dad would reunite with his family from the old country, it was a celebration, and thankfully it was a common thing as we grew up. It was also when he returned to his native voice. So in our house, the children became ‘weans’ or ‘bairns’ and a sandwich was a ‘piece’ and there was a different song in his voice as he talked with his kin from back home.
“Eat up, you’re at your auntie’s.” Dad would tell us at Sunday dinner. No explanation as to why. And if the kids acted up, someone would say “Och, aye…I’ll gie ye a raisin ta greet…”
He would whoop with his brothers, and they played raucous music, and there would be dancing and drinking and they would shout “Awa’ n bile your head…” or “Yer bum’s oot the windae.” And “Yer aff yer haid, ya flippin eejit.” And someone would say “Ye wanna cuppa?” and “Nae the noo, hen.” And “Don be daft…” and “Ah dinna ken…” “De ye mind when…?”
When I was eleven, I was given Dad’s place on a plane back to Scotland, and I stayed in his brother’s row house in Hamilton. And there I met my cousin, Wee Jim. Since his father was also Jim, Oor Jim, then there had to be a distinction. Hence, Wee Jim. Jim’s brother was Hume, so some days ‘Oor Hume’ and others ‘Wee Hume’, and so we always knew which one.
I shared a room with cousin Jimmy and he shared his comics and toys, and he took me around to all the interesting places in the neighborhood. We roamed the streets, stopping in to kick the football here, or chase after the sweets truck, or simply run with the other boys between the yards and fields. We explored the woods nearby, climbing down into a rift in the hilly places to play along the river. We took a train into Glasgow and went to my first James Bond film, “at the pitchers”. In a short time, we became good friends and shared that connection for many years, and perhaps a stronger one that has been an undercurrent for even longer.
I was introduced as “This’s Oor Hume’s boy, from America.” And the kids in the neighborhood called me a Yank, and marveled at my accent and strange language, which was an odd thing since I was sure I didn’t have an accent, everyone else did.
As I grew up in Michigan we were connected to the families from ‘back home’. Some came to visit, some stayed and raised families, others went back to Scotland. But we wove in and out of each other’s lives, created memories, traded words with each other like small gifts.
There was an enclave of Scottish transplants in our town, which my Dad sought out in time, to have someone to talk with about the old place, or sing the songs from there, or listen to the bagpipes. For them it was a comfort to trade the language back and forth, the words they missed saying, the bits and pieces of their natural language they never took for granted.
These words won’t mean much to most of you, understandably. I’ll be honest, almost none of them are used in my daily life, but somehow they still hold this powerful connection. I hadn’t forgotten that entirely, but it came rushing back when my sister asked if I’d heard that Wee Jim’s wife had passed away.
Wee Jim. I haven’t thought the words in years, and longer still since I spoke with my cousin. But in the fraction it took to read the note from my sister, Wee Jim brought back all the color and sound and flavors of my Dad’s family, on both sides of the pond. Jimmy, Wee Jim, Oor Jim, lost the love of his life, and somehow through the shimmering years he came right back to me, and my heart broke with his. Because his Cathy, is Oor Cathy.
Somehow there is a bond in these words, one that I had taken for granted for a moment. But this morning I feel it, connecting me to those who I loved, those who I claimed as mine, and who held me as theirs. Oor ‘uns. We share blood and history and memories, and we share the words that were present in all of it.
Hope this finds you fir auld lang syne, my jo,
David
Copyright © 2023 David Smith
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