Well, since The Maximum Leader over at Naked Villainy wished me a Happy St. Andrew's Day, I decided that it behooved (is that a word?) me to find out more about this St. Andrew person. See, as being adopted and all, I wasn’t aware of my heritage until fairly recently* (about 10 years – which is a relatively short amount of time to learn anything about your heritage. Especially seeing as I didn’t grow up in an environment that acknowledged it. Instead I grew up in a household that ate sauerkraut and bratwurst and all sorts of evvvilllll things – which thinking on it isn’t really all that nasty when it is compared to Haggis.) Back to my point… what was it again?
Oh yeah, St. Andrew. Now, no offense is meant to my Scottish brethren, but to me, St. Andrew seems a bit of a slacker in the saintly category. Or perhaps that is just because there aren’t a lot of records of him. Most Catholics (including the recovering ones… i.e. me) are well aware of St. Peter’s (denial) part in the story (Andrew’s brother, if you don’t want to bother reading the link) but Andrew… not so much. True, according to the link, he helped to spread the word of Christianity to Greece and Asia Minor, but why would that make him the patron saint of Scotland? Hell, he didn’t even have the energy to actually make it to Scotland himself. Instead he died, rotted, waited around for a few years to have another Saint come and carry some of his bits to Scotland. Why wasn’t St. Rule the patron saint? He’s the one that did all the cartin’.
Ok, before anyone gets their knickers in a twist – I ma just having a bit of fun. I mean no disrespect to St. Andrew. Nor any to my Scottish brothers and sisters. Maybe a little disrespect to the wacky Catholics – because they are just fun to pick on. Maybe someday when I save up enough money, I will make a trip to Scotland to celebrate. Anyway, to everyone who knows about this holiday, Happy St. Andrew’s Day!
* - and yet oddly enough, I had all ready mastered the creation of the hot toddie and have a weakness for whiskey... should have been a dead give-away.