Heinz 57 and Proud Of It!

Years ago, when our daughter was a toddler we played a little game at the supper table to help her claim her identity.  We would ask, “What’s Mommy?” and her reply would be, “Mommy’s ‘Norwigian’.”  What’s Emily and with pride she’d respond, “Emily’s Korean.”  Keeping all things equal, “what’s Fritz?”  “Fritz is a cocker spin” (really, a cocker spaniel).  Finally, we would ask, “What’s Daddy?”  With great delight Emily would belt out her reply and scrunch up her face “Daddy’s a mutt!”

And, I am quite pleased with my heritage:  I am a mutt.  I have a Germanic surname.  I have a fluency in German only by way of a university degree.  People just assume that I am a knockwurst or two away from the Vaterland.  Truth be told, Great-grandfather Schaub was the last twig of the family tree who was entirely German.

But the joy of being a mutt is that whenever I hear the oom-pah, oom-pah of a polka band, that 12.5% of German blood rises to the top and I suddenly crave sauerbraten and knödel washed down with a liter of bier.

Then, the month of March comes along and corny local advertising turns to shamrocks and leprechauns.  On those occasions my Irish heritage rises to the top.  The blarney is the biggest supply of corpuscles flowing through my blood stream coming from both my mother and father.  More specifically, it is Scots-Irish, Scotsmen who for political and religious reasons traveled across the bay to Ireland.  Nevertheless, I get excited at the sound of a jig and the sight of things in plaid.  I have visited a couple pubs in Dublin while on an overnight layover.  I am sure my Protestant Irish forbears rolled over in their graves with the thought of my lips tasting a pint, but it was a token connection to the old sod that I was able to make.

While interviewed at my first congregation I was asked off the record if I was Norwegian.  “No, I’m not,” I replied, “but I’m one-eighth Danish.”  “That’s close enough” was the pleasant response.  Yes, I claim Scandinavian heritage as well—not much but at least one-eighth.  My grandmother’s father came from Copenhagen to this country and he gave up all his Danish ways.  But, seeing sights and images of Denmark gives me a yearning from within that wants to do things Danish or learn to read Søren Kirkegaard in the original Danish.

Another face of my multi-personality disorder responds to the raising of the Union Jack and the playing of “God Save the Queen.”  My Grandma Bessie, the source of my English blood tributary, was the one who taught me how to drink tea which initiated those anglophile stirrings.  With the help of Ancestry.com, they told me that Geoffrey Chaucer was my 18^th great-grandfather.  That was enough for me to shout out, “Pip, pip, cheerio, old chum."

 I am proud to be a mutt! I am delighted to be a one-man European Common Market. I feel sorry for those folks who claim only a single heritage.  Their heritage tour to Grandpa’s birth country would be so dull.  But, when we make our pilgrimage, we will certainly climb the mountains to Lillehamer, Norway, and soak in the Nordic culture of my gracious wife.  But, I look forward to bouncing around the continent and visiting the villages where family members once lived and where festivals were celebrated and where those Germans, Irishmen, Danes, and Englishmen and whoever else, worked, raised families, endured hardships, and longed for a better life in the new country for their children.

Now, after a certain point, the ethnic pride begins to fade.  True, I appreciate the history of my French Huguenot ancestors but I have never been motivated to celebrate the fact that I am 1/64 French. Sacre bleu!