In 1685 an young Scottish boy by the name of Charles
McAnally was playing on the bank of the PerthRiver
with some friends when they discovered a large earthen pot filled with money.
The father of one of the boys sent young Charles back to find his father to
help them divide the money amongst them. The father and the other boys stayed
to guard the money.
Charles ran enthusiastically back to his home. On the way,
he encountered a stranger on horseback. “What is your hurry?” the man asked.
Charles told the stranger what he and his friends had discovered and that he
was running back to get his father. The stranger told Charles that it would be
faster if he hoped on his horse and let him take him back to his house. The
young Charles trustfully mounted the horse and was taken, not to his house, but
to the port and put on a ship about to embark to America.
Several months later, 10-year-old Charles McAnally arrived
in Philadelphia.
He grew up on the estate of an unnamed man as a live-in unpaid worker. When he
became an adult, he married and settled on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. This is
how my ancestors came to be Americans.
I tell this story in March at the time of St. Patrick’s day
even though the origin is in Scotland,
not Ireland, because my
ancestors came from both Scotland
and Ireland.
the Irish stories are not nearly so dramatic. Charles McAnally is my ancestor:
he was the great, great grandfather of my great, great grandmother, Eliza
Potts. That is seven generations away from me. In a way, that isn’t so long
ago, and yet, not many of us can trace our roots that many generations back, so
I believe it is important to keep this story, sketchy as it is, alive.
This story was passed down through the generations orally,
but is also found recorded in an 1837 document by a Bishop in the Methodist
Episcopal Church, David Rice McAnally.
I met a homeless man in New York City while
working an internship at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine with the Omega
Liturgical Dance Company. I was 20 years old, trusting, naïve, and
impressionable. The young, skinny black man, just a few years older than I was,
captured me with his eyes as deep as the ocean. He didn’t speak very much, but
when he did, it was always something profound. He hung around my office and
offered a thought from time to time. Periodically he’d ask me a question and
seemed to ponder my replies. In time, we became friends. He sat silently with
me whenever I went to the Cathedral gardens and watched the peacocks. Between
long silences, we talked about the goodness of humanity in spite the violence
and injustice all around us. He was a mystery to me, and his resilience
impressed me greatly.
He drew pictures and gave them to me as souvenirs
. He signed them "Artooz Fungie". I finally learned that his name was Tino.
A few months into my internship,
I went to volunteer at a youth center in Harlem
that was actually housed in an abandoned building shared with drug addicts. My
friend, Tino, walked me into and out of Harlem
every day. I never knew where he went while I worked with the kids, but he never
failed to show up when I was ready to leave and he ensured I that I never
walked in Harlem unchaperoned by him. I was
moved by his kindness and naïve enough to never suspect that he had an ulterior
motive. He never gave me reason to doubt him; and now, nearly 30 years later, I
still do not doubt the sincerity of his kindness.
Still sorting through old boxes
and settling into a new home, I recently found this poem in my New York scrapbook and
I’m pretty sure I wrote it about Tino. It’s terrible, but nonetheless, I am
sharing it because it represents a young woman’s tender, safe, and protected
experience in a potentially dangerous environment. I am older, wiser, and much
less daring now than I was then, but the questions remain about that young
homeless man and really, about humankind: what is anyone’s source of
perseverance and endurance? What makes any of us move and love and think?
Oh righteous manof mystery’s tempting wink What makes you moveand loveand think? Cast a dream upon the moon a wish of silence to hushthe human’s dangerous brood. Oh righteous manof humble peace and quiet rest, what is your sourceof breath, your heart
