Historical Past

I think it's a mistake to look too far into your past. It's a curse in my own family, an addiction to our inability to produce anything but drunks, clergymen and lawyers despite having been on the planet for several millenia. If you think Al Quaeda is bad, look no further than the MacKinnons for people hooked on losing causes. We must be the only genetic grouping that has managed to be among the founding fathers of Canada, arriving barely after the Indians, ahem excuse me, first nations aboriginals, and still haven't managed to hang on to more than a couple of acres of land. Here is the author, finding meaning where there is none, with the Abbott of Iona, a scurvy, 15th century sybarite who spent his afternoons with his lover, Margaret or Hildegard, whatever, in MacKinnon's Cave, breaking his holy vows. Showing a typical, dominant MacKinnon trait, the good abbott overoptimistically engraved the figures 15.. on his tombstone in expectation of living to a venerable age, but then dropped dead in 1498, which also is the first historical precedent of a MacKinnon being edited.