A Family Gathering

The close-knit McClanahan clan became an American family in 1890, with Lady Liberty as witness. Thirty-one immigrants, from bodachs to the bairn—old men to the babies, in the parlance of their new language—eventually settled in New Berg, North Carolina, and, in the custom of their beliefs, were fruitful and multiplied. They were a raucous, fun-loving lot; McClanahan family gatherings held every August in the New Berg park were legendary.

In 1901, 18-year old William McKenzie McClanahan stepped outside the Scottish DNA and married a pretty blonde of German descent, named Hetty Meyer. Two years later, Edward Oliver ‘Ollie’ McClanahan was born, the result of this early 20th-century version of a mixed-marriage.

Ollie, following in his father’s love for immigrant girls from mainland Europe, married Gretchen Duesterhaus in 1922. The two hausfraus (housewives here) took their share of ribbing over the years for ‘watering down the Guiness’; the bodachs laughed, but the fraus took it all in stride and became Scotch for a day, sipping their malt whiskey secretly in opaque coffee cups during the many McClanahan family get-togethers. Edward and Gretchen gave birth to Meyer McClanahan eight months later; he matured and married a gal from Georgia named June Reynolds, both twenty-four years old.

Patriarch William McKenzie McClanahan passed away in 1967,  age 84. Almost everyone in New Berg was at his wake. His namesake, great-grandson William Joseph ‘Billy Joe’ McClananhan was three. He didn’t remember his great-grandfather alive, only the kiss he was forced to plant on the cold man’s forehead.

Other than that experience tucked away deep inside his psyche, Billy Joe McClanahan was a happy lad. As a toddler and through early childhood, he had a clan of a family to coddle him (he could especially play Grandpa Ollie like a one-stringed mandolin), although there were fewer cousins his age to play with since the Pill stopped the Pope’s edict in its tracks.

When family wasn't around when Billy needed a friend, the only child, lonely at times, turned to his imaginary one, Hoden, to play with; to confide in. Hoden especially brought comfort on stormy nights under the covers when ghost couples of blowing branches danced across his bedroom walls.

Meyer and June McClanahan had intended on raising a larger family, but nature, not pharmaceuticals, put the kibosh on that. His mom’s uterine rupture caused when he was born didn't matter much to Billy Joe since Grandpa Ollie lived only a short bike ride away and he could catch earthworms and frogs and fish just as well as any little brother or sister probably could.

At nine, the boy pressed his eyelids tight and fought back his reawakened trauma as he was forced to kiss his beloved grandpa’s waxy forehead, and was left alone without his best friend. His parents, feeling their young son’s funk, bought him a puppy for Christmas that he named Dahjo. Billy Joe and Dahjo romped and played and comforted each other until he graduated New Berg High, and enrolled at Duke University.

In 1988, Billy Joe McClanahan earned a degree and snagged a wife, nee, Dorita Wilson, via a late 20th-century version of a mixed-marriage (interracial matrimony had been legalized in the state only two decades before), and birthed a wee bairn they named Edward McKenzie McClanahan. Unlike Billy Joe’s parents who craved an entire cookie sheet of gingersnaps but couldn’t, he and Dorita were happy and satisfied with just Eddie, their only child.

The three-pack batch of MaClanahans moved to suburban Winston-Salem, while Death took its toll back in New Berg, choosing and picking off the many ancient aunts and uncles first. Then he took Grandma Gretchen in ‘91; Mom from breast cancer in ‘93; Dad, from prostate cancer a year later. That was tough to bear for Billy Joe, but especially for Eddie, so he did what cheered him up after his Grandpa Ollie died when he was but a lonely wee lad-–he bought a family dog they named Bobain.

Billy Joe, busy with life, blinked and realized that the once full-flowering William McKenzie branch on the McClanahan family tree had been whittled away to a twig of just the three of them. This came to his attention as he was walking from New Berg’s Catholic Cemetery after laying to rest the last of the clan, ancient aunt by marriage Margaret Migillicuddy McClanahan. Then it was just him and Dorita after Eddie’s Schwinn got crunched underneath a minivan as the ten-year-old was pedaling to school on May 6 of ‘98.

The loss was unfathomable. The grieving parents barely existed for seven years until they could finally look life in the eye again with the help of a whelp at the pound they found named Wayne.

Wayne seemed to sense his humans were forlorn, and did all he could do to bring them comfort, if just for a sloppy lick or a long ‘curl-up-next-to’ as his people sat and bawled their eyes out. In later years, the broken couple rescued many more wayward pooches and kittens–and once even a chicken that was perched on a front porch chair looking in! The critters and the McClanahan clan of two became each other's emotional support animals when in need.

William Joseph McClanahan and his wife crossed the rainbow bridge on March 12, 2024, when the Harley he bought for his 60th birthday got blindsided by a high school kid who ran a stop sign, similar to the way their son left Earth. They blinked and realized they were in a neon pasture with electric flowers, alive and unbroken and young again. Billy Joe’s sublimity and wonder swelled when Hoden, his imaginary childhood friend, came skipping towards him. Quickly behind raced Dahjo, Bobain, and good ‘ol Wayne, with happy tails wagging.

It was a dog-pile of a reunion, with hugs and kisses and many, many,

‘thanks-for-being-there-when-I-needed-a-hug’ when they were all earthbound. The entire happy menagerie of rescued emotional support animals over the years welcomed him here—then they metamorphed into his living, breathing McClanahan clansfolk, proving that family is not separated by space or time after all.

Old William McKenzie McClanahan chuckled at his cleverness at coming back as his great-grandson’s imaginary friend, and because of the name he took: Hoden, a takeoff of houdin, the Gaelic word for angel. Yes, he guided the boy through his early life; it was the least he could do after their traumatic forced good-bye.

Beloved Grandpa Ollie had come down to him as well after he had died—his spirit reincarnated into the Scottish terrier pup he got for Christmas: Dahjo, a gaelic word meaning grandfather, who guided him through adolescence. Bobain, a Scottish word for dad led him through his parental years, All the other relatives were all the other rescues, with Margaret McClanahan Migillicuddy as the old hen that they had taken in! Eddie got the most love of all, for he was Wayne (a Highlander word for wean, or child) in their lives before.

In this über-emerald land, the McClanahan clan, in death, are once again reunited. They are a raucous, fun-loving lot; their family gatherings are legendary.

By CraigE

From: United States