Scots and risky: exploring a daredevil heritage

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in family,identity,origin,self-image

Wild Bill's by B.Murphy

By BRIGET MURPHY

In the mid 1700s my ancestors came to America from Scotland by boat. Then they plunged into the wilderness of the Allegheny mountains of Pennsylvania. Harsh elements, untamed land, wild beasts. The real possibility of being scalped.

Following generations produced more risk-takers. Bear wrestlers. A pregnant bank robber. Great Aunt Mimi Garneau the sword swallower. The black sheep of the family would be my father’s conventional brother John. Married without drama, retired after a career as a high school counselor, a homebody whose favorite pasttime is smoking his pipe and listening to The Kingston Trio.

While my dad was busy driving cars into lakes and building a one-person helicopter, I was a teenager in daredevil-training.

Climbing metal bridge spans, playing chicken with approaching trains, and hitch-hiking. By high school, I decided the Army would be infinitely more exciting than college. Only sixteen hours into bootcamp, while being cursed at by drill instructors and duck walking in the rain, I figured I should have joined the newspaper club instead.

Later I jumped at the chance to buy a Victorian house in a crack-infested Memphis, Tennessee neighborhood. My husband and I had to fight off the Hell’s Lovers motorcycle gang and street thugs to renovate the place. I’m proud of my role in rehabilitating Cooper-Young, now a progressive, diverse and artsy neighborhood but back then even fun had a sketchy edge. I frequented Wild Bill’s, a real Southern juke joint with the best soul food in town — and the best blues in the world.

What role does risk play in the way you experience the world?

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Briget Murphy is a writer and photographer who flew to Turkey after seeing an ad for an English tutor in Craigslist. She’s presently in Iowa working on a book of Istanbul street photographs taken by expats.

Tagged as: 18th century, Allegheny, Army, bank robber, bear wrestler, black sheep, blues, Cooper Young, Craigslist, dangerous, daredevil, Hell's Lovers, hitch-hiking, homebody, immigrant, immigration, Istanbul, juke joint, Kingston Trio, Memphis, Mimi Garneau, Native American, Pennsylvania, renovation, resident activist, risk, Scotland, Southern blues, sword swallower, Tennessee, urban decay, Wild Bill's

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  • http://www.expatharem.com/identity-messages/ Anastasia

    At Matador Network's Brave New Traveler, a writer asks if risk-takers are ' a dying breed' — yet notes that if we're programmed for adventure, we find it where ever we go.

  • Briget_Murphy

    Giulietta,

    It wasn't until I read “The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca” that it really hit home how, to the early settlers in America, this country must have seemed like another planet…even more so to the first explorers! Brave people.

    Kudos to you for speaking/writing your mind! (Just read your latest blog entries.) I think it is harder for women to do so than for men because women are judged more harshly and in a different manner for that in our society. That is why there are more men editorialists than there are women. (At least, that is my theory!) :-)

  • http://www.giuliettathemuse.com/blog Giulietta Nardone

    Hi Briget,

    When you think of folks coming over here packed on a boat like sardines for a better life without knowing much about the new world, it blows your mind. Today many people won't even leave the house without knowing the weather. Congrats on bringing Cooper-young to life! Love historic homes. Thanks for saving one.

    If presented with the opportunity, I usually attempt the risk, especially the inner risks like speaking up and out about something unpopular or being direct in an indirect world.

    Wild Bill's looks fun! Giulietta

  • Briget_Murphy

    Amelia Earhart!! Not only a risk-taker, but a female with such grand aspirations who followed her dreams, at a time when that was rarely heard of. I believe birth control for women was illegal at the time?!

    I wish I would have kept a journal of my years in Cooper Young. Remembering the early days there, I can't believe I had the guts to live in such a situation.: gang graffiti spray-painted on the street in front of my house (it was a mark, “pick up your crack here”), four murders on my little block over a period of time (two beatings, a stabbing and a gunshot). By the way, the clubhouse for the motocycle gang mysteriously burned down after a few years. I don't think the authorities ever figured out the cause and frankly I don't think they cared :-)

    I agree, not taking risks is the greater risk, and I find it irritating when some people tell me that whatever venture I'm undertaking “won't work”, “isn't feasable”, “won't pay off”, is “dangerous”, etc. Even if a risk taken does not “pay off”, what is learned along the way is valuable.

  • http://www.bazaarbayar.blogspot.com Catherine Bayar

    Briget, if only more people took 'risks' like you! I love how you had the foresight to buy that Victorian…and see, you helped revive an entire community. Acting on such a vision is seen as being risky by most, but to me, not acting on it is the greater risk: to self-fulfillment, growth and really finding out how we're meant to make waves in this world.

    Like you, I've come from a risk-taking gene pool, from instigators of the American Revolution to Amelia Earhart (and we all know what happened to her…) I've been told how 'brave' I was to move to Turkey, but it turned out to be place most suited to me, despite its foreignness to my birth culture. The real risk would have been ignoring my inner voice and not making that move.

    Risks these days involve boring things like jumping in over our heads in financial matters. Unlike Joe, we have no kids to look to in our old age! But again, following my vision and my gut takes priority over playing it safe. And frankly, why else are we here?

  • Catherine Bayar

    I love that book, Judith! Yes, off across that icy lake…what a great example of family generations remaking themselves, the main character quite literally. I'd love to see you write a memoir as well, Briget.

  • http://twitter.com/rosedeniz rosedeniz

    Just reading this was a thrill, Briget. I've been told that moving overseas could be seen as the riskiest thing I've ever done. I'm not sure I agree, though, because I find in my creative work my boundaries get pushed the most. Where it feels the most uncertain is often the direction I have to go, be it art or location. That doesn't mean ignoring intuition or fact, just that I know when my hurdles require taking the risk or not – an internal knowing.

  • Briget_Murphy

    If risk is what we take on when we leave our comfort zone, maybe Uncle John has us all fooled! Maybe he's a wild madcap at heart and what APPEARS to be a staid life is in actuality…a wild adventure!

  • Briget_Murphy

    No “d”. Judith :-) I don't foresee a memoir in my future, but my sister is writing one.

    You wrote ” …I haven't chosen any obvious straight forward paths. Mine is more the meandering, 'the road there is what it's really all about' kind of voyage”. Meaning the journey is what's important, not the destination? If so, I agree. In fact, I don't think there IS a destination, do you?

    I've always loved Robert Frost's poem “The Road Less Traveled” (or “The Road Not Taken):
    I shall be telling this with a sigh
    Somewhere ages and ages hence:
    Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
    I took the one less traveled by,
    And that has made all the difference

  • Briget_Murphy

    Thanks for commenting, Fiona! I miss you all in Memphis as well, plus the food and music and that Southern mojo! I know you're a risk-taker! Leaving your homeland of Scotland to live in the US was a major decision but it must have worked out, as you're still here. Bad luck for Scotland, good look for us!

  • Briget_Murphy

    I empathize with you, Joe-in-Turkey! I always thought I would die very young as well, by some stupid accident…like maybe a satellite falling on my head :-)

  • http://www.expatharem.com/identity-messages/ Anastasia

    Thanks for this, Briget!

    I think risk is often what we take on when we leave our comfort zone. But if your comfort zone is risk — as it seems to be for many of Briget's relatives — then the conventional uncle is the one who took the biggest risk in terms of his family framework.

    Risk in my world has shifted from life and health risking to challenging much more internal mechanisms. Sense of self. Risk of social approbation. Hell, risk of lawsuit.

  • http://twitter.com/DutchessAbroad Judith van Praag

    Briget (no d right?)! My heart beat sped up reading your Flash (non) Fiction post. The sentence “When Dad was busy driving cars into lakes…” made me think of Jeffrey Euginides's novel “Middlesex”. Will novel or memoir writing be the next adventure you'll embark on?

    A friend once told me most people walk around a problem when they see it coming, 'but you seem to head straight into it,” he said. These days I'd rather get out of the way of the storm, but true enough, I haven't chosen any obvious straight forward paths. Mine is more the meandering, “the road there is what it's really all about” kind of voyage. There's some risk involved in that I guess. But it's more so, seen from the outside then when it's your life.

  • Ecosse67

    Bridget, I hope you are doing well (and not playing it too safe of course.)I miss you and so does Memphis.
    When asked by my mum a few years ago. “Why do you always make things more difficult for yourself?”
    My reply, “I just like a challenge mum.”

  • http://thechangingman.livejournal.com/ Joe-in-turkey

    I am now facing up to to the risk I took in planning for old age. I planned on not having one by dieing early through bad food and good booze. Now I have actually survived I am risking my future on bringing up two daughters and hoping they look after me!

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