Genetics

My father loved horse racing. Nothing gave him a bigger thrill than a day at Churchill Downs or Keeneland or Ellis Park. The scent of horse liniment wafted through the air as a line of horses pranced into the paddock for saddling before each race hypnotized him. Add that to a beer in one hand the Racing Form in the other, the whispers of expectation erupting from the crowd into a roar as the thoroughbreds bolted away from the clanging bell when the starting gates flew open, and his day was filled with joy. When he lost money, he never complained. When he won, he never bragged. The gambling didn’t drive him to the track as much as the science of breeding and the notion of its importance.

Breeding is one major factor when translated into a term horse racing experts call “Class” or sometimes “Heart” as a synonym. Theoretically, the better bred a horse is the more competitive it will be in a race and the more value it has. It is an almost mystical term that rises above athletic ability. For example, if I were to put two horses in a race and all other things being equal, including their speed, the horse with the best bloodlines would theoretically end up finishing first most of the time. At its most basic level, we’re talking about equine eugenics.

Eugenics developed as the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. While it may prove valuable to study horse breeding, it has proved unscientific and disastrous among humans. Think of how the Nazis perverted it to murder eight million jews. Think of how Americans used it to enslave blacks and slaughter Native Americans. It simply does not work when a species has free will to make choices that perpetuate “class” and “heart” by race and color or when circumstances intervene at random to alter completely a person’s environment and lifestyle. Or so I thought at one time in my life. I have some personal knowledge of what I thought to be this reality.

On the other hand, my daughter researches our heritage by examining DNA and ancestral lineage. This has led me to believe that genetics also plays a major role, not in creating random circumstances, but in circumstances we create with our own behavior and how we respond to both random and self-generated circumstances. Recently she discovered that through my grandmother’s line on my father’s side of the family we are descended from a Scottish lord and his wife, who was herself a notorious witch back in the day. Piecing this together with my cousin Rosemary’s research, which concludes we came from a line of whisky-riddled Irish Presbyterian ministers through my grandfather’s line on my father’s side. I was able to establish a basis for my noble arrogance that tends to rear its drunken head when bourbon becomes available.

What shocked me most came from my daughter’s discover that through DNA analysis of my mother’s side of the family, I could boast of royal—as in monarchial—ancestors as well. It turns out I was descended from Marie Antoinette. Parsing this bit of information led me to understand why I’m overweight and seem to have no discipline when it comes to shedding my excess pounds. I’ve inherited a problem from cousin Marie. I’m cursed with a love of cake. It isn’t my fault. There is now scientific proof available that I will eat almost any kind of cake almost anyone will bake, and as much as possible.

This fact doesn’t make me worthy of getting my head cut off, necessarily. It does, however, answer some of my personal questions about why I seem to give myself over to excessive behavior at times. I am royalty and entitled to do whatever I want. For example, I will eat two Big Macs if they are available, watch the same movie over and over if it fills some adventurous or romantic delusion in my life, and a half-empty bottle of bourbon is unbearable to me. There is no such thing as a “small” risk for me, which explains over a dozen broken bones and four marriages. I like tobacco and am quite capable on a mountain top of pissing into the wind. Many careers have begun and ended during my youth—warrior, teacher, horse trainer, mail carrier, evangelist, construction foreman, carpet layer, bartender, social worker, and car salesman, to name a few. I have managed to live a relatively happy life and raise a couple of great children. While most of my failures have found excuses in my proclivities for extreme behavior, I have found an excuse for my extreme behavior. I was born this way. I can’t help it. Right now at the age of 76, I am a firm believer in equality, compassion, charity, peace, and freedom. So, I’m thinking of going to a Trump rally where I live here in the deep South wearing a Vote for Biden tee shirt. It’s in my genes to make people angry. What could go wrong?