For a few weeks The Hawk 103.1 FM was the source a great deal of fun for my friends and family - at my expense.

    This newspaper has been running advertisements on that station, but unfortunately for the Hawk, and for the poor announcer who recorded those ads, I'm cursed.

    In fact, my whole family is cursed.

    And I don't mean "cursed" in some kind of metaphorical sense. I mean it in the good old-fashioned toad-in-the-cauldron, black cat and broomstick way.

    Well, actually, it's more like the clerical way.

    My whole family, since the 1500s, has been under the black cloud of a curse placed over us by the Archbishop of Glasgow.

    That's why, for the past few weeks, one of the features promoted by the Times-Journal in those advertisements was a "look on the lighter side" by some columnist named Bob Mooharg. It was an innocent enough pronunciation mistake, and probably one barely noticed (except for a number of strangers on the street, a few store clerks, the people I work with, and everyone else I know).

    I suppose it's sweet justice for everyone whose name I've misspelled during my newspaper career and I don't blame the announcer, who was probably given some weird phonetic version of my name to read.

    Frankly, he didn't have a chance.

    He could have stood in front of a microphone and read that ad a thousand times, had the proper pronunciation on a big card in front of him, had a prompter whisper it in his ear or even had me there dressed in a tank top and thong to ensure his attention and yell "It's MEHARG. That's an E before the H there fella"

    It wouldn't have mattered.

    I'm cursed.

    I only recently uncovered the curse while trying to dig up my family history.

    And that one I mean metaphorically.

    I'm cursed.

    I'm not a mindless ghoul.

    In fact, I've never voted Reform in my life.

    I discovered that my family, as far back as I can trace, hails from a blood-soaked region along the border of Scotland and England that in the 16th century, was simply known as the "Disputed Lands".  While Queen Elizabeth ruled over a relatively peaceful England, the people of that area lived in what historian George MacDonald Fraser, in his book "The Steel Bonnets", described as "the grip of feud and organized gangsterism".

    I know that sounds a lot like Ottawa today, but trust me, it was much worse. And it was made that way by a bunch murderous clans known as the "border reivers", whose only major contribution to English culture was the word "blackmail".

    From what I understand, these goons would think nothing of sacking and looting a farm or  neighboring clan, or even a member of their own family.

    And of course, right in the thick of it, up to their necks in booty and blood, were my ancestors, who at that time went under the name of Graham.

    In fact, my ancestors were so good at their business, it brought a certain amount of ill will. "Their dual allegiances caused confusion and they were cordially detested by their own English authorities," noted Mr. Fraser. "At one time, the most numerous family in the West Border, with 500 riders in 13 towers in 1552, they were savagely persecuted in the reign of James VI and I."

    But the church had an earlier whack at the border reivers in the early 1520s, when the Archbishop of Glasgow issued a "monition of cursing", a 1,500 word tirade that would've made Sheila Copps blush.

    "I curse thair heid and all the haris of thair heid; I curse thair face, thair ene, thair mouth, thair neise, thair toung, thair teith, thair crag, thair schulderis, thair breist, thair hert . . ."

    Well, you get the idea. He pretty well covered everything.

    And then he polished it all off by saying "And, finally, I condemn thaim perpetualie to the deip pit of hell, the remain with Lucifer and all his fallowis and thair bodeis to the gallowis of the Burrow Mure, first to be hangit, syne revin and ruggit (then ripped and torn) with doggis, swyne and utheris wyld beists, abhominable to all the warld."

    Only a Scot could come up with something like that.

    But it worked. In the 1600s, the family was persecuted by the authorities to the point of genocide.  It became very unhealthy to be a Graham. Many were killed. Many were banished. It was probably about that time that one family member decided to change the name to avoid further attention and in a blaze of inspiration, put the letters backwards, from Graham to Maharg and later Meharg.

    And then, an equally bright branch of the family ran off to the peace, safety and comfort of . . .Northern Ireland.

    Talk about your curses!