…in which Uncle Duke recalls his role
model.
Uncle Larry, my mother's
brother, had long been a notable eccentric in town. That is to say that he confounded most and disgusted the
rest. "A sandwich short of a
picnic," they'd whisper. In truth his basket wasn't absolutely full, but
what he did have in there was first-rate.
He never had what you'd
call a real job. The family pretty much
took care of him. Daddy used to say
that Larry lived by his wits, but it was only a part-time job. Part of the problem was that his language
wasn't fit for polite society. Most of
the time it was pushing the outer limits of impolite society. My mother's family had finally given up
reforming him. He liked the guttural
ring of those words and you couldn't take them away from him. That was that.
Uncle Larry wasn't a total
idiot, but he was as close as we came in those parts. This is not to say that he was unintelligent. He was not.
He was the best chess player in three counties. He once played a Grand Master in Lexington
to a draw. The guy was playing 11 other
games at the same time, but still… Not
bad for a guy who taught himself. No,
he wasn't stupid. His thought processes
just followed different paths.
He was definitely good company.
Some of the most useful things I know came from Uncle Larry. Such as how to make good pee-in-the-snow art. It's not as easy as it sounds. You can't just go out and start squirting in
little circles or run around leaving tracks in big fields of fresh snow. Your footprints will botch it all up. It's best to make geometric shapes and hop
from foot to foot so the footprints are part of the pattern. Or stand on a stump and make spinning
spirals around it.
Then there was the signature. Good timing was essential to a good, legible
signature--good timing and knowing your equipment. Heck, my handwriting got to be better in the snow than it was on
paper.
Larry explained that One-A-Day Vitamins made your pee a great neon
yellow color. So at the first hint of
snow, we'd take mega-doses of vitamin C.
He told us that iced tea and warm apple cider gave the longest
uninterrupted runs. He was right. Uncle Larry had scientifically researched
all of this.
Well, after I left town, Larry got older---in a hurry. Though he was not particularly old, his
memory, which had always been highly selective, ceased to function. Though his recollection of profanity
remained strong, he had no idea who any of us were and referred to us all as
different characters from Looney Tunes Cartoons, his favorite TV show. Daddy was always Porky, Mom was Petunia, and
I was consistently Daffy. I was flattered. He always liked Daffy best.
Though his speech was
often entertaining, it didn't make a whole lot of sense. No sentence ever went with the one that
preceded it, or really even made sense on its own. He took to interjecting "Merry *bleeping* Christmas" at
regular intervals. He'd do this year
round. If you asked him a question, the
answer never even vaguely referred to the question. To say that we talked to Uncle Larry was kind of an
exaggeration. In reality, he rambled on
like a drunken stevedore, and we mostly just shook our heads. But he seemed happy enough. He ate well. We'd dress him up and take him to major social events in
town--mostly funerals, but some weddings too.
So at Cousin Evelyn's wedding when I saw Uncle Larry in an animated
conversation with John Barber, a retired, church-going farmer, I was taken
aback. They were having a rousing
discussion over by the punch bowl about I-couldn't-imagine-what. Band or no band, they yakked on---
expletives, I assumed, undeleted. Whatever
it was they were talking about, they talked it up one side and down the
other. Maybe Mr. Barber had broken the
code.
When I finally caught up with my mother and asked her what she
figured they were going on about, she threw her head back and laughed. "Oh John Barber's totally deaf. Spent all those years on a tractor and now
he can't hear a train whistle. They're
a perfect match. Uncle Larry doesn't
make any sense, and John Barber doesn't know the difference. Plenty coming out, but nothing's going
in."
We pair them up now as
often as we can. I think they're both
glad to have the company. "Merry *bleeping* Christmas," Larry'd
say. Merry *bleeping* Christmas yourself,
Uncle Larry.