When I was young, I
Sep 09 2001
When I was young, I had a great uncle Bill and as people say in my home town,
Uncle Bill would take a drink. Actually, Bill seldom stopped at one
drink…or five. His capacity to imbibe and his weekend odysseys were well
known, almost legendary.
But times were different then. This was a time before stricter drunk-driving
laws provided politicians a non-offensive platform to popularity. It was a time
when local law enforcement was more likely to help you on home than throw you in
the tank. There were many weekends that Uncle Bill made it home under the
watchful guidance of a local sheriff's cruiser; that and some sort of unwavering
divine providence. As with most drunks, if they can manage not to kill
themselves or others, they will play the lead in stories so outlandish they seem
implausible to all but fellow drunks. Uncle Bill was the hero in so many of
these stories that almost every member of the family has their own personal
Bill-story. One Friday so very long ago, for instance, he and my great aunt were
in town to eat dinner with my grandparents. Food preparations were well underway
when they realized that they needed a bag of flour. Since Uncle Bill had the
least to do, he was charged with making the four mile trip to the local grocery
store to pick up the smallest bag of flour he could find. Well, apparently he
had a bit of trouble finding a suitably small bag. He missed dinner that night,
and dinner had to go on without the flour. In fact, he missed dinner the next
night as well. Uncle Bill may have never found the small bag of flour, but on
Sunday night he showed up with a 20 pound bag of sweet potatoes on his shoulder.
There is still some mystery as to where his search took him, but he was rumored
to have been drinking in an Alabama bar that Saturday night. Where he spent the
rest of his time that weekend, no one has a clue, and it's probably better no
one knows.
When we used to spend Thursday nights at the Fox and Hound drinking pints of Guinness, I would tell my Uncle Bill stories. They always seemed popular, though everyone assumed that they were completely fictional. Unfortunately, they weren't. My Uncle Bill was one of the many "characters" that I knew growing up. It amazes me sometimes how shocked people are at the stories, as if a crazy uncle is so foreign to them. Everyone has at least one crazy relative and everyone has stories. Some shamefully forget, as if the behavior of some alcoholic great uncle will reflect poorly on them. Regardless of what people think, though, I consider Uncle Bill a hero of sorts. Not because he wandered dangerously around two states in a drunken search for flour, sweet potatoes, and whatever else might have crossed his intoxicated mind; but because he lived a life worthy of retelling. There is something in that…there must be.
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| just like Raoul Duke! right? |
When we used to spend Thursday nights at the Fox and Hound drinking pints of Guinness, I would tell my Uncle Bill stories. They always seemed popular, though everyone assumed that they were completely fictional. Unfortunately, they weren't. My Uncle Bill was one of the many "characters" that I knew growing up. It amazes me sometimes how shocked people are at the stories, as if a crazy uncle is so foreign to them. Everyone has at least one crazy relative and everyone has stories. Some shamefully forget, as if the behavior of some alcoholic great uncle will reflect poorly on them. Regardless of what people think, though, I consider Uncle Bill a hero of sorts. Not because he wandered dangerously around two states in a drunken search for flour, sweet potatoes, and whatever else might have crossed his intoxicated mind; but because he lived a life worthy of retelling. There is something in that…there must be.