My Uncle Dee

I know some of you may be wondering how my trip to Washington, D.C. with the lovely Brook went. I thank you for your collective interest and the trip went quite well. The summary will be posted in installments, beginning in the next day or two.

I hope you have found my postings to be, for the most part, a worthwhile read. Maybe they've been funny. Maybe they've been more informative. Sometimes they've just be screeds or loosely strung together musings. Each, however, has been honest. Few, however, have been of what I would call a really personal nature, with the notable exceptions of those pertaining to my relationship status. And I write about that mainly because....well, I'm bragging on the lovely Brook.

So this will be a posting of a type not normally seen on this blog.

Monday morning, as Brook and I found ourselves strolling through the National Mall area of Columbia, the District of, I received a phone call from my brother Andrew. I missed the call the first time around, but calls from Andrew of so rare a nature I felt in necessary to call him back immediately. The reasoning for his call had been to tell me our Uncle Dee had been found dead that morning....the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

I was, of course, shocked and saddened by the news. The timing made it very strange, with me being on vacation and hundreds of miles away there wasn't much I could do. I spoke to my mother before her flight out of town, but that was about it. See Dee was married to my mother's sister Michelle. They lived in Fredericksburg, Texas, which is about 70 miles from San Antonio.

It's hard for me to make any judgments about this. On one hand I'm angry at Dee for what he's done to my Aunt Michelle. On the other....I'm switching between sad and confused and just plain sad.

I had a good relationship with Dee. He had two daughters from a previous marriage, both of them being right around my age. So when he married my Aunt Shell I think he saw me in some ways as the son he never had of his own. So he made great efforts to endear himself to me in the short times we might have together every summer when my family made the long trek from our home in Minnesota to visit the rest of the family in West Texas. He succeeded.

He was an undertaker, which I saw as maybe being the coolest job ever. When I was a kid he even lived in an apartment over his mortuary, so I got to lay down in the display caskets and pretend to drive the hearse and even see....the embalming room. He would tell me stories about the business, some fairly graphic as he was also for a time his town's coroner, and some just flat out hilarious. The best might be his quick fix of an older woman's hair and makeup after my cousins had decided she didn't look quite "glamorous" enough.

He also had this bizarre sense of humor. For Halloween he loved to drag an old coffin out to his porch for "decoration." Little did the trick-or-treaters know he would actually lie in the thing all night just to scare the shit out of kids.

He was also, unfortunately perhaps, a big fan of guns. The Clinton administration's ban on assault weaponry was about the worst decision in the history of time in his eyes. When I was younger I took a couple of trips on my own to visit Dee and Shell and my cousins. I still remember the look of glee on his face when he took me to the rock quarry/shooting range and dance for a bit with what I was told to be the "Chi-nese equivalent to the AK-47."

That's the kind of guy Dee was. When he was into something, he was totally into it. He did geneaological studies on both his family and mine. Not so he could have a nice family tree drawn up mind, but rather so he could prove the existence of Native American blood in the family. Now, his reason for wanting to know this fact wasn't so that my cousins and I might get some sort of collegiate scholarship. No he simply wanted to give himself and I Indian names and he couldn't imagine doing so without having specific knowledge of Native American heritage in the family.

Our names incidentally....he, living with three ladies and no men, was Lone Rooster in a House of Hens. Mine, and you'd have to meet my family to understand, was the Soaring Eagle Flying Amongst Turkeys.

The one time we were able to convince Dee and family to leave the Lone Star State and venture north came after my family had made the move to Missouri. The visit coincided with the Flood of '93. Dee was far from home but right in his element. He donned his volunteer fireman uniform, which yes he had brought along, and took my cousins and I out to fill sandbags for hours on end. Meanwhile he made his way among the civil engineers and other rescue professionals....talking shop. Of course no vacation to Missouri could end without the two days....two days....in Springfield, Missouri, original home of Bass Pro Shops.

Are you getting the idea my Uncle Dee was a very easy man to like? He was at that. He was also a very strong man, so I'm having trouble reconciling the Dee I know with the Dee who ended his own life.

I'm told he was having some financial difficulties that had been really getting him down. Dee was not a perfectionist, but he was also not a man to suffer failure well. He was also the type to take more than his share of blame for things. It is not stretch for me to imagine him seeing himself as a burden on his family if there were money troubles. He would not have handled that well at all.

You'd maybe have to know Dee to understand this, but he was a Texan in all ways. If he was having serious money troubles that would have been a real blow to his sense of honor. He would have seen himself as being less of a man if he couldn't provide for his family adequately enough. The trouble with that would be....Uncle Dee set very high standards for himself, especially when it came to his family. I'm not sure how the insurance will work out, but I can really see him rationalizing this whole thing in his head. He had no inflated sense of self. If he thought his death would bring financial security to his family, I have no doubt he would make that trade and feel like he was doing right by his family.

That may sound insane or just cowardly to some of you. Maybe it's one or the other. Maybe it's both. I know my mother is....very angry, but she's just worried for her sister's well-being. I haven't spoken directly to my Aunt Shell, it's a phone call I'm not looking forward to. I haven't been able to speak with my cousins either, but I'm told they're handling better than I could ever expect to.

It's hard for me to be angry. It's also hard for me to feel sorry for him. His action has caused people I care about a great deal of pain.

I'm mainly just sad he's gone. It's been a while since I thought of him and even longer since I'd seen him, but knowing he's gone has brought all the memories I have of him to the forefront. I haven't lost someone this close to me before. I mean, three of my grandparents have passed away, but each had been sick before so when they died....I don't know. It's not like it didn't hurt, but at some point you come to expect things to happen like that. In the case of one of my grandfathers he had been sick for so long I actually felt a level of relief knowing he wasn't hurting anymore.

I'm sure each of you has dealt with the death of someone. Some, if not most, of you have probably dealt with the death of someone closer to you than an uncle you hadn't seen in years. So you're wondering what's wrong with your beloved author.

Nothing is wrong. I'm not going to pieces here, but this is a new experience for me.

Anyway, if you're to this point I can only assume you've read this. Thanks

Jeffrey

"I've got you, under my skin."

9:59 my dudes and dudettes, this will be my final posting before leaving with the lovely Brook for Columbia, the District of. You will most likely not hear from me again until I deliver the vacation summation, unless of course internet and time make themselves readily available to me during said trip. Just a couple of quick hitters today.

So, I really don't care for my job. The only thought that gets me through some days is the knowledge I cannot, in fact, live forever. The satisfaction coming from that knowledge being my life here at this job can't last forever, whether the end be my choice or mother nature's.

It's sort of like Peter in Office Space. If you see me at work, that particular day, or least those 8-10 consecutive hours, will probably be...generally speaking...the worst of my entire life.

Okay, that really wasn't the point to this blog however. I saw this little nugget in the news. At the ass end of last month a woman in North Carolina died....of flesh eating bacteria! Seems she worked in a nursing home, where she jammed her thumb on a wheelchair. Three days later....three days!....she was pushing up daisies.

I'm sorry, but when exactly did this country/world revert back to the dark ages? What's that you say? November 2000? Interesting.....

"I stand guilty as FRAMED!"

JeffRey

"Into this house we're born. Into this world we're thrown."

So I's watching the cable last night when I noticed this graphic in the corner of the screen. The whichever-network news team was sending out an alert of potential tornadic activity.

Woah....tornadoes? Or Woah....tornados? I decided to pay attention to said graphic, so that I might learn just how close the wind storms were to me and mine.

Here's the rub. No county or city names were listed. Rather the graphic was of what I assumed to be the network's coverage area. Each of the little counties in said area had it's borders drawn, and those counties in which the storms were most likely to be an issue were designated with a color seperate from the rest of the viewing area.

Okay, here, really, is the rub. I don't know what shape my county is. I don't know the extent of whichever network's coverage, so finding my county's place therein was also not an option.

Holy Fucking Shit! How many of you out there really have any idea what shape your county is? Now if they had thrown the whole state up there in the graphic, I'd have had an easier time finding out just how much danger I was, or was not, in. That, however, just wasn't the case.

Now clearly since I'm blogging to you today everything came out aces, but this was really disconcerting to me for a period of time last night. Cause it's not like these warnings go away. That graphic was up through two episodes of Law and Order.

Slow news day today....just wanted to blog you all hello.

JeffRey

"Who's the cat who won't cop out when there's danger all about?"

Good 8:07 to all my dudes and dudettes out there in TV land. We now rejoin our program, already in progress.

Some of you may recall an earlier posting in which I told the story of, what I like to call, the Guttenberg phenomenon. Which is to say through the miracle of the cable television I's able to flip back and forth between two Steve Guttenberg films. Think of it as the Caine/Hackman theory without any Academy Awards. Or Academy Award nominations. Or a respectable body of work.

Well, you'll all be pleased to hear Police Academy was on a couple of nights back. The Guttenberg trifecta has been completed. Did you know the black guy who makes all the funny noises was the voice of Gizmo from Gremlins? Yeah, don't remember the guy's name, but I'm sure he'll be on Hollywood Squares at some point this week.

So no up-to-the-minute updates on the book. Ideas are fomenting in me noggin though. I've very loosely outlined/summarized some of the back story, but that will be a very minor portion of the book. For the most part I'll just be keeping a journal around and jotting any ol' idea that pops into my gray matter.

Hey, quick question....in The Jerk and in My Blue Heaven Steve Martin's characters owned dogs who had curse words for names. That wasn't the question, hence the period. Question is, which do you find funnier Shithead (from The Jerk) or Vaffanculo (from My Blue Heaven)?

I'm going with vaffanculo. Cause Italian is just funny. Try speaking some, I'll bet you laugh. Say it with me....linguini....spaghetti....Mussolini....see, it's funny.

So I'm from Minnesota, some of you may not know that. The other day Minnesota lost one of its "heroes" when Kirby Puckett passed away following a stroke. Now I throw the quotes around heroes not because I have any problem with Mr. Puckett, I just question the application of the term to sports personalities. Paul Wellstone...he was a Minnesota hero. Having said that, I will not forget the moments Kirby Puckett brought to this Minnesota Twins fan. He was also the great "everyman" in sports. Few, if any, of us will have the chiseled physique of a Mark McGwire of Barry Bonds, but any one of us could grow an ass like Puck's.

Gordon Parks also passed a day or two ago. By directing Shaft! he earned a place in the Cool Hall of Fame, but he was also one of the pre-eminent photojournalists of the 40's going into the 60's when he worked for Life magazine.

As I'm fully aware of how closely each of you likes to follow the day to day of what I like to call the Business of Jeff, I thought I'd toss out an update. The lovely Brook and I will be embarked on our voyage to our nation's capitol this weekend. It involves flying in one of these motorized dirigibles everyone keeps talking about. So what's an average flight altitude....15,000 feet? I don't know, the point is...is it really the Mile-High Club? Or would it be the 2.6-something Mile-High Club? Anyway....now that the FAA is tracking my every movement....I continue with my subversive behavior.

So be watching CNN, MSNBC, Headline News and other non-Fox News channels for the live coverage of what I'm calling, tentatively at this point, the One Man March. I'll be leading the march myself, so I'm pretty excited. Oh, and if any of you knows a bail bondsman in the greater Washington, D.C. area....

The lovely Brook plans on getting tatted up while we're on the trip. If I have the extra cash money I will, of course, be joining her in skin defacement.

That's enough for the pre-summary of the trip, stay tuned for an actual summary of trip when the trip is over, which is when summaries come, rather than before....whatever. I'll tell you about it later.

Until next time....Shut Your Mouth.

I'm talking about Shaft!

JeffRey

"Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal. I’d still own the film rights and be working on the sequel."

Good 8:24 friends.

Today I come to you asking for help. At the urging of the lovely Brook, I have made the decision to finally attempt the writing of the book I have no doubt promised more than one of you more than once. My boggle now is finding the proper approach from which to attack said project.

I'm not really sure one continuous narrative is the way to go. It's not the way I think and it's not the way I generally live my life. Not that this is meant to be an autobiography or a memoir, unless you still buy into the Million Pieces method of memoir writing.

That said, it is my belief most good writers start from a base of what they know. I haven't had any epic adventures and my formative years weren't spent living in the back of a van, doing my best to avoid the various puddles of biological functions that type of life can bring you.

I have however had what I feel to be an interesting collection of experiences, and I've met a motley crew of folks as I've walked this ball of dirt and water. So a collection of recollections, based on actual people and events if not entirely truthful re-tellings would be, as the kids say, do-able.

I do have this other idea. As some of you may know, I am rapidly approaching my 29th birthday. So this other idea I have would be a fictional diary of sorts. The story of a guy who's a little too young to have been part of Generation X and just a little too old to be part of this new "twixter" generation.

So I have this whole conflict of staring "real life" right in the face, but at the same time being nagged by the feeling that maybe I should have grown up already. This make sense to anyone? I'm leaving my 20's so any real justification for putting off life is swiftly going by the wayside. This is a real thing for me. I'm scared to death of 30. Not so much the number. I still feel young, but it seems like I should be thinking of answers for the question "now what?"

Another idea I have would be to define the moments of my life through pop songs, but Nick Hornby has already done that. And let's face it....I ain't no Nick Hornby.

I'm sure the whole fictional diary thing has been done to death also, but it's something I could write with everything fresh in my mind. It would also be a truer reflection of who I am now, rather than attempting to remember experiences as I saw them then rather than I how I reflect on them now. There would still be some backstory, so as to build up characters, but it would feel less forced to me. I could pick and choose rather than trying to remember enough stories I've lived or heard to fill out an entire book.

I guess I like the idea because, all hubris aside, I feel as if I have something to say. I'm not a political theorist, or an economist and I'm more in need in need of a psychologist than qualified to act as one, but I feel I have a take on the world worth explaining. I've never met anyone who looks at things quite like I do. (Did I hear a collective "thank god"?)

So there you go. I want to do this. I mean, I've always wanted to do this, but now I feel as if I need/should/can? do this.

So here's what I need.....feedback. I need help here. You can leave comments here at the blog, or you can e-mail me at jeffthepardoner@priest.com

Any ideas of your own are welcome. If you've any thoughts as to the ideas I've outlined, feel free to share them. I have no delusions of bestseller lists. I have, however, been thinking up book titles for as long as I can remember, so a book to go along with one of them seems like a good idea. Just being able to finish something I feel worth sharing with others would be enough of an accomplishment for me. Should some agent of publisher feel it worthy of mass production...or even some minimal amount of production would just be an added bonus.

So there you have it friends....your faithful author is taking it upon himself to become....an author. Give him any help and you might possibly see a character based upon yourself pictured in a favorable light. If you're unworthy of such light you'll at least get a name drop on the acknowledgement page.

JeffRey

I will pay attention in civics class. I will pay attention in civics class. I will pay attention in civics class. I will pay attention in civics class

Okay....not sure if any of you caught this but a recent survey showed one in four Americans (that would be a scant 25 percent) can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the "United" States of America.

However, of those surveyed more than 50 percent can name at least two members of the Simpsons family. (We're assuming answers were limited to the immediate family, but if you knew Abraham was Homer's father than you can probably name the principal five members anyway.)

Are you following the numbers I've just cast your way? If you put any stock in surveys the extrapolation here would be that more than twice as many Americans can name more Simpsons than they can First Amendment rights. It's times like these when I get really patriotic and my eyes mist over as the words to not only "The Star Spangled Banner" but "American the Beautiful" repeat over and over inside my noggin.

Oh, and incidentally, for those of you slightly concerned you may be quizzed later, the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment would the freedoms of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances. But I bet each of you knew that. Or if not...you can at least name Marge's sisters.

We the People.....

JeffRey

"I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello"

Need to run something by ya'll my dudes and dudettes.

Yesterday I's at work and a gentleman walked by the front desk. I greeted him with a simple "Afternoon sir." He responded in turn with an "afternoon" of his own.

Now, after he left I got to thinking. The entirety of our conversation was an exchange of the approximate time of day with a gender specific reference inbetween.

Yet....despite the brevity of said conversation, I was left with the sense everything about the exchange was normal, and I would assume the gentleman felt likewise.

Would this be because the "good" one might have expected before "afternoon" is implied, if not spoken aloud? Or does the non-specificity give the exchange a feeling of normalcy?

I'm inclined to go with the latter. I mean, if I had greeted the man with a "good ten minutes after two" I'm guessing he would have been left taken aback, even if the time had in fact been ten minutes after two. And if I had dropped the supposedly implied "good", I would think a greeting of simply "2:10" or even a "ten after" would have totally fucked with this guy's chi.

That said, after practicing the time specific greeting with some associates, I found myself liking what I heard. I've decided I will greet all acquaintances with the specific time of day. I'll, however, not be extending this policy to people whom I've never met before....at least not for now. I feel as if I need to build a groundswell of support for this new form of greeting first. This is where you all come in.

I need each of you to embrace this idea. It won't simply be enough for each of you and I to use these greetings/salutations toward one another. I need to spread this idea to the multitudes. I have confidence that, with the proper support/effort/determination, we can have this idea sweeping the nation...much like the famed second capital letter and I's movements have in the past.

So there you are friends. Go forth and prosper. May the power of a new American lexicon guide you.

Until next time.....five til 10 my friends, five til 10.

JeffRey