Uncles....

[Gunner46]

Regardless of how monumental the sacrifice our Dad's went out of their way to do in order to do the absolute Best for us.....sometimes my Uncles came through, when I needed to be a young man and not a son.

Allow me to introduce a couple.

Art: Lived closest to us. Army vet, grunt Bad Ass ! Invaded Sicily, Italy and made it into Germany. Then he did Korea too. (Bad Ass). Wound up having a rifle collection of every rifle used during WW2 !!

Art would come over regularly and just hang with Dad, and me. Booze was usually involved. Dad & Art concoked innumerable adventures, such as, teaching a 9 yr old how to field strip a M1 Grenade & Carbine, shooting a 30/06, 45ACP, 303 British, and learning to handload.

I got home from school B4 Mom did & Art used to leave her a handwritten note like..." DW is with me, we're going to a gun show in Dayton" (where another of my uncles lived. I'll introduce Henry in a sec). "We'll be back in a couple days". " I got DW. We're going fishing in Ontario, see ya in 3 days". From age 12-17 I was a paid farm hand, and paid for what I was worth.

RIP ART.

I'll have to do Henry in a Chapter 2.

 

[DouglasR]

My older sister is a moron and my nephew is getting close to an age where’s he’s useful and you can do fun things with him.
I’ve been thinking about bringing him up from methtropolis, mo to spend a few weeks whitewashing the fence, scraping asphalt and greasing trucks.
Maybe take him on a bike ride or something.

 

[mdcrossbow]

Uncles, chicken Fights, horse shoes, Black Label, fishing, hunting and fire department.
My dad was a city boy from Newark NJ, his brother was ok but did nothing.
Mom's brothers It was always fun when dad took me along.

 

[hank4elk]

David, he had my back and showed me life as reality. Korean War era Army vet, served at LANL.
He taught me to hunt and kindly explained to me that the ragged US flag on the studio wall was from my dad's Victory ship and he saved it and it's crew after being torpedoed in the Med. "Your dad's a hero".
He used my carpentry skills and we installed great works of art he made.
I spent the last two weeks and the last night with him before the cancer took him. He battled it 14 years.
Now I have the battle.
The last thing my aunt said to me was "Stay positive and move forward. David would be proud of you."

 

[Goodfish]

My uncles gave me great insight on my dad before he was the conservative rational wise man that I always thought him to be!

 

[dodgermax]

Uncles are amazing really. Went on my first Hunt with my mine, he gave me a list of rules I need to follow. Lo and behold, I am still very much in love with the hunting life.

 

[Gunner46]

Ok, I said I would tell you about Henry, here Goes.

I was blessed with a couple summers at his home growing up, in my teenage years.

Henry was the next one behind Dad. Air Force Vet that did his time in Germany during the WW2 occupation, came home with a Fraulein beauty, named Frieda. Henry was an easy going guy and Frieda a flirt (at least to me).

They lived in Dayton. (Remember Uncle Art's escapades)

Henry & Frieda taught me that it was OK to just relax and take life as it comes. No need to stress over the petty.

Their fun (Frieda's) was introducing me to the local girls, then taking us to places like art museums, rodeos, drag races, participants in a neighborhood dodge-ball out on the street. ANYTHING to keep me around girls my age.

The one he said to me that I never forgot was "a pistol is useless unless it's loaded".