My Uncle

Before moving to France, my mom and her sister drove out to Boston and helped Douglas and I move furniture back to the island. The four of us rode in my aunt and uncle’s truck across the Eastern Time Zone, taking turns behind the wheel. My aunt cleverly made an X out of the white sticker strips from a book of stamps and stuck it on the inside of the tailgate. This X was visible in the side view mirror and told us, at a quick glance, if the tailgate was still up or if it had burst open and all of my possessions flung across the highway.

Long road trips are a great way to know your fellow passengers better, build friendships, test boundaries. In the week that Mom and her sister spent inBoston prior to our leaving and the two days on the road I never grew sick of their company. The time was spent learning about each other. We ate together, joked over shared characteristics, and explored different perspectives on common memories. The departure is high among my favorite memories of living in Boston.

At one point on the trip, with Douglas and Mom in the back seat navigating, me driving, and my aunt riding shotgun, she told me a story about her early married years. She and her husband were working around the clock. He was employed full time as a ferry captain and she was busy creating Island Bike Rental. In addition they raised three kids. They saw little of each other during the day and “only had time to argue at night, and by then the boats weren’t running so I couldn’t leave him.” She laughed as she said this, so I took it that she didn’t mean it.

But I did appreciate learning that they argued so early in their marriage. Being the youngest of three in my household growing up, I mostly saw my parent’s marriage unraveling. The tender moments were few and my aunt and uncle in the little yellow house were my young example of how happy life with someone can be. Her joking disclosure that even they had stressful moments was cheering.

Her husband was born on the island. His grandfather was a lighthousekeeper and in his career tended the Fresnel lenses on a few of the lake’s islands. His father had white hair in his youth and was called Cotton. By the time I knew him he’d lost the hair, but kept the nickname. Skip’s mother wore horn rimmed glasses and a Mamie Eisenhower dress in my parent’s wedding pictures. They were of the island and uniquely typical of the characters who inhabit it. In this vein was my uncle.

The holiday season on the island is a marathon of parties, open houses, potlucks, and other reasons to be merry. Every Christmas Eve at St. Paul’s church starts at 10:30 and stretches until midnight. After the bells have rung and the anthem sung and the choir has marched up to the altar the late comers would sneak into a pew. One teenaged year, my uncle was among the sneakers. He and a friend ended up seated directly in front of me and my sisters. They swayed when we stood to sing. But not in rhythm with “Joy to the World”. Their tipsy swaying brought an eye roll and giggle from my aunt’s face.

Another Christmas, I came home with a boyfriend who was also an island boy, but of a different type. My uncle lent us his snowmobile and we spent the night in borrowed winter gear and my mom’s 1970s electric blue disco motorcycle helmet racing through the snow covered field of wild flowers near the cemetery. Twenty years earlier, in that same field, I was riding with my uncle on his snowmobile. My sister and a cousin were in a dog sled behind us. He let me steer, I pulled too hard to the left, and everyone tumbled. I pulled my helmet off to hear him laughing the loudest.

Last month my uncle passed away after a long fight with cancer. And it was a long fight. When I made the road trip with my aunt and mother and Douglas, we knew he was fighting. My aunt wore a necklace with two figures embraced in a dance. It was a gift from him to remind her that he always wanted to be with her sharing a dance.

In August my cousin told me that she was introduced to coffee drinking by her dad. He would bring a cup to her in the morning as a way to encourage her to get out of bed. When she became a property owner he would visit on winter mornings and they’d share a pot of coffee. And talk. He was a good talker.

But now, another member of the old guard has moved on. Symbolically, my uncle’s death is significant to the island. Prohibition, the Depression, the War, and the automobile took their toll on the island’s thriving turn of the century economy. He was of the post-war generation that was raised there and built their livelihoods and prospered there.

Tangibly, my uncle’s life was more significant to the island. In the 40 years since their businesses were created and expanded, he and my aunt have employed thousands and generated millions in revenue. The impact is hard to measure. Ferries from both of the boat lines cruised alongside each other as his casket was carried home for his funeral, which filled both island churches.

Each year that I spent away from home it was on my mind that I was missing another Christmas Eve of witnessing him sneak into church and laughing the loudest. And I kept thinking back to a blessing from the French Protestant minister Henri Amiel:

Life is short;

And we do not have too much time

To gladden the hearts of those

Who travel the way with us.

So be swift to love

And make haste to be kind.

Because it sums up my uncle so well. In addition to all the hard work, he loved so easily.

Punk Rock Aerobics

Last summer while I was in Columbus, I was introduced to Punk Rock Aerobics.  The Surly Girl Saloon, a bar in the Short North, offers a free class once a week.  It’s led by three women who do it just for kicks.  They begin each class with a disclaimer about their amateur status and a reminder that we shouldn’t sue them.  At the end of each class everyone is offered a complimentary can of beer.

I started the class with new friend Michael.  As a 12 year old, Michael climbed a tree to read a book instead of taking out the trash and accidentally touched an electric line that sent him flying.  He fell to the ground screaming.  His next memory is coming in and out of consciousness in an ambulance and then a lengthy recovery at Children’s Hospital.   Twenty years later, he had a burn scar across his thigh but no super powers. 


Three weeks into Punk Rock Aerobics, Michael decided the class wasn’t for him.  In spite of being abandoned in a room of sweaty girls, I chose to stick it out.  We did moves called “The Lead Singer” and “Beat on the Brat” to the music of the Sex Pistols, the Breeders, and the Ramones. 


After one particularly grueling class, I drove to Kroger to get a bite to eat.  I wandered the aisles of the supermarket trying to find something satisfying and healthy.  I passed a display of Entenmann’s cinnamon rolls.  Jumbo sized.  I have a weakness for Cinnabons and can’t seem to manage to get through an airport without buying one.  I decided to pick up a box of the similarly delicious Entenmann’s just to hold onto while I pushed my cart through the store.  For comfort.  As a reward for not ditching the class as my friend had.


My plan was to have the box in the child seat of my shopping cart so that I could fantasize about their sweet glaze and sticky cinnamon while I filled a container at the salad bar with lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, celery, etc.   Afterwards, I would remove the rolls from my cart before checking out.  I rationalized that the pleasure was in the memory, not the experience itself.


When I got home I set my salad on the kitchen counter, filled a glass with water, pulled a plate out of the dishwasher and heated up one of the cinnamon rolls in the microwave.   Some plans don’t work out as intended.  Something came over me as I was checking out of Kroger.  I hadn’t pushed past the Entenmann’s display on my way through the store and never had the chance to replace the box.  And I didn’t want to be one of “those people” who unload stuff in the gum and magazine racks.  I ate the heated roll before even opening my salad.  Punk Rock Aerobics was hard.  I was hungry.  The roll was delicious.


My salad wasn’t bad either.  I ate it dry, without any salad dressing.  You know, because of all the extra calories and corn syrup they put in there.