My Uncle

This has been another rainy day. That'll make the gardens grow!

I remember one time when I was a kid and we had had a really dry spell. Then one night it started raining a good steady rain. My Dad went in to where my Uncle was sitting and asked him what he was so quiet about. He said, "I'm just sitting here listening to the taters saying, 'move over and give me some room' as they are growing." My Uncle was a nut anyway. He always wore bib overalls and he never buttoned them up. He would roll the legs of them up to about his knees. In the summer those bib overalls all rolled up is all he wore. No shirt and no shoes. He never wore shoes in the summer. I have seen him strike a match on his bare heel, the skin was so thick and hard from going barefoot so much. If he got a splinter in them he just took his pocket knife and cut the whole hunk out. Didn't bother him since that skin was so thick. He used to plow with the mule and go barefoot plowing the fields. He didn't put his shoes back on until it got really cold either. One thing I didn't like was when we would go to see them, many times he would get you on his lap and then rub his stiff beard over your face and it hurt. He called it "bearding us." He thought it was great fun! He would play the harmonica and dance around the room and get us all tickled. My Mom told me he used to feed me when I was a baby. She said he took his dirty fingers and poked food in my mouth and I just loved it and smacked away. When they were weaning me from the bottle he and my Aunt were staying at our house. Mom said that at bedtime I began to whimper for my bottle. Then my Uncle upstairs made a noise like a wild cat. She said I put my head under the covers and never whimpered anymore and forgot all about the bottle!! He was truly one of a kind!!