Are You There? - Part 2

The dad I looked up to was my Uncle Virgil. He married my mom’s sister and they had a son just eight months before I was born. My cousin Chuck and I grew up like brothers even though we lived two states away from each other. We’d only see each other a couple times a year but we wrote letters back and forth all the time (no such thing as cell phones or computers back then). When I was in fifth grade Uncle Virgil and his family were going on a fishing trip and they asked if I could go along. They were passing right through the town where we lived on their way to the lake. It was one of the best weeks of my life. I’ve fished a lot in my life so it wasn’t the fishing that made the trip memorable. It was spending time with a real dad. Uncle Virgil isn’t the perfect dad but he was always around. On that trip he was with us on the lake, played games with us in the cabin at night and told stories. Uncle Virgil always has a story to tell.

The funniest thing that happened on that trip was when Uncle Virgil went out to the outhouse (it was a rustic retreat) one night and he dropped his cigarette lighter into the pit. To this day I don’t know how he pulled that off, but that lighter must have been something special because he came back for a flashlight and went in after it! It makes me laugh to this day.

Uncle Virgil was real and he spent time with his son. He played ball with Chuck. He coached him in baseball and football. He drove Chuck on his paper route when the weather was bad. You get the idea. He was around. I spent a lot of years jealous of Chuck.