Uncle Frank
I was about eight years old when I first started going over to great uncle Frank's house with my grandmother, aunt and grandfather. We would have a giant barbecue outside with about 5 different kinds of meat. Including squirrel, possum and wild duck. I was the oddball vegetarian but Uncle frank usually made everyone stop ribbing me about it.
There was Franks wife, Aunt Carolyn. she was a amiable lady but miserly as hell. I always remember her wearing the same odd flowered house dress that looked more like kitchen curtains than anything else. She was a hell of a sight with crazy frizzy hair sticking out in every direction. Frank had two kids Terry and Kathy that were about 10 years older than myself.
Poor Terry had a high fever as a child and it made him into a simpleton of sorts. It was cool when I was eight but as I grew older he was just frigging annoying. Frank and Carolyn never acknowledged Terry's problem and they let him drive, drink and smoke just like the rest of the family. Terry liked to hold an Italian sausage next to his crotch and walk around yelling "minga, minga" uhh minga man" (I think it means dick in Italian) His sister Kathy I felt sorry for. She had low self esteem and was always telling outlandish lies about her job as a nurses aid. (people eating their own brains and such)
Uncle frank was a plumber by trade. He was a big man with giant ham hands and a wide smile. He was always red. I guess that was from working out in the sun laying pipes and building homes. He had a deep voice with a hearty belly laugh. He would often tell off color jokes at the picnic table as we ate. My grandmother would always bitch at Frank. She didn't want him telling "colored" jokes around me. that was her job, she was the big sister. Frank would say "AWW shit's fire Jo Jo..there ain't nothin wrong with telling the boy a few jokes to spark his sense of humor." He was right of course.
My grandmothers name wasn't Jo Jo but Franks family had a strange habit of never calling anyone by their correct name. I loved it. My name was Hoss. "Hey Hoss bring me that pack of Kools and I'll tell you a joke about the Mexican, the Polock and the stewardess." I thought Frank was a hoot.
Frank had a basement rec room filled with guns, stuffed trophies, and all kinds of cool stuff. I got to hear my first dirty comedy album down there when I was 10. George Carlin's The big seven words you weren't allowed to broadcast were: Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker and Tits. Pure gold. Those seven beautiful words became my mantra.
I got to see Frank one last time in 2002 when I drove my son up there to see the family. He was sick and didn't have the same fire in his belly that I remembered. But he still called me Hoss and he named my son lil hoss
The cancer finally got him in 2004.
Looking back, Frank and his family were poor rednecks and they had their share of problems. But they were good people. My mother was repulsed by the way they lived and didn't want me going over there. What else could I say after being admonished for visiting Frank and his family?
Shit, piss, fuck, cunt cocksuckers, motherfuckers and tits.
There was Franks wife, Aunt Carolyn. she was a amiable lady but miserly as hell. I always remember her wearing the same odd flowered house dress that looked more like kitchen curtains than anything else. She was a hell of a sight with crazy frizzy hair sticking out in every direction. Frank had two kids Terry and Kathy that were about 10 years older than myself.
Poor Terry had a high fever as a child and it made him into a simpleton of sorts. It was cool when I was eight but as I grew older he was just frigging annoying. Frank and Carolyn never acknowledged Terry's problem and they let him drive, drink and smoke just like the rest of the family. Terry liked to hold an Italian sausage next to his crotch and walk around yelling "minga, minga" uhh minga man" (I think it means dick in Italian) His sister Kathy I felt sorry for. She had low self esteem and was always telling outlandish lies about her job as a nurses aid. (people eating their own brains and such)
Uncle frank was a plumber by trade. He was a big man with giant ham hands and a wide smile. He was always red. I guess that was from working out in the sun laying pipes and building homes. He had a deep voice with a hearty belly laugh. He would often tell off color jokes at the picnic table as we ate. My grandmother would always bitch at Frank. She didn't want him telling "colored" jokes around me. that was her job, she was the big sister. Frank would say "AWW shit's fire Jo Jo..there ain't nothin wrong with telling the boy a few jokes to spark his sense of humor." He was right of course.
My grandmothers name wasn't Jo Jo but Franks family had a strange habit of never calling anyone by their correct name. I loved it. My name was Hoss. "Hey Hoss bring me that pack of Kools and I'll tell you a joke about the Mexican, the Polock and the stewardess." I thought Frank was a hoot.
Frank had a basement rec room filled with guns, stuffed trophies, and all kinds of cool stuff. I got to hear my first dirty comedy album down there when I was 10. George Carlin's The big seven words you weren't allowed to broadcast were: Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker and Tits. Pure gold. Those seven beautiful words became my mantra.
I got to see Frank one last time in 2002 when I drove my son up there to see the family. He was sick and didn't have the same fire in his belly that I remembered. But he still called me Hoss and he named my son lil hoss
The cancer finally got him in 2004.
Looking back, Frank and his family were poor rednecks and they had their share of problems. But they were good people. My mother was repulsed by the way they lived and didn't want me going over there. What else could I say after being admonished for visiting Frank and his family?
Shit, piss, fuck, cunt cocksuckers, motherfuckers and tits.
20 Comments:
Followed the trail here from Burfica....I love your colourful use of the English Language...:)
Happy New Year to ya x
Hoss and Shit Fire are very important parts of the English language.
I had an uncle who liked me...alot, he used to show it by belching and blowing in my face. He drank alot of beer. He did the same when farting, only minus the blowing part... sorta, he would make sure his ass was in my face. Now THAT, my Friend, is Midwest White Trash!
Oh, and one year he blew out my ear by shooting a hog with a pistol right next to my head....
I thought he was a real ass. He was the state fair live-goldfish eating champion.
Good Monday morning, Hammer.
Families make memories, rednecks or blue bloods...
It's what we carry with us, those moments that makes us think, make us wonder, make us reflect...
What ultimately matters is that you loved Frank's nicknames and his jokes and belly laughs. He had a place in your heart just by being himself.
Anne
Interesting the people that we remember the most after we grow up. it's never the nice boring ones is it?
Great story! I can relate to those kinda folks.
sugar: thanks for visitng, My language is colorful because I ate crayons as a child ;)
infinitesimal: We are probably second cousins ;)
anne: That is so very true and sometimes it takes growing up to see it clearly.
l>t Yep the other relatives didn't make much impression on me.
I've never had squirrel, possum, or dog. Maybe someday.
Maybe the lady just wore what she liked to wear, I do, I love my old rags.
I don't recall any relatives as weird as yours. Or friends as weird as yours. :-)
Where were you raised again? It must have been a really fucking weird place. LOL
I've done my best to avoid being what people would call "white trash" because I know I'm capable of more. But I was raised around a lot of folks that fell into that category, and that was the best they could do. People that were the first in their families to make it past the eighth grade, and who felt they deserved to smoke and drink after working at a difficult manual labor job all week. And yes, they may have told jokes they shouldn't have, but they were good people. They showed their faith by being kind to others, not lecturing them on the horrors of hell. And they wouldn't put up with thieves or people who'd otherwise harm someone else. Family was more important to them than anything else, but friends were a close second.
I really miss them.
All memories are at the end a good luggage. Although some memories are heavy to carry.
That's what I tell myself after all I have gone through.
If not for the memories I would not have had the knowledge I have about ... everything...
(By the way. I hope my next book will be out in the summer 2007.)
Frank sounds like someone I would have loved to meet. Good-hearted folks with tales to tell.
Hammer, we could all use an Uncle Frank. Those are the relatives that keep us grounded and whose memories help us make sense of things when folks around us tries to over-intellectualize things.
BTW, I've tried squirrel soup/stew. Wasn't bad.
There was an old guy buddy of my Dad's who was a great character. He was a shameless alcoholic, but the man had a heart of gold. He was universally loved. When he died, there wasn't enough room in the church for mourners. A bunch of us weren't allowed to attend so we ditched school and played pool in his honour. I didn't get in trouble. The principal had attended so the teachers let me off.
BBC: Missouri, New Mexico and Texas. Weird shit just follows me.
Phoenix. I agree completely. Some people try so hard to leave their roots they end up being tight assed, miserable and misanthropic.
I'd rather not hide from my past like some do.
Kirsten: I agree, you've helped me realize that. Can't wait for the next book!
Nomas: You would have laughed your ass off while munching down on a whole barbecued squirrel and smoking a menthol kools.
James Burnett: I agree. Most of my family looked down on Frank. I saw him as someone who was happy with himself and tried to make others happy as well.
Jeannie Sounds like we appreciate the same kinds of people. I couldn't go to Franks funeral so I drank beer and told dirty jokes in his honor.
Some of you people think that I’m some kind of a freak because I keep harping that we are God in evolution and fussing about the condition of mankind, or monkeykind.
But some of you people make my being raised in a mining town in Northern Idaho look like I was raised in a real cultured place. Some of you think that I’m really weird, but the truth of the matter is that you are all a bunch of frigging freaks. I know that there are a lot of weird cultures and such out there, I’ve viewed and studied them, it’s just that I have never lived them.
Hey, lets all go camping together this coming summer. :-)
Frank sounds a little bit like my uncle Ray...
Besides the nice part. ;)
Steve~
So? C'mon then- the joke about the Mexican, Polock, and the stewardess. Hee hee.
What a great profile, Hammer, I can see your Uncle Frank clear as a bell. I have one of those strange families, we have everything from white trash to successful entrepeneurs and everything in between. What I love about them, is nobody was permitted to judge or put on airs.
steven: Ray is special thats for sure. We need some more of his stories.
stucco: There was a mexican and a polock sitting together on a flight out of Chicago They each had a parrot on their shoulder.
A stewardess walked up and asked" "Oh my! where did you get those?" The parrots gestured out the window to the city below and said "down there.. whole place is lousy with them."
kat: In my family the older generation worked their asses off so their kids wouldn't have to do without. Then the kids go and turn their noses up at their working class relatives.
Well, I grew up in the fifty's. The most outlandish thing in Northern Idaho back then was the 'cool' guys with duck tail haircuts and thin belts and pants a little low.
And then I joined the Navy and after that got a job, became a service manager and was still very square.
But you younger folks, you are fucking weird. LOL
You sure have some great stories to tell though. Hugs.
"In my family the older generation worked their asses off so their kids wouldn't have to do without. Then the kids go and turn their noses up at their working class relatives."
Hum, that sounds very familiar. Oh, wait, I am the older generation.
This story makes me think that you and I are related. Great story!
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