Tribute to Uncle Ed...

"I’ve got the freight train blues,
lordy, lordy, lordy, Got ’em in the bottom of my ramblin’ shoes,
And when the whistle blows, I’ve gotta go,"
-Freight Train Blues, Roy Acuff

My friend Greg had a great uncle that everybody knew as Uncle Ed.

-You know you're a legend when your name becomes a title by which you are known far and wide. That is exactly what Uncle Ed had become by the time he passed away last Friday due to complications caused by severe burns.

When I came into the scene of the LHB Crew in 2000 (now the more refined Blue House boys), I was fascinated by the then 70-something year old man's way of life. He lived in a small house on the back lot of his nephews house, my friend Greg's father, Bill "You Can't Bend Me" LaFollette. I was also a bit frightened of him as well. He had a slender, but hard body worn by years of manual labor. His hands were as big as baseball mitts and his feet the size of bedpans. They helped to give Uncle Ed a very unique appearance and gait as he walked in his steady pace. His face was sharp with a large nose that held up even larger glasses over deep set eyes. His mouth was framed by a hard jaw that always made him look a little stern and menacing even when he wasn't meaning to be. When he smiled though it was contagious because it was so rare, and it usually meant he was telling a joke he found to be a riot or he was up to mischief. And his head was topped by mostly white, with streaks of gray hair always kept short. Uncle Ed's physical appearance definitely added to his legend, especially in my opinion.

He had an old nasty looking dog named Randy (best known for his seemingly ever present "red marker") that followed him everywhere. Despite being 70-something he mowed the yard as a hobby everytime it was needed. He would gather lumber and trash from the yard and burn it in a heap far in the back of the LaFollette's lot near a ravine. He ate food with the family at times, but I think mostly would take his meals back to his little house, to eat in solitude with Randy.

His demeanor was of a simple man. He liked his work, he liked his dog(s), he liked his solitude, and he liked his food. He didn't bother you if you didn't bother him. Though I know one woman who would probably argue that point with me. He was generally kind, especially if you were kind to him. He however did not respect people that couldn't or didn't work hard in their lives. For example one time when I was sleeping on the LaFollette's living room couch, Uncle Ed came in the house (this was an early stage when I was more frightened of him...I'm black, I look Hispanic, he's old, I thought he might think mean things of me...though he probably wasn't capable of racism, I still feared it).
He was talking to himself, another common trait of Uncle Ed's (perhaps he just enjoyed intelligent conversation), about Greg:
Where's Greg? I bet he's still asleep. Lazy boy. He should be out in the garage helping his dad."
I of course snuggled into the couch to hide myself and started giggling, because it was pretty funny.

Yet the thing that made Uncle Ed most famous was his stories. Apparently he told the same ones over and over again, though I was always eager to hear them. My friends that had been around him for years knew them and could request them as if from a jukebox catalog. He had many from his past, especially young adulthood and childhood. He could remember old stories of Kansas City. He also loved to talk about television shows, most notoriously the trash court show Judge Judy. He loved her blunt manner and would recite to you the fashion in which she had dealt callously with the most recent buffoon to appear on her show. He also had an occassional joke to tell you if he were in a really good mood.

The times I will remember him most for are when he would yell at us young men about shooting off fireworks in the backyard way after the 4th of July and for burning his good wood. I will remember the time he singlehandedly pushed a tree over (albeit thin and dead) with his brute strength, big hands, and determination. He did this just this past summer in his 80s. All because it was in the way of a truck. I was and still am in awe.

I wonder what happened that lead the burning accident to happen. It's not as if Uncle Ed was not a professional at burning stuff. Still, it is as Greg said, that at least he died from something he was familiar with, rather than something he wouldn't understand like cancer.

This entry is inspired by a phone conversation I overheard last night in which my friend and roommate Nick Robertson stated how much he liked Uncle Ed and how nobody would remember him. I wanted to make an effort to insure that maybe that will not be true.

Still in death, is it so bad to die and be forgotten by the masses? Why is it so important for man, particularly Western man (and woman) to be remembered by multitudes. It is our motivation for writing songs, blogs, books, memoirs, poetry; making movies; having children; nearly everything man does is some attempt to leave a legacy. Even our better and best intentions are attempts to leave a mark.

I think the LaFollette's will definitely remember him. Somebody else must mow the lands. Randy passed away just before Uncle Ed, but he left behind a sad dog named Turbo. Now they must comfort Turbo in his time of mourning. There will be no man to tell them anymore stories. There will be nobody to come silently around a corner and scare the crap out of you. There will not be anyone to stare at you silently as you pull into the long driveway. Plus over the course of days, months, years they will most likely recall how much he really meant to them.

In the end do we need to be remembered by anymore than our families? I don't think Uncle Ed would mind if that is the case.

Rest in peace, ye weaver of tales...