Yesterday was the first day I’ve had all three kids together in twelve weeks. It is a day I will never forget. Will they remember it? Probably not. I pondered childhood and everlasting memories. I thought about those people that helped me create everlasting memories. One such person was a mortician. Uncle Carl, my Dad’s oldest sibling, was a mortician. He flew planes and loved to fish. Carl had huge forearms and thick glasses. If he looked at you just right, his eyes would appear impossibly large behind those thick lenses. He loved rubber snakes. There were always ripe tomatoes in his window. When I visited his house, I would purposely walk past the embalming room to get to the trampoline. I loved when he would swing by our house to drop off okra, or tell stories, or to talk about the feral cat problem at Grandmother’s house. I loved his visits even more when he was in the Funeral Hurst. He would let us pretend to drive. Uncle Carl wasted fewer words than anyone I’ve ever known. This was a typical phone conversation. Ring JB: “Hello?” Uncle Carl: “Egbert home?” JB: “No Sir, he’s…” CLICK. Silence. Carl could care less if Dad was in town playing checkers with Frank Sinatra or a Bi-Lo picking up wasp spray, if he wasn’t there that very second, he hung up and moved on. Uncle Car rarely asked me things twice. One day he appeared in our kitchen and asked if I wanted to go flying. Fifty minutes later the two of us were in his small plane speeding down the tiny runway at the Washington, Georgia Airport. Our elbows were touching. Just before lift-off, Carl screamed for me to push a button or pull a lever. I froze. He reached over me and did something. The plane lifted over the pines, we banked and gained altitude. My little hometown came to life just below me. It was magical. I asked him where we were going. Without smiling, he replied, “To get fuel.” We flew on. The small plane bumped, bounced and swayed. I could have closed my eyes and pretended to be on the back of a drunk giant trying to climb icy stairs in a single high-heeled shoe. We flew on. Without warning, Uncle Carl descended quickly and turned the plane sharply. I was looking down a wing pointing into a small pond. Excitedly, he yelled, “Look at those Bream beds!” I tried to appreciate the lunar landscape made by the fish in the small pond. We took a second pass at a lower altitude. Fear started to back out the screws in my heart. I took a breath. Like the rabbit that suddenly finds beauty in the coloration of a striking rattlesnake, I found calmness. The Bream beds were beautiful. We flew on. A few minutes later I pointed out that a plane was approaching us from the right. Calmly, Uncle Carl replied, “Keep and eye on it, I would hate for it to hit us.” I suggested radioing the plane. Uncle Carl thought that was a good idea but said, “I don’t know how to use the radio.” I watched the plane. I kept him updated. We flew on. I mustered the courage to ask how he had a pilot’s license if he didn’t know how to use the radio. Looking straight ahead, he relied, “I don’t have a license. Mine expired and my eyesight is too bad to get it renewed.” We bounced on. Carl asked me to look for other planes as we descended. The coast seemed clear. We continued to descend. The ground rising. Suddenly he pulled up and the plane roared. We turned sharply and headed back. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “The fueling station is closed, we are going home.” After a few seconds, I asked, “Do we have enough gas to het home?” Without looking at me, Uncle Carl replied, “I hope.” We flew in silence. I did a lot of thinking. Thoughts I had never had. We landed safety. I was convinced that I had beat death that day. I had the coolest story in school for weeks. While my classmates played whiffle ball, I was flying around with my semi-blind, undertaker uncle on an empty tank dodging planes and tall trees. Then one day, years later, it dawned on me that it was all a prank. Then it all dawned on me again, years later, that maybe it wasn’t. I can’t even remember where I flew last week, but I will never forget that flight. But that was the point, wasn’t it? To cool uncles, rubber snakes, Bream beds and everlasting memories. Now if only I had a plane…
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 11:55:24 +0000
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