Thursday, January 25, 2007

• George is a favorite uncle of mine.  A terminal bachelor who lived with his sister (until she slipped into dementia at an advanced age--A. is her namesake) and a brother (until he had a stroke and needed to live in an assisted residence--my grandpa).  After that, being an old man himself, he moved to an apartment closer to his favorite town haunts.  He never drove, as far as I know.  I've heard stories of his younger days.  A handsome man, very much so.  He was part of a posse of old lebanese men, most of them somehow related to me and probably a little shady in their time... he and my grandfather were in the middle of an FBI bust on their bookie business many years ago, but still old men.  Another brother faked a heart attack and took the numbers slips with him in the ambulance to the hospital.  Lack of evidence.  They got off.  I've written that story before, I think.
  
  He was a WWII veteran, like my grandpa.
  
  Wheeling, West Virginia holds these memories for me...
  When I was a child, he owned a cigar/smoke shop.  He also sold candy at a huge counter and sodas in glass bottles in a deep freezer by the front door (you to use an bottle opener on the side of the freezer).   When my sister and I would visit Wheeling each summer (and sometimes in the winter) I loved the visits to his shop.  I always had at least one Orange Crush soda (he called it "pop") and a candy bar (usually Snickers).  He would have let me eat and drink myself sick, never giving me any indication that it cost him money and stock each time I gorged myself.  I didn't realize, for many years, until my mother sat me down and told me that he actually paid for those sweets in the first place and he didn't have a whole bunch of money.  I thought his shop was magic and free.  I limited myself to one each visit from then on.  He let me throw the dice for craps in the backroom of The Sportsman's Bar, so did my grandfather.  I must have been lucky, because the men whose faces I knew so well then but can't even recall now were all having a ball.  What a novelty I was among the Wheeling Lebanese Mafia (as I once heard my mother snarkily refer to them).  They weren't mafia at all, just a bunch of naughty old guys who liked to gamble.  What a blast it was to hang with them.
  
  On these visits I would stay with my grandfather, aunt and George in their house... a huge old house with a laundry chute all the way down to the basement.  He treated me like a granddaughter (he had treated my mother and aunt like his own).  I was always fascinated by his bedroom.  Dusty and smelling of original Listerine and Gold Bond Powder.  His radio played Big Band music and he had all kinds of interesting knickknacks that he sold in his store (one of my favorites was a cork-type imitation moonshine jug that he sold to tourists, I have one still in my possession).  He would pay me ten dollars (and this was late 1970s/80s and my allowance was half that) to clean his room while he was at work one day.  It was my idea.  I pretended that I was appalled by all the dust in his bedroom.  Really, I just wanted free reign to examine everything the man owned.  And I did just that, though I made the room sparkle too (after I drew pictures in the dust).  He had a photo of Cybil Shepard (it was around the time of Moonlighting on TV) and wrote my name underneath because he was convinced I looked like her.  Mildly raunchy cartoons hidden in a drawer behind dozens of pairs of black socks; tie clips, cufflinks, shoehorns and noseclippers; bookie sheets and a crucifix; a box of heavenly smelling cigars... so many treasures for a nibby young me to explore.
  
  He was good to all of us, no favorites.   My sister and I share the many of the same memories. My brother (11 years younger than I) had his own relationship with George.  He would mail my brother baseball cards, shoeboxes full of them. 
  
  Uncle George died yesterday.
  He had a stroke six months ago and had been in a hospital bed/nursing home since then.  My aunt saw him in January and he did not know who she was (she grew up with him) nor did he seem to have any idea about anything.  I find this a comfort, knowing that he had a stroke and then was away somewhere in his mind from then on.  He would not want to be aware of life in a nursing home.  His only near and living relative, the only member of my family that is left in Wheeling, is his youngest brother.  Uncle Harry.  He is quite old himself, but he took care of George until the end.  They are gathering tomorrow, with a hospital chapel service.  The ground will not be soft enough for digging again until spring, so there will be no burial.  We are not going.  It's easier on Harry if he doesn't have to plan a whole big deal and wait for us to travel and get there (these were his words).  There are probably a couple of friends of his alive, and if they can move they will be in that chapel.  They had such full lives, all of those folks down there.  Some of it awful, some not.  They've all lived a long time (I do not know how old my uncle was), for better or worse, and I feel happy for my Uncle George.  He was such a cool guy, such a giant-hearted man... a huge player in the memories I hold most dear.
  
  The last time I saw him was at my grandpa's funeral.  He was still Uncle George... though with substantially less ability to hear and we shouted our conversation.  He hugged me hard, I remember that.
  
  Tomorrow I shall commemorate him, here, in some personal way.  I will light a white candle to burn until it extinguishes itself.  Perhaps I'll smoke a cigar and drink a shot-anda-beer.  Perhaps I'll just give him a holler and thank his spirit for the attention and memories he gave me.  I bet he's livin' it up wherever he is.
  
  Thanks for reading.
  Good night.
  

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