Uncles

There have been many uncles in my life. I often called my good friend and employer at Stapp Towing, Uncle Bruce. I worked for him for almost 10 years. Bruce was an honest and fair man, but he was tough to work for at times. Then there was another uncle; I often called Walter Cronkite Uncle Walt. That was a common thing to say about Walter during the Vietnam War. We tuned in almost nightly to watch Walter give the latest news of the war. I was drawn to the news and even made it my career goal. I ended my live TV career working for the Associated Press as a Satellite Up-Link Engineer. I bought a couple of his books, ‘A Reporter’s Life’, which he was signing. When he finished signing them, I said, “Thanks, Uncle Walt.” He looked at me and smiled. I gave those books to my Dad and Father-in-Law. I now have the one I gave to my Father-in-Law on my shelf at home.

I had only one true Uncle, my Uncle James. He was my dad’s older brother. During World War 2, James joined the Army Air Corps and was trained as a pilot. During training, he got into trouble when he flew his trainer aircraft low over his old high school... upside down. One of his teachers recognized him; she could clearly see his face. She reported him. James was eventually assigned to fly B-25s. He told me of a time when they were training low-level flight over the White River in Arkansas, flying below the treetops just feet off the river. The aircraft was fully crewed, and the guns had blanks in them so the gunners could simulate fighting the enemy. He said they came around a river bend, and there was a boat in the middle of the river with a fisherman. The .50 caliber machine guns opened up on that poor fisherman with the blanks sounding like authentic rounds. The fisherman dove into the river as the B-25 flew mere feet over him. Uncle James said the entire crew really had fun on that flight.

Uncle James was deployed to the South Pacific towards the end of the war. He did not talk about his time in the South Pacific. Many years later, I inherited the safe from my grandparents’ store. In that safe were Uncle James’s wings and a belt buckle that had Japanese writing on it, along with some Japanese money. I brought them to James one time, thinking he might want to have those things. He looked them over, taking a little longer looking at the belt buckle, then handed them back to me. “You hang on to these for me.” I put them back into the safe. Uncle James passed away in 2006. I gave the wings to my cousin since he should have them. I still have that belt buckle. I wish I knew the story behind that, but Uncle James would not tell me.

Today is Uncle James ’ birthday. He was born 100 years ago today, August 8, 1925.