Stopping by Uncle Fred's
Michael J. Arndt
The snowflakes hung in the air;
The big silver dollar kind,
That were supposed to mean
That their falling wouldn't last long.
The car rolled up to the garage door;
A house that in its neat, rambler style
Gave little away of the man within,
Or of the feet that had walked in two centuries.
One walked to the garage door,
Rang the outside bell, walked inside,
Beginning a ritual that spanned the years,
A common, yet extraordinary sharing of life.
They always began the same way,
Those familiar and well-worn stories,
Told from that old stuffed rocker,
As the teller watched the world outside his window.
"Did you know the Herb Cochline's?
They had the place across from Pa's
No? I guess not-well, they had this team of mares. . . " And that's the way it was launched.
One would always intend to spend only a minute,
Fifteen at the most, but soon you were caught,
Not by any pressure of guilt but by unseen threads,
That, woven into the stories, were as much as you as of him.
And so they flowed, connected by the weakest links,
With unanswerable questions drawing you in,
Names, places, events, emotions coming alive again,
A history flashing with reality in his eyes.
". . . and when we laid down at night,
We could see the snow through the holes in the roof."
". . . and John and I looked outside at the wire,
Thinking we could see the voices-from this telephone thing."
"Pa had this dog that he trained,
Pumped water all day running in a wheel. . ."
". . . and after four days I quit high school,
Too tired from walking the six miles each way."
". . . when we pulled those big Mac trucks through
the streets,
They slid-hard rubber wheels-single axle drive."
". . . liked to ride that motorcycle, hand clutch,
Sometimes still I would like to ride."
". . . gangs of toughs were waiting on the road,
For Ma and Pa to come from the German league meeting." ". . . got a letter from Ma telling me to come home;
Had to leave The Cities then. . . never really liked farming."
And so it would go those afternoons,
Between coming or going from holidays or
birthdays,
The drives out from "The Cities," the trips in from
out of state,
Sitting for hours, absorbing, anticipating, loving.
Discovering that we are never alone in our own time;
That who we are as individuals walking our own
steps,
Is forged link by link to that chain of life that is our
family,
Thilt by their steps through their history, they have
aiways carried.
"You need something to eat," he would finally say,
"It's my treat-I buy," and we would move to his car. "Did I ever tell you about how Boon Lake was dry
once
Believe that? Huh?"
Yes, Uncle Fred, I always believed, And I'll miss stopping by.
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