My uncle Charles passed away on Wed night at about 7:30 after a 3 month battle with stomach cancer. He passed into peace, relieved from a painful condition that took him quickly. His two daughters Jennifer and Laramie were with him as he passed on and he was able to visit with all of his grandchildren and close relatives in the past few months. I got to see him over the holidays and I’m so glad that I got to visit with him one last time.
I’ll miss my Uncle Charles. I didn’t see him very often and I wouldn’t say that we were especially close. However, he was an important presence in my life and I’d like to describe why.
My Dad and I always had trouble connecting; we disagreed a lot when I was growing up, and I think because our personalities are very different I never saw him as my male role model. My Dad’s a good man and I inherited many good qualities from him, but I always related more to my Uncle Charles’ personality. Where my Dad the accountant was careful and calculating, Uncle Charles could be impulsive and rash. My Uncle Charles was a live-in-the-moment kind of guy that was a bit of a thrill seeker; especially when it came to fast machines. He loved to tease people and sometimes he’d get a twinkle in his bright blue eyes and flash a smile through his bushy beard that let you know he was up to some shenanigans.
When I was a little guy I think I was kind of scared of my Uncle because he was tall and had a big beard. He could be abrupt and he has never enjoyed being around the noise and racket that young children produce. Despite all that, I could always sense that he liked me, probably because I was the first boy born in our family. When I was about 3 years old he let me drive a kid-size battery powered Model T car at his house; I think that was when my love affair with machines and my bond with him began.
When I was growing up, my family moved around a lot, but we always came back to our home base in Kansas City, MO where my Uncle and my grandma (Gammi) lived. There was one trip back where we went to Kansas City for the first time in quite a few years; I think I was about 10 or 11. We flew in and as we got off the plane there was this familiar looking guy standing in the jet bridge just outside the door of the plane. He was looking right at me and had a huge smile on his face, and said “Hi Paul!” It had been so long that I didn’t recognize my Uncle, but after he said my name I figured it out. He worked for the airlines and had gotten on to the jet bridge to surprise us as we got off our plane. I’ll always remember that greeting because it made me feel really good that he was excited enough to see us that he went to the trouble of figuring out where we would be so he could surprise us. He had a way of lighting up whenever I’d see him that let me know he was always really happy to see me.
My Uncle Charles was a guy’s guy. He had a great love of wide open spaces, fast cars, and motorcycles. As a kid growing up he seemed like a real life version of Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, and Peter Fonda all wrapped up in one. He drove everywhere like it was a race, was a pretty good shot with a gun, and could ride for days at a time on a motorcycle. I remember going down into his basement lair once where all his cool guy stuff was and looking at his movie collection. I think he owned every action movie ever made. Right next to that room was his garage where his 69 Camaro sat. He’d blown the engine in a drag race when it was new and it had basically sat ever since. As a teenage boy I dreamed about cars like that, and I always hoped that someday he’d bring it back to life and let me drive it. The car has become his teenage grandson’s now, and hopefully he’ll get it going. Besides the Camaro his garage was always full of motorcycles. Charles loved to ride motorcycles; he rode pretty much every day, even in the harsh Kansas City winters. He had different bikes for commuting and long trips and I was always in awe of all the metal and chrome in his garage.
One time not long after he had bought his BMW touring bike, he came to Gammi’s house for dinner. I remember he asked me to come into the driveway to see his new bike. My Mom protested, but nothing could have kept me from going to see his bike. He saw the look of true love in my eyes as I looked at the bike and he asked me if I wanted to get on it. I think I was 13 or 14, maybe younger, I remember I was still pretty small, but I wanted to know what it felt like to be on that machine. As I mounted the bike he said, “Now don’t drop my new bike, and watch out, it’s heavy as hell.” I took it off the kickstand and held it as straight as I could, my skinny arms trembling at the weight. I was terrified of dropping it over and pissing him off, but at the same time the feel of those grips in my hands and the seat under me was a thrill; I knew I’d ride a motorcycle someday. I came back in the house talking about motorcycles and my Mom was not happy. Well, thanks to Charles I’ve been riding motorcycles for 17 years now, and Mom, I’m not dead or crippled yet!
In his younger years he was in the military in Germany, and he dragged muscle cars. His experiences provided plenty of grist for stories, which he was full of; he loved to tell stories. He could tell you stories for hours and he never seemed to run out of them. The fun part was that he was a dang good story teller and he could actually keep you entertained for hours!
One of my favorite things about my Uncle was how fired up he got about things when you talked to him. Pete (my brother) and I loved to drink beer with him and talk to him about how to solve the world’s problems. After quite a few of these conversations over the years I realized that he had two favorite solutions that would pretty much always ended the conversation:
1. Line the SOB’s up and shoot em all!
2. Nuke the whole damn place and blow it off the map!
He wasn’t actually a raging maniac, but sometimes he talked like it. Charles was actually a pretty gentle guy at heart. He’d do anything to help you out if you needed it. He’s helped me many times with vehicle repairs, and he was a great teacher. When he showed me how to do things he was always very patient and kind. I’m not the most mechanical person but he would go through explaining how to fix my motorcycle without ever getting irritated with me even when I asked the same questions a few times.
A few years ago my uncle moved out into the desert with his friends Mark and Joyce. He started out in a little camper trailer and moved up to a single wide trailer that he has slowly transformed into a nice little home. He had plenty of things to fix and tinker with out there and plenty of space to shoot his guns. I always enjoyed visiting with him out there.
I witnessed my uncle’s competitive side once when I came out to visit him on my motorcycle. I had an 85 Magna 700 and at the time he was riding Laramie’s old Vulcan that was about the same size and age as my bike. We decided that we should compare the two bikes by drag racing them so we went out onto the long straight road near his place and raced. The Magna was built for racing and I easily beat him. We got to the end and he shook his head, looked at his bike like there was something wrong with it, tinkered with it a little, and told me he wanted to go again. I easily won again. He wanted to go again. And again. And again. After the last time he drove back to his place without saying anything. I pulled in after him and he just shook his head and said, “fast bike.” We didn’t talk about the race after that, I think he was a little sore about it.
One thing we loved to do was to shoot guns together. It became a tradition by the time I was a teenager and we would go shoot almost every time I saw him. He always explained everything about the weapons we’d shoot and we were always very careful about it. There was something very cathartic about shooting with him and we could do it for hours sometimes, or until we ran out of ammo or bottles to shoot at.
Charles wasn’t big on sharing feelings with me, but there was one time when I experienced his softer side that I’ll always remember. I had just gone through my first divorce and was out in Kansas City for a visit. He was in the process of getting ready to move out to NV and leave his wife of many years, and we had a heart to heart about women while we were going for a ride in his truck. I remember being kind of shocked because he got emotional, but it helped me because I was really struggling at the time and he was able to empathize with me. He could be tough and crusty, but he could be sensitive too. I saw his soft side come out whenever he talked about his daughters or his grandkids; I know that he was fiercely proud of his family.
I’m not a religious guy, but I imagine if there’s a heaven after this that Charles is up there riding a machine that’s faster than anything that ever existed on earth, and trading stories with his uncles.
So, Uncle Charlie, goodbye, I’ll miss you.
