Role Players

Due to some personal issues that his Mom faced while he was growing up. my Dad was basically raised for a significant portion of his childhood by his Aunt Jean and Uncle Jimmy.  They were very good to my Dad and Mom - and to all of us as well.

In an email exchange earlier this year, my sister Joan was reminiscing how Uncle Jimmy would provide transportation frequently for the kids while Dad was at work – Mom didn’t drive. In an earlier post, I also briefly touched on the good times that we all shared at Aunt Jean and Uncle Jimmy’s small cottage on the Juniata River in the town of Ardenheim outside of Huntingdon.

We would visit Aunt Jean and Uncle Jimmy pretty frequently and, in many ways, they were sort of like a third set of grandparents. The visits would tend to follow a pattern. That pattern is the subject of this post. (Standard caveat on the facts in this post. I have a decent memory, but these events occurred 40 years or so ago. So let me know if my facts don’t reflect reality.)

They lived in a nice, small house that was (I believe) off of Wopsononock Ave near the outskirts of Altoona in a small neighborhood that runs up against Juniata Gap Road (across from Penn State-Altoona).  Aunt Jean and Uncle Jimmy had a well-manicured back yard – grass was a big deal to us since our yard wasn’t very green. The picture to the left is Your Faithful Servant, standing in that yard, in August, 1967.

(Off topic, but one has to acknowledge that the strong look I am bringing in that photo has mack daddy written all over it! My feeling of pride is, however, somewhat tempered with the bittersweet realization that I peaked – in looks, fashion sensibility, style, and coolness – all at the age of 5.)

Once inside the house, we would be greeted by their dog, Tippy. I believe there were multiple generations of Tippy and I think the one I remember was Tippy V2.0. Very friendly and good with kids. Tippy’s calm demeanor was especially appreciated by me. I was somewhat spooked by dogs since the age of 4, when a German Shepherd bit me right above the eye out in front of my house.  (Where in the hell is Jackie Chiles when you need him? “If you were bit, then they won’t acquit!”)

When Uncle Jimmy would greet us, it was a physical encounter  He really enjoyed poking and prodding us. Tickling was his specialty, but he had several other moves in his repertoire that might qualify as torture under today’s wimpy Geneva Conventions' guidelines:

• The Cheek Pinch. This was the low end of the pain threshold and generally, you had to expect this anytime a relative would great you in those days.
• The Whisker Rub. This was painful. Think barb wire being dragged across your face on a blustery, sub-zero degree wind chill day.
• The Lobe Yank. Attach thumb and forefinger to ear lobe. Apply vise-like pressure. Yank elbow toward floor.

Aunt Jean would always have some homemade goodies available for our consumption – snacks, deserts, and in some cases, even a whole meal. I specifically recall a delicious meatloaf she could whip up with layers of bread stuffing/croutons and American cheese.

The house was small but cozy. In the living room, there was a large organ and a console television.  The TV was noteworthy for the plastic covering that was laid over the picture tube. The thin see-through plastic was in horizontal layers of blue, green, and red. I am not sure if this covering was purely protective in nature, was some sort of aesthetic statement, or was some scam-artist’s color TV rip-off.

Uncle Jimmy, though advanced in age, was sharp as a tack. He was a fountain of knowledge about family history and had numerous photograph books, scrapbooks, and other family tree artifacts. He could converse for hours about family members on the Nedimyer, Roy, and (of course) Hughes branches of the tree.

Unfortunately, when you are a youngster, you don’t appreciate the value of that history, so one tried to avoid getting pinned down by Uncle Jimmy for a family tree lecture – before you knew it, an hour could of passed. Our goals when visiting Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Jean were oriented around playing outside in the grassy yard, messing around with Tippy, and consuming the goodies with which Aunt Jean would spoil us.

We found that my brother Steve could be leveraged (exploited) on these visits . When home from Pitt or the Air Force, naturally Steve would join us in our visits to Aunt Jean and Uncle Jimmy. Over time, circumstances sort of evolved such that Steve would typically be the one that would be stuck on the Uncle Jimmy Island. The role that Steve performed, while somewhat utilitarian in nature, was nevertheless quite valuable to the rest of us.

Now I stress that this wasn’t some explicit scam that we were running on Steve. It is not like we shepherded Steve to the living room and initiated the proceedings with “Hey Uncle Jimmy, Steve was wondering whether Great Granddad Rudolf Nedimyer had any second cousins that lived in Houtzdale in the late 1800s”. Rather, Steve seemed to have a genuine curiosity about the family history and had acquired enough context to be able to actively engage with Uncle Jimmy on the Nedimyer Family Tree. So it was a synergistic, win-win kind of deal.

At least that is what we rationalized on the way out to play with Tippy in Aunt Jean and Uncle Jimmy’s backyard. “See you in a couple of hours Steve!”