Kathy's Family

My friend, Kathy, is your typical mother, runner, vegetarian, assistant dean who calls her parents by their first names.  She loves college basketball and cackling at inappropriate jokes.  She's the kind of friend you can not talk to for two months and then send her an email simply saying, "I just saw a guy walk into a pole" and you just know she's cracking up on the other end of the campus.

Kathy is interesting and all, but the most captivating thing about her is her family.  Not her husband and kids.  They're fine, but not particularly note-worthy.  However, no fiction writer could come up with these characters:  Bob, Jack, Joe and Slash.  They are Kathy's uncles and aunt.  More than likely you will never meet them and that is your loss.

Bob, Jack and Joe are brothers to Kathy's mom, Sue.  Bob and Jack lived in the same small town where I lived and I would often see them at the grocery store.  They traveled as a pair.  For awhile I would make a point of trying to remember which was which.  But, in the end, it didn't really matter because they were always together.  I would say, "Hi, Uncle Bob.  Hi, Uncle Jack,"  and they would never recognize me.  I would then follow it with, "I'm Kathy's friend, Tonya.  The one with all the kids," to which they would reply, "Oh, sure, sure.  How are the kids?"  I'm pretty sure at that point they still didn't remember me, but they were very polite.   

Neither of them ever married and they lived in their childhood home which was right across the street from Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt, or whatever the name of the Catholic Church was.  They were what I would call "hard-core Catholics".  They would be at mass for whatever obscure saint's day it was and would choose a candidate based on one criteria, are they Pro-Life?  The kind of devout Catholic that moderate Catholics even find a little tough to take sometimes.  But, they meant well and were true to their faith, so you have to respect that.  

When I met them they were both semi-retired but starting a landscaping business together.  This kept them busy and entertained but still left time to take care of their older brother, Joe.  Joe had recently been moved back to Illinois from Iowa because he was bi-polar with a hint of schizophrenia and starting to lose it.  There was a story the uncles had vaguely mentioned that involved Joe's dog, (or was it a cat), and he had lost it, or killed it, or something.  Anyway, Joe was shipped to the brothers for the kind of proper supervision only old, single men can provide.

Joe had been married to Nancy before she died in a medical mishap.  I never met Nancy and when I asked Kathy if Joe was showing signs of mental illness when she was younger she said, "I don't know.  All I remember is that Uncle Joe and Aunt Nancy had four sheep which they named after their nieces:  Kathy, Julie, Heather and April.  The sheep were all struck by lightning and killed.  Uncle Joe just left their carcasses in the field to rot."  I took that as a "yes" he showed signs of illness.

Joe might have struggled with mental stability but he kept himself very busy.  He could be counted on to look through the household bills and maintain his notes in his office, the local coffee shop.  He would sort and categorize the bills and make notes in a shabby, spiral bound notebook.  A typical entry in the notebook might be:  "Susie arrived at 5:15 p.m. with Subway.  Bob, Jack and I ordered our usual.  Susie had tuna salad with Baked Lays and a Diet Coke."  Sure, it might seem a bit trivial to the average person, but you never know when someone might race through town screaming, "What did everyone have for dinner?!"

     

Then, there's Kathy's Aunt Slash.  She really isn't her aunt, but a cousin to Bob, Jack, Joe and Sue.  And Slash really isn't her real name.  Her given name is Joan.  In the late 1950's Joan had a career as a dancer, but she assumed no one would want to watch a dancer named "Joan", so she had a stage name.  With all the options open to her, it's unclear why she chose "Phyllis", but she must have thought it held much more allure and intrigue than "Joan".  For as long as Kathy could remember, they all called her "Joan/Phyllis" (literally "Joan-slash-Phyllis") which was eventually shortened to Slash.  I'm sure in her heyday Slash was quite glamorous, but I knew her when she was using a walker and had a colostomy bag.  I hate to reduce someone to a device they had to use in their old age, but the bag plays a key role in my favorite Slash story.

   

The four of them were returning from a family gathering when Bob (or was in Jack) had to pull over to the side of road because there was a slight colostomy bag back-up.  I'm not so sure there can be a "slight" problem when it comes to colostomy bags, but, nevertheless, they pulled over to clean up and correct the situation.  In true Slash-form all she said was, "Well, that'll teach me to eat gooseberry pie."

     

I will always treasure my memories of the yearly Thanksgiving Day football games with our families and Bob, Jack, Joe, and Slash.  Bob and Jack always had a great time, Joe always looked concerned and Slash just stood on the sidelines cheering for whoever had the ball.  It all would end with the traditional picture of all the players in a cheerleader-style pyramid.  I will always regret not being around on the Thanksgiving Day years before when Nancy fell from the pyramid and broke her arm.  I wonder if Joe just left her on the field to rot.