Uncle Bing

"Growing up, Uncle Bing was like the uncle I never had. He was my father's estranged brother, who had been kicked out of the family for loving jazz. That's what he said, anyway, it didn't seem that bad to us.

Dad would secretly invite Uncle Bing to Thanksgiving dinner every year, and we'd pass him turkey and giblets through the doggy door. I was never sure who we were hiding Bing from, since mom always made sure to make extra portions for him. Maybe Stephanie had a problem with Uncle Bing I hadn't heard about.

When dad wasn't around, Bing liked to take my brother Goose and I under this wing, teaching us that money was for folks who didn't know how to pick a lock or sledgehammer a doorknob. For the bold, every neighborhood was like a department store and every kitchen a supermarket. Every garage was still a garage, but Uncle Bing had sent away for a correspondence course in hotwiring. So really every garage was like a used car lot, only not yet.

The neighborhood kids loved to make fun of Goose and I for our threadbare, out-of-season clothes, thanks to Dad's gambling and croquet habits. But only the really stupid ones were still laughing when we showed up wearing the clothes that had recently gone missing from their closets, thanks to Uncle Bing.

Goose and I looked up to Bing like he was our dad's brother, and we even baked him a giant oatmeal cookie the year he scammed the government into letting him stay at their big gray hotel for free."

Lottery
"A wise man once said: 'It takes a fool to win the lottery.' Wait, no. That's not right. In retrospect I think it was 'It takes a fool to get into pottery.' That's it. And that man was my father. Dad hated pottery, ever since he was kicked out of... (11/11/02)

Viking
"When I was a young boy, no older than 24, my uncle asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. He said "Sampson, I want you to touch me right here between my testicles until I tell you to stop." My answer that day, as it always had been, was... (10/28/02)

Different
"I have long been, and may always be, a confirmed bachelor. But like other people who say that, I am not gay. I did meet one gay fellow quite a while back. It was 1954 when I met him, an affable fellow named Pitt. He wore bright clothes but that... (10/14/02)