My Uncle passed away on September 12, 2010, and I wanted to honor him with a post full of my favorite memories of him.
Uncle Dick was my favorite uncle when I was growing up. I remember lots of fun summer vacations to Zion, Illinois that all included him. When I was a younger child I used to be very afraid of him, because he liked to tease me and pretend like he was going to eat my belly. Uncle Dick was a big guy and could be rather intimidating, so I always took his threats seriously. In fact, I remember hiding under the bed a couple times to avoid getting my belly eaten. But truth be know, Uncle Dick was really just a big teddy bear, and all his teasing was done in fun. It's interesting that even though I remember being scared of him, I also remember loving him and wishing to see him at the same time, so I guess I couldn't have been too afraid of him after all.
When I got a little bit older my fondest memories come from his famous ghost stories. You see, my grandparents house was pretty small, so whenever we would visit, the older kids would sleep outside in a tent. After we all got settled into our tent, Uncle Dick would come out, climb into the tent, and tell us a couple of scary ghost stories. He would get us all worked up and nice and jumpy, then kiss us goodnight and go back inside. We would sit inside the tent talking about the ghost stories and jumping at every little noise, and without fail about 10 to 20 minutes later Uncle Dick would quietly sneak back outside and scare the pee out of us! For some reason he was always able to scare us even though we eventually caught on and knew he was going to do it.
I remember many summer days and nights while visiting my grandparents, where Uncle Dick would sit in the garage smoking, drinking a beer, and teasing us. He was also something of a magician and would perform all kinds of tricks. As I got older he even showed me how to do some of these tricks myself! He loved to pull pranks on people and I especially enjoyed watching him tease and prank my mom! He was just one of those people that you couldn't be around without laughing and having a good time.
Another favorite memory of Uncle Dick is the one and only time he came to visit us here in Colorado. He came out here because Regina was supposed to get married and he promised her he would come. The wedding ended up getting cancelled, but too late for anyone to cancel their tickets, so instead we had a small family reunion and did all kinds of fun things. I just really loved having Uncle Dick here in our home town and showing him around our beautiful state. Uncle really seemed to enjoy visiting and especially seeing all of the grandchildren. He later told mom that he was really proud of how well we all were doing.
Uncle Dick was a kind and generous man, the kind of man who does Harley motorcycle drives to collect toys for sick kids, and the kind of man who sends his niece a little bit of money to help out during a particularly difficult time. Even though I haven't seen Uncle Dick in several years, I will miss him dearly. I know that one day we will all be reunited with him, and what a joyous day that will be, but in the meantime, this world seems a little bit lonelier without him. I love you and goodbye for now uncle!!