Dad’s day
Happy Dad’s day from my dad (circa 1961) and me.
(Aunt Rosemary & Uncle Julian–April 30, 1960)
Uncle Jay died last weekend.
Not me. My actual Uncle Jay.
And my nieces and nephews call me Uncle Georgy.
Actually, it was my Uncle Julian (Chapman), but everyone
outside the family knew him as Jay, which was confusing
when I was around, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
Seems like most people I have known have lots of aunts,
uncles, cousins and large extended families.
My mom was an only child, and my dad has just one sister,
Aunt Rosemary. So I’ve only ever had one Uncle, and that was Julian.
I grew up in a relatively simpler, and less distracted time in the
1960’s and 1970’s. Although we lived nearly two hours away,
it seemed like every weekend, Mom and Dad would load all five
of us Horn kids into the family station wagon, and we would
spend the weekend visiting all of my grandparents and cousins
in Lafayette. And they would visit us often while we spent
three weeks at the lakes each summer.
I don’t remember the Chapman’s ever living anywhere except the
house I was at yesterday after the funeral. They must have built
it around 1961, when my oldest cousin was born.
I always thought of the house as being out in the country.
Their "neighborhood" was not quite a dozen houses on a half-mile
stretch of a gravel road that didn’t quite leave room for two cars,
but that didn’t happen very often, and the road was built more for
John Deere than for Henry Ford. It was surrounded on all sides by
old growth trees and woods, cornfields, and rolling Indiana countryside.
As a kid, I always thought it was unfair that they got so many more
stars in their night sky than we did in Anderson.
Being "city-kids" from the big GM town, it was such a change
of scenery and culture to visit the Chapman’s "out in the country".
The surrounding neighbors had cows, pigs, rabbits, mice, corn,
soy beans, and lots of grass and mud, and gardens bigger than
our whole house back home.
And the kids drove tractors, mini-bikes, dirt bikes,
and occassionally, the old farm pick-up, if you stayed in
the neighborhood. We were very jealous. But they had
much more practical experience on two motorized wheels,
and the only time I tried to take the Yamaha dirt bike for a spin,
I ended up too close to a patio full of family, and too unfamiliar
with the difference between the throttle and the brake of the bike,
and I managed to scatter the patio, and drive halfway up the brick
side of the back of the house. I haven’t been on motorcycle since then.
I was reminded of that several times yesterday.
The neighbor kids were fun to hang out with, especially
when they shared their toys. Roger, Larry, Scott, Mike,
Scott, and JD, as well as our cousins didn’t seem to mind
the city cousin invasions, and they are a large part of my
memories of visiting my cousins in their "country neighborhood".
Yesterday, I was back at the Chapman’s house for the first time in
15 years, and the neighbors were all there. I learned that the
neighbor boys had grown up, married and had kids, and a cool thing
had happened; Over time, they had all bought up the neighborhood
properties as they became available, and they have all moved back
to the gravel road. They even bought the thirty acres of woods and
Wea Creek behind them to fend off unwanted development to their flank.
I suppose they might not recognize or describe this Utopian community
as my Rose colored glasses saw it yesterday, but the idea feels nice.
(Kristin and Kirk are thinking of Mrs. Adair right now…)
In real life, Uncle Julian was Jay Chapman, who worked at the Lafayette
John Deere dealership for as long as I can remember. Besides the
dirt bike patio incident, one of my enduring childhood memories
from being at the Chapman’s was the time the phone rang one Saturday,
and one of my young cousins answered.
They must have asked for Jay, because I was handed the phone.
I was a little confused when the frustrated farmer on the other
end began describing the problems he was experiencing with his
John Deere Combine. I don’t recall if I tried to relate the time that
I had to use a paperclip to reattach a wheel to the the toy John
Deere tractor that Uncle Julian had given me, but eventually,
with the help of John Deere Jay, we managed to get the combine
back up and running.
I always knew my Uncle to have such a positive attitude that I
never seemed to see him stressed about anything life threw at him.
Not even a second round of multiple heart bypass surgery two weeks ago.
This triple-bypass lasted nearly twelve hours, but when he awoke in
recovery, they say he was already joking around.
If only the heart could’ve remained as strong as his spirit and attitude.
At his memorial service Tuesday morning, I was happy to hear one of his
close church friends talking about his good friend and Christian, Jay.
Although I was deeply saddened for my Aunt and for my cousins,
my spirit was lifted, knowing that Uncle Jay is making new friends
and seeing old loved ones in Heaven this week.
And I am comforted in knowing that one day, I will hear his laugh again.
And whether we knew him as Uncle Julian, Jay, Dad, or Grandpa, we will
certainly miss him for now, but we will all look forward to hearing that laugh again.
