He
was my uncle on my father’s side, and he definitely swam upstream against tradition.
No one else in the family vaguely compared to him, character wise. I really should
devote an entire book to him instead of just these few paragraphs, but let me
try to capture the essence of his strangeness as succinctly as I can.
One of the earliest memories I have of his peculiarities concerned a new car he
had just bought. He offered to take us for a spin, but first, he had to give us
all instructions on how to enter the car. We were told NOT to simply slide over
into the seat; that would cause excessive wear on the fabric. One must hold the
derriere high above the seat and not bring it down until it had reached its destination.
The procedure was reversed upon exiting. As he drove, we noticed that he did not
follow the lane as he rounded a curve but took the shortcut, across the middle
in a straight line. He reasoned that, in an average day’s drive, he would save
many miles that way.
He thought that all the oil in the crankcase should
be used before changing to new oil. He reasoned that, if you used all the gasoline
in the tank before filling it, why not the oil? My father explained that this
would cause extreme damage to the engine, but draining oil and throwing it away
seemed awfully wasteful to my uncle. Against his will, though, he followed my
father’s advice.
There was only a quart left to drain. He stared at the
black goop and realized he simply could not part with it. There must be some use
for this precious lubricant. My father said he used to rub it on his pigs to keep
the parasites off, but my uncle had no livestock. He was still scratching his
head and pondering the problem when we left.
Months later, when we went
back to visit, he showed us the oil in a Mason jar, sitting on a shelf in the
garage. He was waiting for the impurities to settle to the bottom so he could
reuse the top part. It didn’t work, but I think that jar of oil sat there for
years, just in case.
Uncle
Unique never went on a trip with the thought of simply enjoying the scenery and
the company of people along the way. With his analytical mind, honed by years
of working as an accountant, he always took his calculator along. He didn’t stay
in hotels if he could possibly avoid it. He would, instead, drive miles off his
planned route to spend the night with friends or relatives, some of whom he hadn’t
seen in years. After departing the home of his surprised hosts, he would stop
along the road and carefully figure his expenses in getting to their house --
gasoline, depreciation on his car, and so forth. Then, he would weigh that against
how many nights he stayed and how many meals he consumed while there. If the final
figure was in the black, it was a day for rejoicing. However, many times he sadly
reported that he “didn’t make expenses on that visit.”
Once I was riding
with him as he lamented how the traffic signals were always against him. He blamed
it on “that Lester luck.” Everything that went wrong in his life was because of
“that Lester luck.” Surely, he determined, an ancient curse had been cast upon
the Lester clan. If his name were Brown, Smith, Jones, or anything but Lester,
the lights would all be green when he reached the intersections. Just as he predicted,
we met nothing but red lights for miles. At last, he saw that, if he really hurried,
he could beat the one just ahead. He normally drove below the speed limit, but
this time he pressed the pedal to the floor, attempting to get through the yellow
light before it turned to red. We made it with only a fraction of a second to
spare. His celebration, however, was short lived. After we sailed through the
intersection, I heard him shout at the top of his lungs, “THAT’S WHERE I WAS SUPPOSED
TO TURN!” |
