In most primitive societies uncles are as important—and often more important—to the raising of a youth into a man as the father. For a little loner boy like me a get together with the extended family featured many positives and negatives. The big positive was listening to my uncles, the men, who at one time or another, I would wish I was as I stumbled along unsuccessfully as a wimpy alienated boy. By the time I had morphed into a savage feral youth I had internalized only a portion of what they taught me in an often unintentional way, as they conversed with each other.
Since many of us have been separated from our fathers and grandfathers by death or via the many methods our society uses to keep men out of the lives of their sons and grandsons, uncles can serve as very useful role models. My basic method when in the process of consciously assembling a behavioral arsenal that would help me survive the nocturnal streets of Baltimore in my late 20s and early 30s was to compare the behavior of one uncle with his results in the given situation I found myself in and then operate accordingly, adding anything useful I might have picked up along the way.
This article is partially meant as an ode to men who I have rarely recognized in writing, as well as an encouragement to younger men that they might have some relatives—often by marriage—with insights and experiences that might be useful to making your own way. Below are brief profiles of the uncles in my life and how they have helped me.
Uncle Fred: My Grandpa Kern’s son and the most successful man in the extended family, Uncle Fred is a big alpha male. With the death of my father he stepped up to fill the void. He taught me how to network with men. He recently related a story about breaking man’s leg in a 1950s college football game, and how he recently met with him at a conference in Florida or Texas without hard feelings.
Uncle Robert: Imagine Ralph Nadir as a mixed-race boxer who believed in UFO’s nuking Sodom and Gomorrah. The family thought he was nuts but Robert was the smartest of us all and was way ahead of his time in many ways, predicting our current economic crisis for instance, back in the 1970s. Uncle Robert taught me the virtue of defiance and that it must be backed by investigation.
Uncle Bernie: My Aunt Ann’s husband was a deer and bear hunter who liked shooting Chi-Coms in North Korea even more. He was hit in the ass by a sub-machinegun round up near the Yalu River when the 8th Army was overrun. Bernie believed that belligerence was an important enough masculine quality to deserve to be effective, and that the best way to be an effective belligerent was to have the right tool, the right skill set for the tool, and the appropriate concept of its application. I could not watch a western with him—with my chin propped up by the skull of his bear skin rug—without him ranting and raving about horses not being shot to turn the ‘goddamned redskins’ into infantry. Also, as a racial motivated man who believed in making black men swim back to Africa with a Jew under one arm and an Italian under the other [which was quite a testament, I thought, as to Uncle Robert’s athletic ability], he taught me that you could be against a group and still deal amicably with members of that group.
Uncle John: My father’s older brother—who still roller blades and tango dances—taught the art of drawing a person into conversation as a way of building something together, rather than as a method of verbal sniping or manipulation.
Uncle Herb: My Aunt Marie’s second husband was the only member of my family that believed in me as a writer. He was an engineer on a merchant marine ship and kept a vast library which I freely borrowed from as a boy. In his opinion, “Nothing beats knowing what the hell some idiot did in the past, in hopes that you won’t do it.”
Uncle Bill: My Aunt Alice’s husband was extremely quiet, wore a black suit and fedora, and used to sneak me beers at family functions when I was a little tyke. As his neighborhood was overrun by blacks and his sons fought in the streets and alleys he minded his own business, and even after his sons were grown or gone, still walked the streets unmolested. When my Grandma Kern found out that I was travelling in black areas at night and by bus she said, “Be like your Uncle Bill; nobody—and I mean nobody—has ever laid a hand on your Uncle Bill. He was a gentle man with my sister, but no man ever crossed him and was able to tell of it.”
As I found myself increasingly in these men’s shoes, I often took the simple course of asking myself, “What would Unk do?”
"Be like your Uncle Robert..." Not sure if that's a typo as it comes under Uncle Bill. What was Uncle Bill's secret in walking the streets unmolested?
I'm interested in something you've written that you wouldn't let an attack on your kin go unanswered; that is a virtue as I am coming to understand. Would Bill take the bat to avenge his sons when the sons were fighting in the street?
I enjoy your (non-fiction) writing even if I sometimes don't agree with it. I had Uncles but never knew them.
Thanks for the typo notice—I really do appreciate that jr.
We were talking about the 1970s and early 80s when discussing Bill. He still walked unmolested even when recovering from major surgery as an old man during the crime saturated 90s. He was not known to have done anything violent—just had that way about him.
The thing about the racial violence in 1970s Baltimore is that it was mostly same age. Children fought children. Teens fought teens. Young men fought young men, etc. And the adults went to work. It is a much different world since the crack epidemic of the mid 80s and the recent economic turn down. My cousin Brian was once knifed by another young guy in the alley behind the family house. That was his business, not his father's. That's really the way people in my age group and cultural background in this area saw it. In Pennsylvania it was different. If I, as a teen, beat up another teen, I might have to worry about his father. In my opinion, a guy like Uncle Bill today, would just end up being shot by some 12 year old because sub adults were completely off of his radar screen.
Bill's secret, such as it was, was to always mind his own business, be quiet, confident and relaxed—always with his hands in his jacket or slacks pockets. He dressed nicely, never dressed down, which I am sure added to people respecting him. My version of being Bill was to dress like a homeless guy for my more predatory environment.
As far as attacks on my kin, at 18 I tried to chop my friend's head off for beating up my little brother and took his arm instead. Thank God he had a good outward block and a thick forearm. [That is in the Logic of Steel] That is why I live in Baltimore. The family wanted to sue me so asked for the state to drop the attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon charges. After sweating that out I moved back to Baltimore to evade a law suit. In my [recounted in When You're Food] 30s I used a shotgun and a tomahawk to go after men who threatened my oldest son and wife. The only damage done was to the paint on a white pickup truck.
My Uncle Bill did not strike me as someone who went in for vengeance,. However, I never really knew him, just saw him as a strong quiet model. It was difficult to get him to talk about much, so I could not even guess at his inner thoughts. Being like that—hard to read—may well have been what my Grandma Kern was referring to.