Remembering Uncle Bud

One Sunday in the fall of 1993 I received a call from my Uncle Bud.  There was nothing unusual about this.  I was going to college 300 miles from home, and he would often call to say hello and check in on me.  After talking about the weather and my non-existent dating life the conversation inevitably turned to the Florida Gators football team.  If you knew Bud, you know that all conversations eventually led to the Gators.  He asked my opinion of the Gator’s victory from the day prior.  I told him that I didn’t watch the game, but from the highlights I saw on Sports Center they looked pretty good.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  He asked the question that was obvious in his mind, “Why didn’t you watch the game?”  I told him that I had been watching the Florida Panthers hockey game instead.  I wish I could adequately express to you the layers of emotion in his voice as he replied, “You watched WHAT?!?!?”   I heard confusion, disappointment, shock, maybe even anger in his question.  To Bud, it was incomprehensible to choose ANYTHING over the Gators, but hockey?  HOCKEY, are you kidding me???  I don’t think he could have been more baffled if I’d answered him in French, more shocked if I said I’d been watching professional bowling, more repulsed if I’d said I was watching the Octogenarians sunbath at a retirement home in Delray Beach.

My favorite picture of Uncle Bud

I took this at one of the many parties at his house

                              

In my defense this was the Panthers inaugural season in South Florida, and I may have gotten caught up in the hype.  Fortunately for me, Bud quickly forgave my indiscretion and continued calling me the rest of my time at school.  We literally never spoke of it again.

James Leo Hale was my dad’s older brother and to say he was a character would be a monumental understatement.  Bud just had a way of saying and doing things that were just somehow different than most others.  To this day when my dad tells me I’m doing something that reminds him of Bud I know there’s an insult there just beneath the surface, but it still makes me smile.  

My dad had two brothers and two sisters, and when I was growing up, I saw my extended family multiple times a month.  It stands to reason that I would have literally hundreds of stories and memories about Uncle Bud.  I could probably write a 300-page book of memories, but I’ll try to hit on just a few highlights that are important to me personally.  

Let me start by telling you just how goofy I am.  In the spring of 1989, we visited my Great Uncle David in Tallahassee.  During the visit David asked me “How’s your Uncle Jim doing?”  I suddenly felt that awkwardness you feel when an older person is confused, and you don’t want to embarrass them.  So, I lowered my voice and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t have an Uncle Jim.”  Fortunately, my dad was nearby and said, “He means Uncle Bud.  His first name is James.”   So much for the older person being confused.  This 18-year-old didn’t even know his uncle’s real first name.   He was, and always will be just Uncle Bud.  

Bud in the Navy

When I was young it was common for the cousins to spend the night at each other’s house routinely.  I always enjoyed my nights with my various cousins, but what made spending the night with Cousin Grady unique was that you were also spending the night with Uncle Bud.  Meaning, he wasn’t the seldom-seen dad off in another room reading the newspaper and only showing his face at mealtime. If you were spending the night with Grady, Bud was involved and Bud was going to have a plan.

I distinctly remember one time I spent the night with Grady when Uncle Bud took us to the Cedar Hills dollar theater on the first night Raiders of the Lost Ark was playing, presumably 1981.  When we got to the theater the showtime he had planned on was sold out. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones interested in seeing the blockbuster for only $1.  So, Bud bought tickets for the next showing, probably 2 or 3 hours later.  To kill time Bud took us for pizza and then we walked around the shopping center.  We found our way into a T-shirt shop and Bud let me pick out any shirt I wanted.  Any shirt as long as it had a Gator on it, of course.  This wasn’t my birthday, but I got dinner, a movie, and a gift.  

Going to Uncle Bud’s house was always a good time, no matter what the occasion was.  When he first moved to Callahan, he had a large patch of undeveloped land on his property.  My cousins and I created a trail through the woods to drag each other around on a wheelbarrow in the dark.  After the property was completely cleared, he had a beautiful fresh-water pond full of huge catfish.  They were basically pets.  He allowed us to catch them with a fishing pole, but we always had to throw them back.

Of Bud’s four siblings, three of them had birthdays in March, so as I kid, I always looked forward to the inevitable party.  The party wasn’t at Bud’s house every year, but to me the most memorable ones always seemed to be.   One that sticks out in my memory is the year everyone spent the night at his house.   Some slept in his house, but many slept in campers and tents strewn around his back yard.  Let’s be honest, the appeal for a sleepover when you’re an adult is that you can consume mass quantities of adult-beverages without having to worry about driving home.  At some of these parties, a few of us under 21 may have even snuck a few beers.    There’s an unconfirmed rumor that Uncle Bud may have slipped me a drink or two after the sun went down. 

The mischief in this photos just oozes from the page

Some of my favorite memories of all time involve watching the Super Bowl at Bud’s house.  He would run an extension cord to the fire pit so we could watch the game while roasting oysters.  During one of the Dallas / Buffalo Super Bowls, I’m not sure which one, I remember it was extremely cold.  Some of the men, who shall remain nameless, cashed in their man-cards and stayed indoors with the women.  Those of us who braved the cold had a monumental time.  As the night went on and the sun went down the temperature really dropped, so Bud pulled out a beat-up old metal coffee pot that we could sit right on the fire next to the oysters.  When it was ready to drink, we passed around the coffee but realized that Bud hadn’t brought out a spoon for the sugar.  After a round of arguments over who would go get a spoon, we gave in and just tossed handfuls of sugar into our coffee.  Best coffee I ever had.  

Another great memory I have with Bud came at the Gator Bowl game on December 31, 1993.  Uncle Bud called me a few days before the game to ask if I wanted to go.  I wasn’t particularly a fan of either Alabama or North Carolina, but a game with Uncle Bud on New Year’s Eve sounded good to me.  Especially since it would be historic because the very next day the stadium would be all but demolished to renovate for the upcoming NFL expansion team.  I remember being happy that Bud had thought of me for his extra ticket.  I honestly have no idea how far down I was on that list.  Was there a list?  If so, was I number one or number ten?  It didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t matter now.  This was just a few months after the infamous hockey call, so I was happy to even be on the list.  

When I graduated from college in 1994, I had aspirations of breaking into the media.  Bud, of course, steered me towards a career in sports.  He once told me that I should try to get a job in sports talk radio because I “have a face for radio.”  It took me a few moments to realize that he didn’t say I had a voice for radio, but a FACE.  It was a fantastic line and I still use it today.  In fact, you could say I have a face for blogging, right?

Bud with his cousin Peg in Newfoundland

                                                     

One night in the early-90s the extended family met for dinner at a pizza restaurant in Callahan.  When we walked in a few family members were already there.  I went to sit down at the first chair I saw, but Bud caught my eye and said, “Come sit down here by me, my boy, so we can talk about sports.”  That’s it.  That’s the end of the story.  You need to know my temperament and mindset to understand why this memory is important to me and why it even qualifies as a memory.  I always assume that people don’t want me to talk to them or sit next to them.  It’s why I’m usually quiet and often sitting alone in social settings.  I’m the guy that can walk into a gathering and see a friend across the room who’s been to my house 50 times, but I’ll still go sit somewhere else because I assume he’d prefer to talk to others.  So, Uncle Bud wanting me to come sit next to him was and still is a big deal to me.  I don’t know what we talked about.  Maybe baseball.  Probably the Gators.  I just remember that I was touched that he called me down to his end of the table.

I could go on and on and on.  I could mention how we went to the first Jacksonville Bulls football game together.  Or the Gator Orange and Blue spring practice games.  Or how as a practical joke he bought Uncle Claude a compass after he got lost on a vacation in the 80s.   Or the dozens of times he pulled up to the baseball card shop where I worked inexplicably driving his camper.  Or the time he caught a dishrag on fire as he and Aunt Mary aggressively took turns pushing and pulling a pie in and out of the oven, debating if it were done. 

I honestly think of Uncle Bud every day.  It’s impossible not to since I have a son who looks so much like him.  And every time I do think about him, I think about fun, and laughter, and quite literally the best times of my life. 

When I was a teenager, I was riding in the back of a truck down a dark dirt trail at Camp Blanding with the expressed goal of looking for deer.  At one point one of my cousins made a comment that the whole thing seemed kind of lame.  Another older family member chimed in and said, “You should appreciate it, not all families do this kind of thing.”   I am very fortunate to have grown up with an extended family like the one I had, and I truly do appreciate the good times.   Especially the times with Uncle Bud.  

Shirl's Eulogy

When Shirl passed away last week it wasn’t shocking.  She had been sick for some time and it had become obvious that the end was near.  But it was still jarring.  Losing a loved one always is, even if it’s expected.  One of the ways that I found to cope with the loss this past week was by talking to many family members about her.  We remembered the good times, reminisced, and talked about how much she had meant to us.

After my grandmother contracted dementia, Shirl filled in almost seamlessly as our family’s leader and matriarch.  She planned and coordinated all of our family gatherings, regardless of whose house we were meeting at.  If everyone brought a covered dish, she brought 9 or 10.

She was our family’s communication center.  If you wanted to know what was going on with someone, you could just call Shirl instead of calling that person, because she always knew what was going on with everyone in the family.  

Shirl always had a cheerful demeanor.  So much so that we would refer to her as the cheerleader of our family.  She could find the silver lining in any situation and always seemed to find a way to uplift those around her.

But what came across the most as I talked to people was how much Shirl enjoyed doing things for others.  She was a sounding board for those who knew her, and so many came to depend on her for guidance and advice.  From the time Shirl was teenager she took on the role of second mother to her younger siblings and continued in that capacity with her nieces and nephews.

Over the years she drove siblings to job interviews, took her in-laws to doctor’s appointments, and always seemed willing to give up her most precious commodity – her time.  She planned her sister’s wedding and organized her bridal shower.  If you asked for her help, she would give it.  If you didn’t ask, she would volunteer.

Years ago, she coached one of her nieces in the Ms Englewood pageant.  She spent hours practicing with her, coaching her, and even lent her one of her own dresses for the pageant.   She guided another niece through the purchase of her first house, and offered sound advice on everything from relationships to finances.

She also helped my wife and I purchase our first house, and since it was For Sale By Owner, there were no real estate agents involved.  Shirl guided us through every step of the process – even coming with us to the closing to make sure no one took advantage of us.

Once I had a financial emergency.  I didn’t tell her about it, but when she found out she sent me a check in the mail.  A few weeks later when things straightened out, I sent her a check to repay her, and she returned it with a note that simply said, “It was a gift, not a loan.”

When I was looking for job many years ago, Shirl sent my resume out to her vast network of local business contacts, and even got me a few interviews.  

When her brother was sick in 1990, Shirl was there every step of the way.  Not only caring for him, but supporting her mother who was losing a son.  She continued in this roll when her sister and father were both sick at the same time in 2000.  She spent all day, every day, for months chauffeuring her mother back and forth between the two hospitals and continued to do so until both had passed away.

When her mother starting declining from the effects of dementia, Shirl immediately stepped in to take care of her.  Almost totally on her own Shirl did the hard work, the dirty work and the thankless work that comes with caring for a person suffering from Alzheimer’s.  Many times I heard her say that taking care of her mother in her final years was what she was put on earth to do.  She truly believed that.  Because Shirl always looked so young, it was easy to forget that she was a 70 year old woman effectively doing the work of a team of full-time private duty nurses.

Shirl was with her every step of the way until the bitter end.  That’s Shirl’s legacy.  Not just caring for her mother, but taking care of all of those who were in need.

My house is full of reminders of Shirl.  From the pictures on the wall that she gave me to the Holy Family statues she gave my wife, to the numerous shirts I still wear that she gave as Christmas gifts over the years.   They’ve lasted a long time.  She bought REALLY GOOD clothing.  

Shirl regularly sent cards to the children in the family.  Not just on Christmas and birthdays, but also on Easter and Valentines Day and Halloween.  I would find three cards from her in the mailbox and I’d have to stop to think about what holiday was coming up.

Shirl often gave me career advice, and she had this one saying that I’ll always remember.  She would ask me, “What is it that I always tell you?  You have to make people feel special.”  I suspect that others here have heard that saying also.  That was good career advice plus it was good advice for everyday life.  Shirl made people feel special not by hollow and meaningless words, but by her actions that clearly showed her love.  Shirl WAS special.  She was loving and she was loved.  And I will miss her greatly.

                     Remembering Cousin John 

“Cousins are like celebrities for little kids. If little kids had a People magazine, cousins would be on the cover.” – Jim Gaffigan

Before I even begin, let me tell you what ARE NOT the reasons I’m writing down these memories of Cousin John.  I’m not writing this down to insert myself into the story.  Many, especially in the age of social media, try to insert themselves into every tragedy to tie themselves to the story or somehow literally make the tragedy about them.  That’s not what I’m doing.  When John died in 2019, I hadn’t seen him in a decade.  Literally ten years.   So, to say that my day-to-day life was impacted by his untimely death in 2019 would not only be false, but it would also be offensive to his children, parents, and siblings.  John’s death was a blow to my childhood memories, and a sad reminder of how we had let time slip away.  I’m writing this today so that the stories and memories won’t be forgotten.

John and I were both born in April, just over five years apart.  Five years doesn’t really seem like that big of an age gap when you’re adults, but when you’re kids it’s huge.  When I was in the first grade, I thought that kids in the 3^rd grade smoked cigarettes and had serious girlfriends.  That was only a two-year difference – so five years would have seemed like an insanely huge gap.

John was my oldest cousin on the Hale side.  I was right in the middle – three male cousins older than me and three younger.  My first memories of John are that he was immeasurably and unfailingly cool.  I suspect many kids think that about older cousins, particularly their oldest cousin, but objectively speaking John was very cool and charismatic.

Until just before my 8^th birthday I lived on 48^th Street in Jacksonville and Uncle Claude and Aunt Linda lived on 45^th.  It wasn’t until I was older that I realized that we had literally lived in the same neighborhood, and we probably could have been playing together as kids.  But for whatever reasons, I only saw John at larger family get-togethers and I genuinely had no clue that he lived on just the other side of the tracks – literally. 

Whenever my family was at my aunt and uncle’s house, I always found my way to John’s room.  John’s room was covered wall to wall with posters of the famous actresses and supermodels of the day.  My mind remembers Catherine Bach, aka Daisy Duke as a personal favorite.   When I was 11 or 12 John was 16 or 17.  So I was just on the cusp of being a teenager, and he was right at the apex.  For me, John completely represented what it meant to be a teenager, or better said what it meant to be a wildly cool one.   So, in my mind I needed to emulate him in every way possible.  Just as John was blessed with natural charisma and charm, I was cursed with an unbridled dorkiness that could not be remedied by emulating his dress or speech.  But one thing I could do was decorate my room like his.  And by the time I was a 16 or 17 I had done my very best to duplicate his room.   Anyone who visited my room in the late 1980’s can attest that it was indeed a den of impurity with wall-to-wall posters – just like John’s bedroom several years earlier.

One of my very favorite memories of my childhood turned out to be a lie – but in the best of ways.  One night at our grandmother’s house, the male cousins were boxing in the front yard.   I was probably not much older than 10 or so.  When my turn to fight came, I was paired against an older cousin (not John) and after a few minutes of exchanging punches, he staggered and fell to the dirt.  I spent the next few days telling everyone I knew how I had knocked out an older cousin.  Who am I kidding, I spent the next few YEARS telling that story. Four or five years later we were again in my grandmother’s front yard and once again the boxing gloves were brought out.  This time two of my younger cousins were squaring off.  After a few minutes I saw John subtly motion to the older boxer to go down, which he of course did (no one questioned John’s authority).  I would have liked to have seen my face at that moment when the realization suddenly hit me that John had done the same thing years earlier in my moment of glory.  My legendary knock-out of an older cousin had all been a sham, a set-up, a lie.   I know John orchestrated it to give the younger cousin more confidence, or maybe just to make the younger one happy.  All I know is that it was a fantastic memory of mine, and it remained one even decades later after I learned what had really happened.

Not a lot of people know that John was my godfather.   I don’t believe that John ever took his faith particularly seriously, but I think he liked the honor associated with the title.  I wasn’t baptized until I was ten years old, and John was fifteen.  Ten is late to be baptized for a Catholic, but fifteen is pretty early to be a godfather.  I don’t remember a ton about the ceremony, but I remember that John was very quiet beforehand and not in the mood to joke around.  Looking back I suspect he was probably tense about it all.  Even super cool older cousins get nervous, I guess.

Another fantastic memory of my early childhood involves a trip to Disney World with some of my cousins.  I specifically remember that it was Mickey Mouse’s 50^th birthday, so that would mean it was 1978 which feels about right.   The funny part is that I remember nothing about actually being in the park.  Not the rides, the food, the weather – absolutely nothing.   What I remember, and remember very fondly, is the 3-hour drive to and from the park.   The boy cousins were in the back of a blisteringly hot truck (with a topper) and the girls were up front with the mothers.  I remember nonstop laughing and joking and just having the time of my life.  I fondly remember laughing at the things John said/did in the hotel room too.   At one point in the back of the truck, I made an extremely lame joke that involved the word “ass”, and I remember John laughing at it.  Emboldened by my success, I said the same line again and again and again.  And John continued laughing.  You may be thinking how it could be possible that I can remember a specific joke I told 43 years ago when I was only 7 years old.  It’s possible because I had just made the coolest guy in the world laugh – so, of course I’m going to remember that.

Another memory that still makes me smile to this day happened at John’s wedding.  At the reception he was dancing on stage after a drink or two, and for whatever reason the CD kept skipping backwards so the song just went on indefinitely.  I was standing off to the side of the stage watching John dance at this ridiculously fast pace and I could see the sweat literally flying from his face.  When the song finally finished, he looked over at me, took a deep breath and exclaimed, “That’s the longest damn song I’ve ever heard.”  Of the thousands of times he made me laugh, that was probably the only time he did so unintentionally.

Some of the most fun I had in my late teens and early twenties were at our Uncle Bud’s house in Callahan.  He had multiple parties for birthdays, Super Bowls, and probably other reasons that I can’t recall.   At one of the Super Bowl parties in the early 90s John inexplicably started referring to me as Guy #1 and my younger cousin as Guy #2.  What made it funny was that he just said it so matter-of-factly that you’d have thought these had been our nicknames since birth.  John labelled himself Guy Extraordinaire on that day, and we, obviously, did not question or challenge his authority.  The names stuck and we continued using them for the next 25-30 years.  On the day he died my Facebook status read “RIP Guy Extraordinaire.”

I have another memory of being at Uncle Bud’s with John, and it’s special to me for different reasons.  I feel like it was the late 90s, so it’s possible that it was shortly after Bud’s death, or maybe even the day of the funeral.  All I remember is that John said he needed to make a run to the store for more beer, and he invited me to ride along.  Of course, I said yes.  If Guy Extraordinaire chooses you for anything, you accept graciously and without question.  What made this night stick in my memory is that after John bought beer from the corner store, we just drove around Callahan talking.  The topics of conversation were nothing earth-shattering.  We were just two cousins swapping stories and reconnecting after many years.  At the end of the night, we exchanged numbers and vowed to keep in touch.  Amazingly, we did.

Not long after that night driving around Callahan, John called to invite me to his house to watch an FSU game on television.  Of course, when he called he tried to prank me with a fake voice.  He probably would have succeeded if not for Caller ID.  I remember having a great time at his house and saying that I couldn’t wait to do it again, and maybe he could even come to my place.  I can’t recall exactly why we never did, though.  All I can figure is that this must have been about the time I started dating my future wife.  If not, I can find no other reasonable explanation.

Years passed before I saw John again, and as I just mentioned I can’t really explain why that happened.  In fact, I didn’t see him again until our grandmother’s funeral in 2009.  A few days after her funeral John invited everyone to his house for a Super Bowl party since the out-of-town relatives were still in town.  It ended up being the last time that I ever saw John, and since it was the Super Bowl, I know the exact date - 02/01/2009.  Our grandmother’s funeral was 1/27/2009.  At his Super Bowl party, he asked me the name of my five-year old daughter.   I don’t blame him for not knowing her name since there was no real reason that he would, but it was a glowing example of how we’d fallen out of touch.

I didn’t see John once in the last ten years of his life.  At least not that I can recall.  But like most we were able to reconnect and stay in touch through social media.  And for that I will be eternally thankful.  When I think back on John I, obviously, have regrets about losing contact with him.  But my memories of him are all positive – every single one of them.  John never once picked on me, bullied me, or made me feel bad about myself.  Maybe that’s setting the bar low, but the truth is I can’t say that about every cousin I have.  I can say without even the slightest tinge of hyperbole that John was the most charismatic person I’ve ever known.  He was the walking talking stereotype of “guys wanted to be him, and girls wanted to be with him.”  Maybe he was arrogant behind closed doors.  Maybe I’m seeing my oldest cousin through hero-tinted glasses.  All I can say is that this fat kid with glasses and braces never felt self-conscious around him.  With John, I never felt like I had to keep my guard up in case of incoming insults.   That fat kid with glasses and braces once got invited to the coolest man on the planet’s house for a football game, and even got to ride around with him in his car.  And once I even made him laugh hysterically with an ass joke.  Seriously, that really happened.