deliriouslove1970. The life & times of Gary and Denise Flanders. (Free and worth every penny. If you would like to compliment the editor, send to garytheflan@deliriouslove1970.com. If you would like to complain, call your mother.)

The life and times of Denise & Gary Flanders

Guardians of the Story Number 2

Albert C. Flanders, 1901 – 1976. My father’s uncle, thus my great uncle. Uncle Al once pitched in a baseball game and the opposing pitcher was Satchel Paige. Uncle Al beat perhaps the greatest pitcher baseball has ever experienced. Albert played ball for the North Dakota State Prison team. He had a twenty year career with that team, yup, that was his sentence.

Uncle Al was sort of a Jean Valjean character. He was undoubtedly the strongest man I have ever known. In the early 1920s he defended the honor of his mother in a bar fight. He hit a man once and there after was ‘recruited’ to play baseball for the State Prison team.

My Dad, the fella holding the baby, was raised by Albert’s brother, George. Al knew my Dad for his entire life. Directly after World War Two, when Al was released from, ‘the team’, he came to Ann Arbor to see his favorite nephew. My Mom never liked Al, he was a man who demanded honesty at all times.
Albert loved his nephew’s son, my brother Van. Van loved him back. When I came into the picture in 1950, Al wasn’t too sure about that weird kid, Gary. I eventually won him over. I loved Al and it was a special treat when I could be around him.

Albert Flanders was a coarse, vulgar, profane, take no crap from anyone, man. I genuinely enjoyed being in his presence. (His standard greeting when he saw me was…’how are you, you little tub of sh#%?’). I miss Uncle Al.

How about you – do you have an Uncle Al?

Gary & Denise Flanders

3 responses to “Guardians of the Story Number 2”

  1. Gary & Denise Flanders Avatar
    Gary & Denise Flanders

    Ummm, that would be a hard ‘No’. It is 100% true.

    Like

    Reply
  2. friarguyer Avatar
    friarguyer

    Like your uncle Al, my uncle Buck was also a coarse, vulgar, profane, take no crap from anyone, man. He was married to my mother’s youngest sister (the lone surviving sibling, now at age 98). Unlike the towering uncle Al, Buck was 5’7” and never weighed more than 135 lbs. But he was wiry, with well defined muscles. He was a union bricklayer until he died of cancer at age 54. When he was 20, he won the local Golden Gloves super feather championship in Akron, Ohio. And later, after enlisting in the infantry during WWII, went undefeated in 19 bouts representing the U.S. Army. As a kid, whenever I would visit my aunt Marg and uncle Buck’s house, he would always greet me with a quick, stiff jab to my upper arm. A punch so hard it would hurt for a week. But I loved my uncle Buck, and always looked forward to going to their house to listen to championship boxing matches on the radio, and finally watching on their new Zenith round screen TV. As an early adolescent I voiced my curiosity about what he did in his stint in the army besides box (my father had told me that uncle Buck had killed a number of “japs”). My uncle grabbed my arm (the one that still hurts to this day) and said: “Jimmy… I’ve never talked with anyone about my time overseas, and I never will. Don’t ever ask me again!” I honored his warning, and never raised the subject again. But I’ve always wondered about the weight of the horror stories he carried to his deathbed. Still love you, uncle Buck! But I don’t miss your rock hard jabs to my arm.

    Sent from my iPhone

    >

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  3. wendyc59 Avatar
    wendyc59

    Love this story, I had an Uncle Bill who taught me and my brothers to fish, frog, ride a minibike, and take care of a horse. Solid man who was no nonsense but not harsh. What I remember most is he always had a cigarette in his mouth.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: