Have you ever met people who like to fly too close to the flame and then complain when they get burned? How about those rare ones who like to fly too close to the flame, yet never complain about getting burned. I have always been told to stay away from these types of people, but I must confess that I have not always listened to this advice. Many times, they were thrust into my life through familial ties, military supervision, work supervision, and even some friends. Looking back, I am not ashamed to say that many of these people were actually mentors to me—at least those who didn’t complain about being burned. What is it about their personalities that lures me towards the flame? What about them allows me to enjoy the warmth of the flame yet maintain my independence to keep far enough away not to get burned myself? Let’s look at one particular mentor that meant the world to me, especially in my formative teenage years: my uncle Brett.
Chapter 1: Keep On Smiling
How are we supposed to keep on smiling while doing something we truly do not want to do? This was the dilemma I found myself in early one February morning when the air was still briskly cold, but the days were warm and wonderful. As my alarm went off about five in the morning, I struggled with having to get out of my warm bed and go outside into the cold of the morning. I also didn’t look forward to that hour-plus drive before me, and even more daunting was the thought of standing in a classroom all day trying to teach students about careers in construction management, especially as many would not even care. Nope, I wanted to go to the gym, walk the dogs, sit down with my wife for breakfast, and once it began to warm up outside, I wanted to immerse myself in nature. I wanted to bury my hands deep into the soil of my flower beds and enjoy a connection with what my Bohemian mother called Mother Earth. After a long week at work, I just wanted tranquility, and it was also Friday and I wanted to enjoy a three-day weekend. However, I had made a commitment and I had to follow through with it, so down the road I drove, flipping through my preset stations, searching for the perfect music to lift my spirits. With Sirius failing to help me, I decided to bring up a 1970s playlist on my phone, turned up the volume and continued my journey north on US Highway 35, enjoying the endless solitude of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.
As I drove down that highway cutting through an endless sea of saltgrass, I looked at the emptiness and thought back to my childhood when there seemed to be fewer cars on the road and better music on the radio. And with this thought I sat back and let music from the greatest era change my mood and once a slight smile broke through my glum face, I began rehearsing what I was going to share with these students, not only about careers in construction management but also about life in general. I had realized quite a while ago that outside my job as a construction manager I had a moral obligation to be a mentor to those around me, just like many had done for me. Then just four songs into my playlist my mind came alive as Wet Willie belted out their classic “Keep On Smilin’.” And while I sang aloud, my thoughts drifted from the students and my task that day to the advice the lyrics were giving to a man who seemed to be down on his luck in both life and love. While strict copyright laws keep me from sharing the lyrics with you, I do encourage each one of you to listen to this musical masterpiece and absorb the lyrical advice given. You see, this song did more than lift my spirits that morning, it reminded me of a very important mentor in my life: my uncle Brett. It is amazing how this song led me to a memory, which in turn pulled me further back to a simpler time when being around my uncle Brett was all I needed, and so I continued to travel north through the peaceful solitude of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, playing that song over and over again as I reminisced about the immense influence my uncle Brett had on my life.
Chapter 2: THE MENTORS
My first memory of Uncle Brett was of me pulling one of those wheeled toy wiener dogs by its string while running up and down the front porch steps of his little North Thibodaux rent house as he sat back listening to music while watching me enjoy all that life had to offer, at least for someone of my youthful age. I remember his shoulder-length hair and thin, medium-length beard, appropriate for the era, yet still a little too long for the small town of Thibodaux, Louisiana. Truthfully, I am not certain if music was playing, but it probably was because music was always an important part of uncle Brett’s life and something that cemented our bond as I got older. My second memory of Uncle Brett was when I was about eight years old and he and his little family showed up at our house in Georgetown, Texas. I don’t remember them staying around Georgetown long, and I think it had something to do with what I overheard my mother say one evening when she said to one of her friends that it seemed as if he treated his relocation as more of a vacation than someone who was looking for work. Years later my uncle Brett told me about his memories of that trip to Georgetown, and they were very similar to my memories, except the part about looking for work. And why wouldn’t his memories be slightly different? After all, Uncle Brett looked at life differently than anyone I had ever met. He always seemed happy, and maybe it was because he never looked at setbacks in life as anything more than something he was going to get through. He absolutely never sulked around saying he should have made better choices. Nope, his view of life was just like that song I was listening to on repeat in which he would just move on from challenges and keep on smiling.
Not long after Uncle Brett’s trip to Georgetown, my Bohemian Greenpeace Mother of Earth mom moved us to Ibiza, Spain, and then to London, England, and with the distance my memories of Uncle Brett faded. However, halfway through the tenth year of my life we headed back to the security of my mother’s very large, very loving, and only slightly dysfunctional family in Thibodaux, Louisiana. It was not only the security, love, and dysfunctionality that we needed, but it was also my need for male role models in my life that drove my mother’s decision to move back home. You see, my father had died when I was only six months old and my mother never remarried, at least not until I was out of the house and off serving in the Navy. Thus, as I grew up, my mother always made a conscious effort to ensure I spent time with her father and three younger brothers as she said I needed to have the presence of men in my life. And I am happy to say that they showed up for me just like she wanted, but with my Pawpaw working offshore, one of her brothers being a teenager and the other two young adults in college with families of their own, my sister and I were often pawned off to her two younger sisters and their husbands, one of whom was Uncle Brett.
Immediately upon our return from London, our loving family stepped in to help, picking up my sister and me after school and watching us until my mom got out of work or college. As they were the closest to our school, this task fell most often to my mother’s middle sister, uncle Brett’s wife. However, when we got in their car we didn’t drive to that little green and white shotgun house in North Thibodaux. Nope, this time he and his family were living in a modern apartment complex near Nicholls State University, affectionately known as “Harvard on the Bayou.” In real estate everything is location, location, location, and the choice of apartments probably had something to do with Uncle Brett still attending classes, even though by this time he was well into his thirties. It was at this point in my life that my memories of Uncle Brett restarted, and it was at this point in my life that we began to cement a strong enough bond that my memories of him never again faded, even into adulthood when the years, distance, and his eventual divorce from my aunt often kept us apart. Yes, my grandfather and other uncles were also there for me: one taught me rabbit hunting, fishing, and trapping; another taught me duck hunting and how to be studious; another who, along with my grandfather, taught me all about having a work ethic; and one who was always there for me with odd jobs around his house or business to ensure I had a little cash. Even with all this love and knowledge that was pouring out upon a fatherless boy, I still found myself needing more male mentoring in my life as I was coming out of childhood and getting closer to my teenage years, and it was Uncle Brett who took that task on.
Chapter 3: A Moth to The Flame
I clearly remember his apartment as my sister and I used to spend a lot of time there. I remember his wooden rocking chair, his large Japanese stereo system, and him rocking back and forth in front of it while wearing his brand-new headphones attached to the stereo with a long, spiraled cord. In my memory he was singing songs from Bob Seger’s Nine Tonight album, particularly, “Trying to Live My Life Without You.” Uncle Brett loved to sing, and even though he never had the most classically trained voice, it was unique, confident, and comforting. Truth be told, like much in his life he didn’t care about whether his voice was classically trained or not. “After all, Bruce Springsteen was a successful singer even though his voice was gruff and scratchy, and he looked like a scrawny little wet rat in his younger years,” Uncle Brett told me one day. Maybe “he didn’t care” is the wrong choice of words; it was probably because Uncle Brett didn’t even pay attention to anyone who had anything negative to say about him, and because of this confidence in himself he could keep on smiling as he lived and loved everything life had to offer. I don’t know if he was born into this carefree lifestyle, but I more so can imagine from his stories that his carefree attitude towards life began early in the 1960s when he must have grabbed life by the mane and rode it bareback like it was an untamed mustang. Sure, he got thrown more than a few times over the years, but it never seemed to faze him as he would merely get up, shake off any dirt that dared get on him, and jump right back onto life all the while smiling.
At that time in my life, my uncle Brett was the only person I had ever met with this outlook on life, desiring to fly too close to the flame yet when burned not whining incessantly about how unfair life was. That was until I left Thibodaux to join the Navy, and since then I have gone on to meet a few others along the way who shared his same view of life. Strangely enough many of these people also became important mentors to me. Was it because I felt some sort of comfort around these types of people? A comfort that I had learned from my time with Uncle Brett, or was it that I had my own attraction to the flame but a healthy fear of consequences, and being around these types of people allowed me to enjoy the warmth of the flame and none of the consequences? Why were so many of these types of people mentors to me? Are they natural leaders or was my life just a series of coincidences wherein they were thrust into leadership roles around me? I tend to lean on the side that, despite society’s negative perception of these types of people being irresponsible or selfish, their ability not to whine about being burned because of their own choices is what makes them good leaders.
Never mind all the others; this story is about Uncle Brett, and one thing I came to realize over my years with him is that very few have mastered the ability to control the narrative like he could. After his ability of not letting anything bother him, controlling the narrative of what happened was exactly what Uncle Brett did best, at least after the whispers died down. Yes, one thing was certain and that was each one of uncle Brett’s known challenges in life would soon be followed by whispers from my mother’s very large, very loving, and slightly dysfunctional family, whispers of what happened, or at least “what they thought had happened,” is what my uncle Brett would say. As soon as the whispers started to die down, Uncle Brett would simply tell the story how he thought it should be told, how he saw it, and in his version he was always the hero. People always seemed surprised when the narrative flipped, but I didn’t, and to be honest I must admit his versions were always much better, and this is exactly why his versions are what I remember about his challenges in life. His versions and how he would just keep on smiling.
Chapter 4: That Little Jap Car
Over the years, Uncle Brett seemed to continue to live life as close to the flame as possible, loving everything life had to offer as if the cliché about the world being an oyster was brought into existence just for him. I can still clearly remember the day he showed up to my grandparents’ family pool party in his Toyota Celica blaring Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” through his aftermarket and always upgraded stereo system and speakers. My grandfather just looked up from his beer and grumbled something about his longer than normal hair, his current employment situation, his college career, his little Jap car, and as Uncle Brett walked up to the party, Pawpaw asked, “Why do I have to listen to his music at my house while trying to relax in my pool that I built with my own two hands?” I am sure Uncle Brett heard my grandfather’s comment, just as we all had, despite the volume of the music of a reinvented, now muscular, yet still vocally challenged Bruce Springsteen blaring out of the hatchback of “that little Jap car!” And it’s not that Uncle Brett ever ignored or disrespected his father-in-law, no, he always respectfully referred to him as Mr. Ray. I think he honestly didn’t notice, because to Uncle Brett, everyone loved him and was happy to know that he showed up at the party, which was mostly true, even if never admitted to out loud. To him, the party had not yet arrived until he did, and only with his arrival could everyone enjoy what life had to offer, just like he did. By the time “Born in the USA” was released on the American market and shared with all of us at just one of the many of Pawpaw’s pool parties, Uncle Brett was doing well and living in a yellow cinder block rent house across town, his daughter was in private school, his son had just been born, and I had turned into a teenager. Like I said before, we truly bonded over those years, and at that point in my life I found him and his music cooler than ever. To this day, I still love “The Boss” and actually have a playlist of his music that helps me boss my way through hard workouts at the gym!
It seemed that soon after being introduced to Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. album, Uncle Brett was once again thrown from life’s mustang, but this time it was bad. While I do not believe the details of this “flying too close to the flame” event are necessary to share, I will say it shook me to the core and I prayed with all my might that he could somehow shake it off. I prayed for Uncle Brett to do what he did best despite the whispers that this time there was no way he would come out of it, and with those whispers we prepared for the worst. Years later, Uncle Brett shared that because of that challenge, his father called him an idiot, but in the same breath told him to always deny everything to his mother because it would just break her heart to know the truth. I must admit that this was the only time I ever saw Uncle Brett not smiling through the pain . . . at least, that was until a well-placed uncle of his came through for him. You see, as his mother just knew her son could not have been involved, she had called in—no, demanded—a favor for her son. After all, what mother wouldn’t have? And just like that, uncle Brett’s smile returned as he immediately reached up, grabbed life’s mustang by the mane, and climbed back on. And true to form with this latest challenge behind him, he never changed his outlook on life, and our musical journey together continued. This time his monthly subscription to Rolling Stone magazine let us know about the pending release of The Allnighter album from the newly solo artist Glenn Frey. Uncle Brett said that even though he was disappointed that the Eagles had broken up, he liked Glenn Frey’s new album, especially its third and final single. I still love that song and think about Uncle Brett singing it with his renewed exuberance for life. And just like other times, not long after my very large, very loving, and slightly dysfunctional family’s whispers died down, Uncle Brett simply rewrote the narrative by saying it was no big deal as it was the 1980s and everyone was doing it. I for one was thrilled to still have Uncle Brett around, even if everyone else said he had once again flown too close to the flame and got burned. It wasn’t that he was fireproof or that he had just been burned so many times that he was immune to the pain. No, it was that being burned every once in a while was just part of getting the most out of life, and just like that great Wet Willie song, he would just keep on smiling.
Chapter 5: The Entrepreneur and His Apprentice
As I entered my later teenage years, Uncle Brett and I became even closer. At this point in his life, he and his family were living in a larger rent house, in yet another part of town, once again closer to the university he was still attending, and now he was running a large paper route in the wee hours of the morning to support his family. I spent every Saturday night at his house as he would wake me up before 3 a.m. to help him run the more labor-intensive Sunday route.
With its bigger papers, Sundays were a chore, but not for me and Uncle Brett and his brand-new Toyota minivan, with its aftermarket and always upgraded stereo and speakers. We would unload the third-row seat into the garage and head across town to K&B where what looked like—and was—a gargantuan stack of newspapers delivered from Baton Rouge waited for us. We would load up the first half of the papers in the back of his minivan and head out, me stuffing part two into part one and either bagging them in plastic bags that hung from the back of his headrest or popping rubber bands on them, depending on the weather. He would drive through town on a preplanned and completely memorized route, rolling through stop sign after stop sign that dared hinder his schedule as I stuffed and wrapped what seemed like a never dwindling supply of those large Sunday papers. Neighborhood to neighborhood, street to street, he ran that paper route, throwing papers more accurately than any aerial bomb, at least until the advent of GPS guidance systems. That route would last for hours, and at times it seemed as if we wouldn’t beat the morning crowds, but Uncle Brett didn’t share my concerns because this was his business unit and he operated the delivery of newspapers throughout Thibodaux, Louisiana, with an efficiency not seen again until the advent of Amazon Prime delivery.
As we would pull up to stores, he would call out a number and I would hand him that count of prestuffed Sunday papers for him to load into the newspaper machines. He then grabbed one of his many bank bags and a set of keys, and after removing the change from the machine, he would saunter back to his minivan swaying to the beat of whatever music was playing at the time, usually with a Merit cigarette dangling from his lips. When we finished the first half of the route, it was back to K&B where we loaded the second half up and started all over again. When finally complete, we headed back to his house, put the third-row seating back into the minivan, washed just enough of the smudged black ink off of our bodies, and walked inside like conquering heroes where we were treated to my aunt’s homecooked breakfast. Afterwards he would shower and clean off the remainder of the smudged black ink and then spend time with his children before going to bed for a midmorning nap, while I went back home with a crisp $20 bill in my pocket and a whole lot of Uncle Brett lessons and stories that I had eagerly consumed over the hours we spent together. Most men would have been embarrassed to drive a minivan and run a paper route in their late thirties, but like I have said before, Uncle Brett was not most men and he proudly said that his Toyota minivan was the finest vehicle ever produced and running a paper route made him an entrepreneur and not a slave to the man. This entrepreneurial time in uncle Brett’s life proved that he held a firm grasp on life’s mustang and was making it go where he wanted it to go! Remember that this was his life and he wrote his story the way he saw fit, and his story read that he was a successful entrepreneur running a franchise that allowed him to take care of his family while still attending college. On top of all this, he still had plenty of time to enjoy his wife, kids, and music. Looking back, I believe he had it spot-on as I have heard many people complain about slogging it out day after day for eight, ten, or twelve hours with too little time off to enjoy their wife, kids, or hobbies. I guess if they would have had a mentor like Uncle Brett, they just might have looked at life a little differently. I know in time I did.
Chapter 6: The Fonzie Apartment
My senior year brought many changes in my life as my mother and I had to move into a small one-bedroom garage apartment behind some wealthy lady’s house. Our living situation was not ideal in my eyes, especially at this critical time in my life where friends would have to walk through my mother’s living room/bedroom just to get to my room, and my mom would have to walk through my bedroom to use the bathroom. However, it was all we could afford with my mother working towards her nursing degree. Still there was one thing more devastating than the embarrassment of living in a one-bedroom garage apartment with my mother during my senior year and that was the question of what I was going to do with my large black Labrador Retriever, Nick. No, I didn’t name my son after my dog! I named my dog after what I wanted to name my son one day—the dog just came first. Thank goodness my worries didn’t last long because, without even asking, Uncle Brett offered to let me keep Nick in his backyard. He said I would still have to feed and walk him, ensure he had water and clean up after him, and when I had time, build him a doghouse. He told me that it would not be a problem and his yellow Labrador Retriever, Duke, would be happy to have a running buddy. I am not sure how many people would offer to let a nephew keep a very large dog at their house, much less for the entirety of a senior year, but like I have said before, Uncle Brett was not at all like most people. Actually, he was one of a kind, especially to me.
And with the safety of my dog taken care of, all of a sudden my senior year was looking up even though my mother and I were living in what was basically Fonzie’s apartment from Happy Days. Oh, did I mention that it wound up being not that bad after all because our Fonzie apartment was directly across the street from my uncle Brett’s house? There was still one problem I had to overcome and that was how to get to school, about five miles away. I had already decided that I was not riding the school bus, and the idea of being dropped off in my mother’s 1970s AMC Concord station wagon was also out of the question. For a couple of months, I rode a 10-speed bicycle to school that my uncle passed down to me when he went off to medical school, but even though it was a Fuji, it was not ideal for a senior in high school, regardless of my current economic state. I mean, the only reason I rode it for those first two months was that I had a new girlfriend and the similarities to Napoleon Dynamite wouldn’t be recognized until its release fifteen years later! That is right, I had no wheels, and neither I nor my mother had any money. What I did have was a wonderful Mawmaw who said she had saved some money for me from my father’s death, and I could use it to buy a vehicle. I also had an Uncle Brett right across the street to help me, and together we spent hours looking through News on Wheels magazines for used cars. Taking into consideration my financial predicament with limited funds and the fact that registration, gas, and insurance were solely in my court, after much searching, we decided that a used motorcycle was the only recourse I had available to me.
Uncle Brett helped me there too, first when I approached my mother with my plan and secondly on how to get it back from one of the many suburbs of New Orleans. One Saturday the two of us took a road trip to the West Bank in a pickup truck he borrowed from my grandfather so I could purchase a $500 Suzuki 450 motorcycle from some poor sap whose wife said he couldn’t keep it after his first child was born. We loaded it into the truck and on the ride back to Thibodaux, with my freedom firmly strapped down in the back of the truck, I told my uncle Brett, “There ain’t no way no woman is ever gonna tell me what I can and can’t have!” What can I say? Freedom begets more freedom, and I just knew I was right, but that slight laugh in between puffs from a Merit cigarette told me Uncle Brett had other thoughts on the subject. You know what, Uncle Brett was right, because although he met a few of my girlfriends over the years, it wasn’t until he met one particularly pretty little blonde lady that he reminded me of what I had said before finishing his remembrance with “I bet this one will.” I digress . . . anyways, on the ride back, Uncle Brett shared stories of his very own freedom in high school and how he hoped mine would be as fun as his were. My mind raced to collect all of this knowledge from my uncle Brett, knowledge that a young man usually gleans from listening to years of his father’s stories. I stored them alongside the countless other stories of his life that he had told me while we ran that Sunday paper route; some of which were proper and could be shared over dinner with my mother when she asked what we talked about, while others were more risqué but were still nonetheless what I needed to learn as a teenage boy who was growing up without my own father to teach me how to become a man
Chapter 7: The Blue Robed Musician
I absolutely adored my uncle Brett and just about everything he did. I loved listening to him play his guitar and sing old songs that I had never heard before, songs I still love to this day. As a senior I found my musical taste different from most of my peers, as it still is. I listened to those classic songs over and over again, searching for them on the classic rock radio stations, in the record stores, and even today on the internet. The one thing I noticed about Uncle Brett as I dove deeper into his genre of music was how he sometimes got the lyrics wrong. He never seemed to care, and he simply made up any lyrics he forgot along the way. I never said anything, choosing instead to enjoy the moment, listening intently to him as he sang while sitting cross legged on his bed in his old blue robe, strumming his guitar, a Merit cigarette stuck behind the strings, a sliver of smoke trailing up to the ceiling. I didn’t mind the smoke because by this time I too was smoking Merit cigarettes, just like my uncle Brett. No, Uncle Brett never gave me a cigarette and I was never allowed to smoke around him until I came home on leave from the Navy. Like I said, Uncle Brett was the one who flew too close to the flame, not me. And he never once allowed me to get too close to it either . . . well, once with a woman, but I won’t hold that against him.
Wait, what about lounging around in a robe is appropriate, you ask? Well, it was and would still be appropriate because besides getting dressed for the paper route and college, I am not sure if my uncle Brett ever wore anything other than that blue robe when he was at home. And if you wanted to visit him in his house, it was going to be while he was in that blue robe. Remember, in his eyes the world was his oyster, and I am certain he was more of a man in his blue robe than Hugh Hefner ever was in his silk pajamas. Still, even though I admired and sometimes emulated my uncle Brett, he and I were very different. You see, Uncle Brett was a high school jock, though he said his coach said he couldn’t be quarterback because he had pencil wrists, a hippie in a town full of conservatives, and a man whom other men couldn’t compare to, regardless of what level of success they had reached in their lives. I, on the other hand, was a little more on the shy side and somewhat innocent, at least compared to other seniors in Thibodaux. I was not a high school jock as I preferred to play soccer from my time in Spain. I mostly kept my hair short, not because I didn’t try to have longer hair like my uncle Brett, it was more so that if I didn’t keep it short a wavy Frankie Valli hair helmet would form on top of my head. Most of all, our differences were because I had a strong respect for the dangers presented by the flame, the same flame that my uncle Brett would sometimes fly into.
My senior year progressed, and with my motorcycle and the continued guidance of Uncle Brett, I became more confident than I had ever been before. I did so many things that other poor kids in Thibodaux did back then: got in a few fights in school, as well as at a local bar that served minors, got detention, was regularly asked to leave one particular class, and even failed a class for the first time in my life because I thought that the idea of memorizing the periodic table was the height of insanity. Yes, I pushed the limits but stayed a respectable and safe distance from the flame. Then one day I got arrested, and like my uncle Brett, I told my mother I didn’t do it; truthfully, I didn’t do it! I had left the motel party the minute the nonsense started, because even though I enjoyed to dance around the light and warmth of people who were not scared of the flame, I respected its danger and always stayed far from it. And you know who got me out of trouble, big trouble for a poor fatherless kid whose mother had no money for a defense attorney? No, it wasn’t Uncle Brett, even though he gave me unwavering support and encouraged me that it wasn’t the end of the earth. It was my mother’s oldest brother who called in a favor. You should have seen the disgust on the detectives’ faces when I told them that I would not talk to them anymore because my lawyer told me not to. They persisted but quickly backed off when I told them I was being represented, pro-bono, by the biggest criminal defense attorney in the area. It’s refreshing, yet a little sad, that a small-town prosecutor will drop all charges on a poor kid only when his attorney starts bringing up the names of all the kids of influential families who actually destroyed the motel room. Now some of you may think I was horrible for naming names, but what you don’t know is that I was gone when they were caught, and they chose to name me instead of taking the heat themselves. Thus, to all of you who are still shocked and say, “Snitches get stitches,” just let it be known to never rob a bank with Scott!
My senior year continued, as did my lessons in life from Uncle Brett. Some of you may think my relationship with Uncle Brett was not good for me, but you couldn’t be more wrong. Like I said before, while I smoked the same cigarettes as Uncle Brett, he never allowed me to smoke in front of him. While I learned how to clean and roll smoke by watching my uncle Brett do so in Bob Seger’s Live Bullet double album as he sat cross-legged on his bed, dressed in his blue robe, he never once shared any smoke with me. Also, I believe I drank more my senior year than Uncle Brett did, and that was odd because even though I come from a family of beer drinkers, Uncle Brett rarely drank. Maybe I came to emulate him in the drinking area too because to this day I do not drink often, and when I do it’s rarely to excess.
Chapter 8: Time to Make a Choice Young Man
The paper route continued every Sunday, and soon enough, winter’s cold Sunday mornings were replaced by the chill of spring and my life changed right along with the season. For a long time, I wanted to be a veterinarian, but my studious uncle told me that I was not prepared enough to get accepted into a veterinary college, as I should have started in 8th grade. Heck, this was disappointing as when I was in 8th grade, I was just getting over the Castilian lisp I developed in Ibiza, Spain, and had no idea what I wanted to be, besides an Indian war chief, and I didn’t need to go to college to be one of those! Unfortunately for me, I believed the negative commentary on my chances at veterinary school and gave up on my dream before learning that there were junior colleges, the U.S. Army veterinary technician program, and many other routes I could have taken. I probably should have asked someone else, but with my studious uncle being in medical school and Uncle Brett still not yet graduated from college, who was I going to ask? Thus, with the release of Top Gun came a change in my dreams, and one Sunday morning I told my uncle Brett that I wanted to join the U.S. Navy. He asked me why and I told him that I had blown my chance of getting accepted into a veterinary college and didn’t know what else I wanted to do, plus I just wanted to get away from the poverty and uncertainty I was living in. As always, he encouraged me to pursue my dreams and said he would have joined the military too if it would not have been for the Vietnam War. I guess by this point in the story we can all assume Uncle Brett was not—nor would he ever have been—the military type, other than maybe Bill Murray’s character in the classic movie Stripes. Did I mention that my uncle Brett also looked a lot like Bill Murray? Anyways, in typical Uncle Brett style, he not only steered reality his way, but he was supportive of me, just like always!
It was actually Uncle Brett who went with me the first time I met with a recruiter, and as I took my ASVAB test, he sat in there with another recruiter and spoke to him about how he was thinking about joining the military as well; not back in the 1960s, no, he was actually talking to the recruiter about joining right then, in his forties. The recruiter let him down easily by telling him he only had about a year to make up his mind before he would be too old to enter, and I am sure this was a relief to Uncle Brett as I never saw a blue robe anywhere in the Navy. On our ride home he asked me how the test went, and I told him I qualified for all the schools the Navy had to offer, including the nuke program, but I just couldn’t see myself signing up for six years right out the gate. Uncle Brett said he was proud of me and that after speaking to the recruiter he too was thinking about taking the leap. I could always be honest with Uncle Brett, so I asked him about the difficulties he would have enlisting with a wife and kids, his paper route, as well as working on finishing his degree. On top of that I thought—but did not mention—that it was not a good idea because of his love for the contents of the Bob Seger Live Bullet double album and his past experience with Glenn Frey’s The Allnighter album. In the end, Uncle Brett said it was best with his back problems that he did not enlist, and as we got back to his house I thanked him for the ride, but most of all for always believing in me.
Chapter 9: Fair Winds and Following Seas Sailor
I ran that paper route with Uncle Brett the remainder of my senior year and into the summer until I left for bootcamp in August, and those mornings with him were the best: the music, the politics, his ideas on business ventures; I guess we could just call them Uncle Brett isms, and I would love to share them all with you, but this is a short story and not a novel. Furthermore, not all of the Uncle Brett-isms were appropriate to share with my mother and therefore would probably not be wise to share with the 10s of my readers. Towards the end of summer, I shipped out to bootcamp, and besides my mother, I really didn’t speak to many of the people I had left behind as I was busy doing what Uncle Brett had told me to do when I left: enjoy life and all that the Navy had to offer. And while enjoying life and the escape of being poor, I chose to fly close to that alluring flame, but never close enough to get burned. The next time I saw Uncle Brett for any period of time was when I came home for a month after spending a year and a half on Naval Air Station Adak in Alaska, and you know where I stayed for most of that month? You are probably right: at uncle Brett’s house. By this time, he was still in the same house across the street from where my mother and I lived in our Fonzie apartment. And all the warmth that I had felt in high school was still there, except my dog who had been stolen while I was staying at my grandparents’ house after I graduated from high school. Uncle Brett continued to teach me his lessons of life as if we had never left off, him sitting cross-legged in his blue robe on his bed holding court while he played guitar and sang old songs. The only difference is I was an adult and could smoke my Merit cigarettes right there with him, and though I truly love Bob Seger and have seen him in concert, I never took part in what his Live Bullet double album had to offer. I had left all that behind when I joined the Navy and never let it draw me back in.
Then one day while I was fishing on the pier at my Pawpaw’s pond, Uncle Brett gave me some of the worst advice ever. All nonchalant, he came up and asked me when I was going to ask that girl out. “Who, that one?” was my reply as I looked at my sister’s red-headed roommate fishing not far from me. “Yes, you idiot, do you think that girl has ever came out here and baited a hook in her whole life until you showed up?!” he replied, a little too sarcastic and callous, I thought. “Ok, get off of me. I had no idea she even existed until this afternoon. I have been on an island in the middle of the Bering Sea until just a few days ago!” I retorted as I wondered if asking out a red-headed beautician with a child may not be the wisest thing I should be doing. I also wondered if maybe Uncle Brett had finally stopped letting me be myself and was calling me into the flame. The remainder of my leave went great, and I was sad to leave uncle Brett’s home, but it was time to ship out to another school, then halfway around the world to the Military Working Dog Kennels at Naval Station Subic Bay in the Philippines. It’s amazing how fast life changes and how fate has protected me from the flame time and time again. While in school in San Antonio, my orders were changed, and I was offered two additional schools if I would go to Naval Air Station Kingsville in Texas instead of the Philippines. I agreed to take the additional schooling and the new duty station, and looking back, maybe the Philippines was not the best place for a twenty-year-old to spend three years, especially a twenty-year-old who liked to be around people who were not scared of the flame. With this decision, my life began to turn out great. I got a brand-new 1990 Ford Mustang while off at one school and lost a red-headed beautician and my Tijuana leather jacket that she decided was the price of my decision. And I guess at that time in my life it wasn’t such a big price to pay. I preferred my Mustang, pretty little blonde ladies, and later found that Italian leather was much nicer.
Chapter 10: That’s One Pretty Little Blonde Lady
The next time I saw my uncle Brett was when I drove in on leave in my Mustang with the most beautiful pretty little blonde lady on the face of the earth. By this time Uncle Brett had moved into a house he purchased when he graduated college and started working as a schoolteacher and baseball coach at the local high school. And where did I and this most amazing pretty little blonde lady stay? Uncle Brett’s, of course, and while there I showed her a big part of why I was me as we sat on the edge of his bed listening to him play guitar and sing classic songs while the wisps from his Merit cigarette eased their way up towards the ceiling. The next morning, we had my aunt’s famous breakfast and got ready, as it was time to introduce that pretty little blonde lady to the remainder of my very large, very loving, and slightly dysfunctional family. Uncle Brett said, “I’m riding with Scott,” and hopped in the back seat of my Mustang. Now this was probably going to be the first time Uncle Brett would be on time to a family gathering, but that didn’t mean anything to him, other than the party would start a little sooner with his arrival and everyone would have a little more time to enjoy themselves.
I popped in a cassette tape and as we pulled away from his home to Rod Stewart singing “The First Cut Is the Deepest,” Uncle Brett shared another one of his life’s lessons with me when he said, “Roll up that window! Can’t you see that you’re messing up that pretty little blonde lady’s hair?” I hadn’t thought about it, and we were a new enough couple that she didn’t say anything to me. Then Uncle Brett continued with, “It’s obvious she made it all up wanting to impress you and your family.” He then added another lesson for both of us that we had forgotten due to our current duty station: “South Louisiana humidity is not the best for women’s hair. You should have seen what it did to those 1960s hairstyles!” That pretty little blonde lady’s first time meeting my mother, sister, and the rest of my very large, very loving, and slightly dysfunctional family was done in South Louisiana style, with a crawfish boil. Everything went great, and everyone just fell in love with the prettiest little blonde lady in the world that I had proudly brought home with me. I even overheard my aunts whispering, “She’s offered to help with dishes without being asked!” and “Do you realize she made that cute outfit she’s wearing?” and “He did much better than the last one!” I can imagine my uncle Brett listening and thinking that they always loved to whisper, but at least this time it wasn’t about him and not that he would care. A couple of days later we had to return to base, and as we made that long drive back, that pretty little blonde lady shared how much she enjoyed everyone and that it was obvious I was still very close to my uncle Brett.
My stint in the Navy continued and the next time I would see my uncle Brett was for my wedding to that very same pretty little blonde lady. Months before our arrival back in South Louisiana, I discussed our plans to get married with my mother, and she shared her idea of a small ceremony at her church and a reception to follow at her house. She said not to worry about anything as she wanted to take care of it and could afford it. This was refreshing, as the last time we lived together was in that little Fonzie apartment, and while I was away she graduated nursing school and was doing fine financially. She said that she and that pretty little blonde lady were about the same size, and she could wear her wedding gown. Yes, my mother finally remarried about a year after I left for the Navy and is still married to the same man to this day! She then said that my suit or tuxedo, the best man’s tuxedo, the matron of honor dress, the flower girl dress, plus getting there on time from Washington State was on us. Since her family couldn’t make it, that pretty little blonde lady chose my sister to be her matron of honor, and her sweet daughter to be the flower girl. As she made the dresses for our wedding, I sat back watching her and said, “Do you know just how lucky I feel to be marrying you?” She replied that she felt the same way because I was a really good man. As I sat there in admiration of her, I thought of the men in my life who helped raise me and give me the confidence to ask someone like her out, and it was with that thought that I decided to call my uncle Brett and ask him to be my best man. Of course, he said yes and reminded me how proud he was of me, especially how I had chosen a good woman. He conveniently failed to apologize for his role in my previous relationship, but then again, that was my uncle Brett. Maybe he would make it up to me by getting me an Italian leather jacket for my wedding gift.
My wedding was amazing, and I was proud to have Uncle Brett next to me. At our little reception in my mother’s backyard, all the men who helped mentor me growing up were there to support me like they had always been. My stepfather cooked the crawfish while my hunting uncle and my mother’s father supervised. My doctor uncle and my dad’s father shared their words of wisdom with me, and my uncle Brett sat in a chair and played the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling” on his guitar as our live entertainment. I took my bride’s hand into mine and we danced. Looking down at her in that beautiful dress, I couldn’t help but think how lucky I was, and then I noticed that one of the bills pinned on her dress from the money dance was a hundred dollar bill! I guess I was even more lucky than I thought, and I asked her, “Who is that from?” She said my mother’s oldest brother, and just like in the past, he once again showed up for me, making sure I had a little extra cash in my pocket! We danced as Uncle Brett sang what would end up being our wedding song, and that pretty little blonde lady looked up at me and said, “Hey, the words are not the same as what I have heard.” “They never are,” I replied, and we danced on into the evening.
Chapter 11: Principle Ford
My life continued blissfully with my new bride, except when the Navy was kind enough to send me back to Adak, Alaska. This would be both my and that pretty little blonde lady’s last duty station as we chose to end our enlistments and try our hand at civilian life. Then only a couple of years after getting married, our little family of three entered civilian life and soon we were joined by a fourth, another pretty little blonde lady. We relocated near her parents in Northeast Texas, and only a couple of years later there were five of us in that little two-bedroom apartment with the birth of Nick, our son. It wasn’t long after his birth that we moved to Thibodaux, Louisiana, where I took a job with my uncle’s construction company, a company that I am still with as I write this. However, this trip home was a little different, as my uncle Brett was not around. Prior to us moving down he had lost his job at the high school and had to take a job overseas with his brother-in-law’s construction company. Sure, there were the whispers from our very large, very loving, and slightly dysfunctional family, but my uncle Brett was not around to tell me what really happened. He wasn’t around to be the hero of his story. My family and I continued our lives together, but things in my very large, very loving, and slightly dysfunctional family permanently changed when I heard that my aunt and Uncle Brett were getting a divorce! Again, he was still overseas and would not return for a while. I would not say that at this point in my life I needed him, but he had always been a good constant in my life and honestly I missed him a little. When he finally returned from his second overseas job, he did not return to Thibodaux and instead chose to settle down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with his new wife and son. Sure, the whispers returned and for the first time I found myself at odds with Uncle Brett. After all, he was not around to share his story with me; therefore, how could he once again be the hero of his own story? Maybe I didn’t need to hear it, because although I knew he had once again been thrown from life’s mustang, I also knew that he was going to be just fine—and so was I, even without him. What I found out was that even without him and because of the bond we had formed and the music he had shared with me, he was always just one song away from my memory.
About a year later I realized that his divorce was not going to be where our journey together ended, because when his grandson was born, he and I found ourselves outside of Thibodaux General Hospital, him smoking a Merit cigarette and me smoking a Marlboro Light. What can I say? A pretty little blonde lady had an influence on me as well. As we talked, he continued his lessons of life with me, telling me about his time working overseas to support his family back home and what he did as a fellow project controls engineer. He went on to share about his new wife and child and, most of all, how important it was to be there for his children, even though he was no longer married to their mother. And just like that, he had shared his story with me. It was about a year late, but I must admit it was refreshing to hear it instead of all those whispers. The funny thing is that while we stood out there smoking and catching up on life, my high school principal walked up, and I immediately and respectfully said, “Mr. Ford.” Mr. Ford nodded back to me, studied me up and down a little, and then as his memory came back to him he told me that he still drank coffee at The Venetian with my father’s dad. It amazed me that he still remembered who I was, with all the thousands of kids he had seen over the years. I would like to think it was because of my familial ties, but then again it could have been that he and I had shared a few conversations over the years, conversations that were not always pleasant or voluntary. Mr. Ford asked me what I was doing in life, and I told him about my pretty little blonde lady, our three children, and that I was now a project controls engineer with a construction company. Mr. Ford smiled as he said, “I knew you would do good because you came from good stock.” Uncle Brett then respectfully said, “Coach Ford.” Coach Ford looked at Uncle Brett and it didn’t take him long to remember him as he immediately asked Uncle Brett what he was up to, and Uncle Brett told him about his new job in Baton Rouge and that he had returned not too long ago from working as a project controls engineer overseas. I am not sure how to share what Coach Ford said, but I know Uncle Brett respectfully waited until Coach Ford got inside those sliding glass doors before he said something about how Coach Ford had always been a hard ass and that he didn’t have pencil wrists. Oh damn, Principal Ford was the same coach who told Uncle Brett he couldn’t be a quarterback because he had pencil wrists! Small world!
Chapter 12: Thanos Snaps of His Fingers
You would think that this would have been the last I saw of Uncle Brett as he was now divorced and living in another town, especially since my family and I had relocated back to Texas, but this thought couldn’t be further from reality. Actually, nothing with Uncle Brett followed the universe’s lines of what reality was supposed to be, because Uncle Brett had the ability to rewrite reality himself. He was the hippie version of Thanos, who could change the ending of any story with the snap of his finger! Yes, I saw Uncle Brett many more times over the years, as he still showed up to family gatherings like he had never left, always with his young son and sometimes even with his new wife. Sure, there were whispers, this time from a slightly smaller, equally loving, and still slightly dysfunctional family, but that didn’t matter to my uncle Brett as he had been part of this family for longer than he hadn’t, and to him it was still his family—all of us were still his family. And that is what I truly enjoyed more than his music, his wisdom, and his being there for me: I enjoyed his love of our very large and very loving family, regardless of how dysfunctional they were. To him, family was as wild as an untamed mustang and to love them you just had to jump on, hold on tight, and hope for the best.
The last time I saw my uncle Brett in person was at my sister’s wedding. My son was a teenager by this point, and we all loaded up and drove to Louisiana. Sure, there were whispers about why my sister would invite him and why he would even show up, but to her he was still Uncle Brett, and to him, how could there be a wedding without him there? After all, it was not a party until Uncle Brett showed up, and the one thing a South Louisiana wedding is known for is that there will definitely be one hell of a party. Uncle Brett and I started off right where we left off, listening to old music being played and talking about old times. The evening went on until the wee hours of the morning and we all drifted back to our respective cabins. The next morning we woke up, a little worse for the wear, but nonetheless happy to have been able to “pass a good time,” as the Cajuns would say. And where was Uncle Brett? Well, he had headed home and out of my life as, unbeknownst to me, this was the last time I was going to see Uncle Brett, at least in person.
Since the passing of my grandparents and sadly a few others, our slightly smaller family has gotten still smaller, but it’s still very loving and still slightly dysfunctional. However, now most of us are old enough and insured enough to address that dysfunction through therapy, yoga, pool, and gym visits. By this time, Uncle Brett had faded off into the sunset like many of those cowboy heroes he had grown up with as a boy. We were all busy with our families and saw each other less often; however, that fading didn’t last long as one day while on Facebook I heard a familiar voice singing. It was not a classically trained voice, and the song was a newer song— well, from the ’80s—but nonetheless new to him. It was my uncle Brett, this time sitting down, clothed in more than a robe, professionally set up with a microphone and camera, strumming his guitar and singing to the masses! A warm feeling came over me as I listened to him sing Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ hit “I Won’t Back Down.” As I listened, I felt it was a very appropriate song for him to sing because my uncle Brett never backed down to anyone, any whispers, any challenge, anything. I read the comments left mostly by his side of the family and all of them had very similar memories of growing up with his music and influence on their lives. I read on, realizing that he touched so many more than just me. I sat there listening to him sing and thought, What would I have been without his influence in my life? What music would I listen to? What kind of father would I be? Would I even be with the love of my life without the confidence he helped instill in me?
I still see him from time to time as he pops up on my feed, and while I must admit I don’t pause my life every time to hear every song he plays, I often find myself sitting back and listening, reminiscing about our times together, and then I leave him a comment. Nothing long or sentimental, but a comment, nonetheless. He always replies and is still as happy as ever, and he seems to have finally tamed life’s mustang, or maybe it finally tamed him?
As I began writing this, I listened to many of our songs, especially as I wrote them into this story, and then I thought of a song he sang regularly to me when I was a teenager, “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died” by Tom T. Hall. I hurriedly went on my music app—one I won’t name as they don’t pay me—found it, and listened to it over and over again. I must admit that my memories of Uncle Brett singing it are better than the original, and one day I need to look to see if I still have that old cassette tape he made for me of him singing it along with some of his other favorite songs, my favorite songs. I guess of all the music he introduced me to, this song has the most relevance when it comes to his and my relationship while I was growing up. Again, while strict copyright laws forbid me from writing any lyrics, one thing is for certain, and that is I felt that Uncle Brett was a hero, and I did follow him around. He was the best guitar player I knew. I used to sit on the edge of his bed and listen to him belt out his favorite songs as he sat there half-stoned, loving and living life to its fullest. Sure, the family whispered about him, but I couldn’t understand why because in my eyes mostly it was he who got burned when he flew too close to the flame, not any of them. One thing I have learned from the passing of my grandparents, as well as too many other relatives and friends along the way, is that it is certain that one day my uncle Brett will pass away as well. The same as with all the others, that day will be a sad one for me; however, it is then that I will lift a glass in his honor as I listen to “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died.” And maybe I too will get half-stoned as I remember the good in him, because you know what, in his stories and in his life he was always a hero to me. A hero no matter how burned his wings got from flying too close to the flame. A hero no matter how dusty his clothes got from being thrown from life’s mustang. A hero no matter what anyone whispered about him, he would pick up his guitar and sing, and all the while, he would just keep on smiling.
Postscript
After I finished writing this story, I reached out to my uncle Brett to ensure he was good with me sharing this with my 10s of readers. I messaged him, explaining that the timeline may be a little off and the stories somewhat anecdotal with a hint of sarcasm, but that they were as I remembered. He immediately messaged me back and said absolutely, send it over. I excitedly ran up to my office and fired off this story to my uncle Brett. He reached back out to me the next morning and asked for a good time for him to call. He called, wished me and my family a Happy Easter, and then apologized for being late. I laughed as I reminded him that the only time he was on time for anything other than his paper route was when I drove him and that prettiest of little blonde ladies to our very large, very loving, and only slightly dysfunctional family’s South Louisiana crawfish boil. It was great to hear his voice, and I must admit I was a little nervous that he may not be ok with what I had written.
However, at 70+ years old, he was the same Uncle Brett, and as we spoke he went a little more in depth about some of his falls from life’s mustang, cleared up some of his versions of the falls he wasn’t around to share with me, and then told me how proud he was of me and that everything with this story, our story, was great. We talked about life, music, and family for a while longer and it was just like we were back on that paper route; well, maybe we never left it. An amazing thing about life was when Uncle Brett shared with me that he really needed to read this, and it came at a perfect time for him. My Greenpeace Mother of Earth mom would say it is the universe full of gods and goddesses guiding us. For me, I think maybe it was that our very special bond still holds true, and our bond somehow guided me to write this at a time when my uncle Brett needed to keep on smiling.
