Some Great Memories of a Great Man

As many of you may know by now, my uncle was killed last night in a farming accident. It was all so sudden and so sad. While none of us will ever know exactly what happened, I think that it is critical at this time to remember the good times that we had with Uncle Fred. Here are a few of mine.

One of the first memories that comes to mind for me is 'wrestling' my Uncle. If you know Fred, you know that he is a big man! Not just heavy, but extremely tall! He used to carry his pliers attached to his belt. As children we used to wrestle him to the ground to try to steal these from him. I can't remember a single time when we were ever successful as it usually ended up with someone pleading 'mercy' from being tickled too much. We used to have 'raids' with 3-4 grandchildren attacking him from the hallway as soon as he walked in.

If you ever knew Fred, you knew that during the holidays he would wear a Santa hat.... EVERY YEAR. There is some speculation about the hat: 1- Was it the same hat from year to year? and 2- Did he EVER wash it? If I had to bet on it, I would say that yes, it was the same hat every year and no, it had never been washed. He loved his Santa hat and would wear it all day, every day. One of my favorite pictures with him is the one attached here, we both wore our Santa hats that year:)



Several years back Uncle Fred inherited a dog from one of my cousin's ex-girlfriends. My uncle worked for the co-op for 25 years. He lived and breathed agriculture, farming and ranching. When I went over there one weekend to see this dog that he had gotten I was SHOCKED to find a 5 pound ball of fluff. The 'dog' he had gotten was one of those little yip yap dogs. Several months later she passed away and Uncle Fred immediately replaced her with another white fluffy dog, this time she weighed 8 pounds. He named her Lucy. Lucy went everywhere with Uncle Fred, to town, to the farm, to the store, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he would have taken her to work if he would have been allowed. My grandma has told me that Uncle Fred even let Lucy drive sometimes.

There are so many memories that I have of my Uncle. He mediated fights between me and my mom, he became a confidant, mentor and role model for me as I got older. We had a conversation a few weeks ago, he was in such good spirits, he had some advice for me and since then I have followed through with that. He was a hard worker and he loved what he did. More importantly, he loved farming and his family. His memories will always be with us and his spirit will always be in my heart.