An Uncle Melvin story
October 20, 2008 | Nostalgia
I was just looking over some of the files that I have on The William Washington Family, and I filed some conversations among Mile Holland, and his sisters, Nancy and Peggy…and Johnnie and me….on MyFamily.com (I think it was Mike’s family website). Any way, Johnnie posted this: Uncle Melvin, in the last few months of his life, thought we were all taking his things from around the house. He went on a tangent about a bucket that he swears Kenny (Johnnie’s husband) took from him, and this bucket is the one that he and Irene began housekeeping with. He told us that she washed the dishes, her hair, and her underwear in it!!! He threatened to sue Kenny for $5.00 if he didn’t immediately return the bucket. I scoured that house and shed out back for that bucket, and I found several buckets that I showed him, but none of them were HIS bucket. But after he died, I climbed up in the loft of his shed and found some old buckets in a stack that he put up there and forgot about. I guess his bucket was in that stack!!!
4 Responses to “An Uncle Melvin story”
aw! that’s so cute.
By maria on Oct 21, 2008
So you’re saying that only AFTER he kicked the bucket…
Wait, how does that work?
By bill on Oct 21, 2008
THE FAMILY RESERVE
When I saw the ambulance
Screaming down Main Street
I didn’t give it a thought
But it was my Uncle Eugene
He died on October the second 1981
And my Uncle Wilbert
They all called him Skinner
They said for his younger ways
He’d get drunk in the morning
And show me the rolls of fifties and hundreds
He kept in the glove box of his old gray Impala
And we’re all gonna be here forever
So Mama don’t you make such a stir
Now put down that camera
And come on and join up
The last of the family reserve
Now my second cousin
His name was Callaway
He died when he’d barely turned two
It was peanut butter and jelly that did it
The help she didn’t know what to do
She just stood there and watched him turn blue
And we’re all gonna be here forever
So Mama don’t you make such a stir
Just put down that camera
And come on and join up
The last of the family reserve
And my friend Brian Temple
He thought he could make it
So from the third story he jumped
He missed the swimming pool
Only by inches
And everyone said he was drunk
Now there was great Uncle Julius
And Aunt Annie Mueller
And Mary and Granddaddy Paul
And there was Hanna and Ella
And Alvin and Alec
He owned his own funeral hall
And there are more I remember
And more I could mention
Than words I could write in a song
But I feel them watching
And I see them laughing
And I hear them singing along
We’re all gonna be here forever
So Mama don’t you make such a stir
Just put down that camera
And come on and join up
The last of the family reserve
–Lyle Lovett, “The Family Reserve”
By bill on Oct 21, 2008
I’m not Jordan. I’m “mother”. Somehow, I got in on her “time”, so I’ll just use it for “me”. and say: “Bill, you are one funny guy. I’m so glad to call you my own. I always liked witty fellows, and one of my favorite boy-friends was a funny fellow named “Bill Williams”, and one of the things I liked about your dad was his “funniness”.
By jordan on Oct 21, 2008