Some people have love oozing out of their pores from the time they are born. Even when they act like you're a pest and in the way, you just know they still love you.
My Uncle Rodney was like that. He was the youngest of three children and the only boy.
Uncle Rodney was a teenager when I was a little kid, and I wanted to be wherever he was. If he turned around, he usually had to watch out or he would step on me.
Once while playing hide and seek with my brother Frank, Uncle Rodney dropped me down into Grandpa's coveralls that were hanging on a hook in the kitchen. Talk about a great hiding place.
At times, he did tire of having a little girl following him all the time, especially when a friend was over and he would tell me to leave them alone.
I ignored his request and followed the boys outside, but Uncle Rodney went directly back into the house with me at his heels.
"What are you going to do now?" I asked. It didn't take long for me to find out. He picked me up and put me in a big, overstuffed chair next to the wood stove, then tied me up with the dog's harness and left me there crying and hollering for grandma.
"Grandma, Grandma help me! Uncle Rodney tied me up, and I can't get loose."
Grandma finally came back in the house. Although she was not gone long it seemed like forever. When she saw me she was as mad as the proverbial wet hen.
I suspect she knew why he had done it and may even have sympathized with him, but she always stuck up for me.
The day I got off the school bus at Grandma and Grandpa's house on the farm, the kids on the bus said no one was home, but I didn't believe them so I got off anyway. This first-grader was very, very scared when I discovered they were telling the truth.
The nearest neighbor was far away. I started crying and walking to the mailbox that was about a mile down the dirt road. I got all the way to the mailbox before Grandma and Uncle Rodney met me as they walked home from visiting a nearby farm family. Uncle Rodney dried my tears, picked me up and carried me home on his shoulders.
Years passed, and Uncle Rodney's friends were now driving cars with those neat horns that played tunes like "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
I leaned in the car window as the guys sat in the car talking and laughing.
"What are you doing?" I asked. "Oh, not much," they answered. "What's that on your arm," Uncle Rodney asked me as he rubbed my arm. I soon found out that he had put itching powder on my arm and I ran to wash it off as they sat laughing. Although he got rid of me for a short time, I always came back for more.
"Where are we going?" I asked him. "To church for youth fellowship," he answered. I'm not sure if my mom, his eldest sister, or his mom, my grandma, asked him to take me. In those days, we walked almost everywhere, and I remember trying to match my steps to the long, lanky steps of a 6-foot teenager who didn't slow down for a shorter-legged niece. Nonetheless, he was very nice to me at the fellowship and helped me feel included.
As an adult, Uncle Rodney always had many, many friends. He was known throughout the community as someone who could be counted on to help anyone at any time.
For several years he helped carry groceries and fuel to Mrs. Keinzle, a widow who lived on my great-grandfather's former farm. After buying the farm she named it "Paradise Lodge" and hoped to make it into a bed and breakfast for folks who wanted a break from life in the city. Although several hunters stayed there from time to time, it never really turned out as she had hoped. In winter, the snowplows could not plow her narrow dirt road. She did not have a telephone or electricity so year after year Uncle Rodney would walk through the snowdrifts carrying groceries to her to make sure she was OK.
Uncle Rodney died of cancer a few years ago, but many remember his good name and kind heart. I miss him —lots.
Pat DeSain — wife, mother, grandmother and retired piano teacher — lives in Longview. E-mail her at pitterpat2008@sbcglobal.net.
