HEIRLOOM 1A

As far back as i can remember, i stared daily at a photograph of my uncle, who stared back from a shelfs' in my grandmother's house. Legendary, he had reached an elevated status in the heart of the family fabric. Tales of his valor, courage,leadership and most of all wild card turned dedicated father. The family's "Great White Hope." Our family's Joe Kennedy, who embodied the collective American Dream, at a time when anyone who was able to raise his head above the dustbowl depression that our homestate of Oklahoma had become forever linked. That was all before the photograph was taken. That was before his fate was sealed in the second world war. In the picture,wearing the classic uniform of a fighter pilot, he could been interchanged with any of the Hollywood heartthrobs of the 1940's. Even now, his dashing good looks would "fly" at the box office today. Drafted, married, and a dad at 24, victim of a revenge against my grandfather's retaliation on a man who had peppered another brother with buckshot, for having stolen a watermelon from his garden, a boyhood prank gone wrong. So wrong. My grandfather went to the police station, paid a fine for assault, and proceeded to lay in wait for the shooter, surprised him, and beat him within an inch of his life. A costly mistake in the sharp eye of retrospect. That same man, down the road, had become head of the local draft board, and then was able to deliver a counter blow from which our family never fully recovered. The jackyll teeth of the government then ripped uncle Bill from the arms of his family. From the arms of his young wife and 4 year old daughter. Washed out of the air corps by yet another political prodding. Out of 5 sons, Bill became the family martyr. They were notified of his death at the battle of the bulge at Christmas. Christmas for my grandfather was never the same. The guilt that brought on the migraines that brought on the pervasive atmosphere that surrounded a man in perpetual grief. Recently, I inherited large vintage frames containing the handcolored portraits of each of the sons.My wife hung one because she thought it was beautiful. It was. For staring back at me, beneath the Buster Brown haircut, were those same crystal clear green eyes, were the same eyes I gazed into everyday of my boyhood. The eyes of a man that would become the measure of every man in our family, was uncle Bill.