My Uncle Carl

Carl c. 1945

My uncle Carl was the first chemically-dependent person that I ever knew. He was a happy drunk. I never knew there was such a thing as a mean drunk until I was almost grown. Carl lived in a small house with no plumbing about a half mile from us. One luxury he did have was electricity so he could watch ball games on TV.

On Saturdays when my dad, my siblings and I drove to Carl's place to visit him, we never knew if Carl would be drunk or sober. My brother, sister and I always tagged along, because it was always a good time at Carl's. One time we used up all his ketchup and white bread making ketchup sandwiches.

If Carl was sober, my dad and Carl would have a conversation. If Carl was drunk, anything could happen. To be sure, he'd make his dogs, Babian and Laddy, shake hands with us, not once but many, many times. "Gud dag, Babian!" was the command. ("Gud dag" is a typical Norwegian greeting, "good day".) Babian would obediently shake. Again and again and again. We could almost see Babian roll his eyes and think "Oh, god, not again...." as he was commanded over and over, "Gud dag, Babian!" And my dad would just laugh it off.

But with my mom it was a different story. One hot summer afternoon my mom, siblings and I drove to Carl's house after Carl had spent the better part of the day at the saloon in Dennison. He'd bought a quart of ice cream for his two dogs on the way home from the saloon but was too drunk to cut it in half for the dogs. He wondered if my mom to do it. She cut the melting ice cream carton in half, but she was really pissed. Another time when my mom and I showed up at Carl's place, he and his friend Barlow were so drunk they couldn't stand up. My mom just closed Carl's front door, and we went home. In spite of the summer heat, it was a chilly drive home.

My all-time favorite story about Carl happened one August when I was about eight years old. A usual Saturday, my dad and I drove down to Carl's for our weekly Saturday visit. When we got there Carl was very upset. A pocket gopher was destroying his potato patch, chewing up all his potatoes. Completely distraught, Carl took us out to the potato patch to show us his wilted potato plants. My dad was sympathetic until suddenly one of the untouched potato plants started shaking from underground. By now Carl was in tears. "Goddammit, there he is right now!" screamed Carl. I'd never seen my dad laugh so hard.

Carl was probably the luckiest person I've ever met. He got drafted in WWII, four days before the end of the war. So he got a pension for being in the service for a few days during the war. He never worked a steady job, he'd hire out as a farm hand, fish, hunt, trap gophers for the 25 cent bounty paid by the township. He never had the money to buy a house. But he did inherit one. He had a lady friend, Helen, with whom he lived. I barely remember Helen, she died when I was quite young. But when she died, she willed Carl her house. A few years after Helen died, I asked my mom, "Was Helen Carl's girlfriend, or what was the deal with them?" My mom mumbled something, all I caught was the phrase "living in sin". I didn't know what that meant, but it didn't sound very good so I didn't ask any more questions.

Carl taught me how to trap gophers: Look for a fresh mound. Find the small mound in the big mound to determine which direction the tunnel is running. Find the Y in the tunnel, this is where to lay the opened trap. Don't get your fingers caught in the trap, dammit! Lay a piece of board over the hole that completely covers it. Gently cover the board with dirt. Don't let dirt down the hole or you'll spring the trap, dammit! The next day check your trap. Pull the gopher out by the chain on the trap. Knock him in the head. Gotdammit! No! You can't drown him, you'll rust the trap! Cut off his front feet and take them to the township board, 25 cents a pair.

One rare summer afternoon, my mom was in need of a baby sitter. In spite of Carl's love for alcohol, he could, for the most part, be responsible when it was called for, and he did have a good heart. Carl was asked to babysit me and my brother and sister. As a treat, my mom had bought a coconut for us to open and eat during the afternoon. Carl got the coconut cracked open with a hammer, and out of his pocket he pulled his jack knife, the only jack knife he owned, to cut the coconut up for us. "Yuck!" I cried. "That's the same knife you use to cut off the gopher feet!"

"No, it's not the same knife!" growled Carl.

I knew it was the same knife.

I didn't eat any of the coconut.

Bat Watching with Ole

Ole and D.D. near Hill City, Minnesota, 1957

I miss my dad the most when I see deer. He loved wildlife; really, any and all animals. He didn’t care for being around people all that much. He was an introvert. He found people and their expectations to be draining. Wild animals didn’t take -- they gave, by letting him observe them.

In spite of his avoidance of most people, my dad liked his wife, kids and grandson. In fact, he loved us, and didn’t mind our expectations of him unless it involved being around more people. The last seventeen years of my dad’s life, I lived within a few miles of my parents, so I saw them often. Conversations with my dad during these years mostly involved animals.

If he was home alone and the phone rang, he rarely answered it unless he was pretty sure it was my mom or one of his kids. Primarily, our phone conversations were usually he informing me what all of his cats were doing at the moment. After he retired, he surprised all of us by becoming a very nurturing man - to his cats. I have to admit, I was a bit jealous because he didn’t exhibit that quality when I was growing up. But it was gratifying to see that he was capable of it.

As my parents got older, I would drive them to various venues, sometimes to fun places like the casino or the State Fair; sometimes to not so fun places, like the doctor. On these trips, my dad and I started looking for bats that roosted in out-of-the-way places in late summer. Bats, especially the young ones when they first start venturing out alone, will roost on the side of brick or stucco buildings and under overhangs, if they don’t make it back to their usual roosting area. Ole (not my dad’s given name, but it’s what everyone called him) and I made a game of finding the bats that glommed onto buildings. It was our secret because most people are weirded-out by bats. We never kept a count. Finding a bat was like finding a quarter on the street.

One of the less fun trips with my dad was to the clinic for him to have an endoscopy. The door to the clinic was under an overhang, the perfect place for a bat to take a daylong nap. As we walked to the clinic, my dad and I automatically checked the walls and ceiling of the overhang for bats. We saw one bat and gave each other a nod.

Post-endoscopy, after my dad was awake and alert, we started the twenty-mile drive home. I was driving; my dad was in the passenger seat, my mom in the back seat. My dad was sipping water on the drive home since he couldn’t have any food or water before the procedure. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him take his tin of Copenhagen out of his shirt pocket, tap the lid twice with his knuckle, and put a wad of snuff inside his lower lip.

Then he passed out.

We were closer to the hospital in our hometown than the clinic, so I punched the accelerator. I was hoping a cop would see me so I could motion to him that I needed to get to the hospital FAST.

It seemed like a long time, but it was probably only five minutes by the time we arrived to the hospital emergency door, which was located within an overhang at the rear of the building. My mom rang the buzzer (this is a very small-town hospital) so the nurse could let us into the emergency room. Meanwhile, my dad was starting to come to in the car, still holding his glass of water and spit-can. He might not have been quite sure where he was, but he could see we were under an overhang. As the nurse arrived and started taking his blood pressure, he said to me, “Do you see any bats?”

The endoscopy revealed esophageal cancer and he lived for just a few months after that. I know my dad would have preferred to die at home or better yet, in the woods. But it didn’t turn out that way. But yet, I think he was a lucky man. He had a family that loved him. And since he was the first to go in my immediate family, he didn’t have to watch any of us get buried. He is with me when I see a coyote, deer or eagle. And I sometimes wonder if he’s telling the bats where to roost.

I have often heard “The answer is always Love”. I’ve been in impossible situations and couldn’t find any love and didn’t know how to find that answer.

Then I figured out that loving myself in impossible situations was the answer.

So, the Answer is always Love.