Uncle Raymond

For some reason I never called my uncles on my mother's side of the family "uncle". I knew they were uncles but they were so close in age that they were something a bit more.

Raymond is the oldest of my uncles. He was around but because he was 12 years older than me I was a nuisance to be tolerated more than anything else.

Like all my uncles Raymond worked the farm with Grandpa. Tractors and cattle consumed most of his time.

I do not think he liked farming too much. After all sons working a farm were excrutiatingly short of spending money.

When he was old enough Raymond took a ob driving a delivery truck. He had his own money.

Raymond was getting married! And I would get to go to the wedding. I had never been to a wedding before. I was 11 or 12 years old.

I do not remember much about the wedding. Such things were of little interest to me at that time.

His bride's father was the manager of the country club. That meant he took care of the golf course.

There was an interval of about 3 hours between the wedding and the reception. Pictures had to be taken you know.

So here were all these children with nothing to do. Left to themselves children will usually find something to do and it usually involves getting dirty.

To prevent that my aunt's father gave us a couple of golf balls and a couple of his golf clubs. We stayed relatively clean as we puttered around on the golf course.

The reception was held in the club house. It was not a fancy building as I look back at it. But I was entranced.

There were tables of food and bowls of punch. There was a lot of floor space for dancing. We could dance as long as we stayed clear in one corner and sort of out of the way.

The Witch Doctor by David Seville was so popular at that time. I was thrilled to hear it so many times that night. (My new aunt's father finally removed it from the juke box because he was so sick of hearing it.)

My uncle Donnie got drunk. He was funny to watch. He sort of draped himself over his date (she later married him) and moved the two of them around the floor.

Raymond died 3 years ago after a long fight with cancer.