Uncle Willie and Gum Boots
The Atlantic shore on Assateague Island is a strange place to bring back a memory of one of the favorite people from my childhood, my Uncle Willie, but that is just what happened last week.
I had decided to tag along with my son and his cousin to see if we could catch a striped bass or a black drum in the surf. Despite a few inconveniences, an energetic disassembly of one of the tires on the boat trailer my son and his cousin were towing on the Capital Beltway and my embarrassing encounter with the rear end of a huge recreational vehicle on Route 50, we managed to have an enjoyable time.
But what does that have to do with my Uncle Willie? When I was a child, and we are talking here the 1950’s, every Saturday morning I would see my great uncle, William Brady, walking out the Pullen town Road (now called the Aileen Road) towards our house. Everybody in my family called him Uncle Willy, but he was really my great uncle. My father was an only child, so I had no uncles that were Bradys.
Uncle Willie would walk past Uncle Horace Pullen’s home, then past our old shop, and on out to our house. Every Saturday morning. Without fail. And when he came into the house, my mother always greeted him warmly. She would ask how he was doing, and how Aunt Bessie was doing. Uncle Willie was a kind, quiet man. One quick anecdote: My mother would often say, “Uncle Willie, you are looking good.” And his eyes and his tawny moustache would twinkle a bit, and he would grin and say, “Well, Alice, there never was anything wrong with my looks.”
But who Uncle Willie was looking for, every Saturday morning, was me. He called me Dicky-boy, and he wanted me to come and sit with Aunt Bessie while he walked to Flint Hill to get his week’s groceries. Aunt Bessie had a bad hip, and rarely got out of the house. There were no telephones or medic-alert bracelets, and he would not leave her alone. So, I sat with Aunt Bessie. Usually, that just consisted of sitting and talking with her about what was going on at our house.
My father often drove Uncle Willie to town and back. Uncle Willie carried a white cloth sack for his groceries. The little sack was rarely full, and how they made it from one week to the next on what he got at Bradford’s store, I never knew. When my bride and I go to the grocery store these days, the trunk of the car is half full of plastic bags of “stuff” that we need until the next time.
Memories of Uncle Willie came up on the beach as I tried to come up with the proper footwear. The young men went barefooted and waded into the frigid water to cast out their lines as far as they could throw them. That was not appealing to me. When you fish a lot, you know the next big fish is hanging out just beyond where your best cast ends. Most of time, I let them cast out for me.
Every Saturday when
I saw Uncle Willie he had on what he called his gum boots. They were black rubber pull-on boots. I think he must have worn them all the time. The legs of his pants were always tucked neatly inside his boots. You see, I thought if I had some gum boots that came up almost to my knees, like Uncle Willie’s, that would be enough to get me out in the water far enough to make a good cast.
Alas, my thoughts turned to Uncle Willie and Aunt Bessie and living in the hollow we called Pullentown. I didn’t catch any fish, but that is not news when it comes to me and fishing in the ocean. I have recently had better luck in some friends’ farm ponds, so I wasn’t hurting for a fish dinner. The young men gave it a mighty try, but soon got tired of being skunked and tried their luck in the channel that separates Assateague and Chincoteague and caught enough fish for a delicious fry one night.
The next time I go, I am going to have some knee-high gum boots and a good book or two. And if the fish don’t cooperate, I will listen to the surf, sip a cool beverage and enjoy my book, just like I did this time. And I will think about Uncle Willie and all the days gone by, and I will have another enjoyable time at the beach.
You see, I thought if I had some gum boots that came up almost to my knees, like Uncle Willie’s, that would be enough to get me out in the water far enough to make a good cast.
Author’s full disclosure: As I was writing the above article, I kept thinking I had written something like this before. Turns out, in 2006, I wrote an article about my Uncle Willie. Some of the references are similar and the anecdote is a carbon copy. I thought this article different enough . . . and long enough since the first one . . . that readers might still enjoy it.