When your growing up, and throughout your life, you are surrounded by family. Holidays, weddings, graduations, birthdays and baptisms, family gathers from near and far. Your aunts and uncles are as big a part of your life as your mom and dad. As we get older, so does everyone else, and pretty soon we are attending funerals. Celebrating a life that was so much a part of ours. Time goes by, and before you know it, there aren't many left at all. And now, there are none. Our beloved Uncle Jack passed away last week, bringing with it a strange time in our lives. With both of our parents gone, and now all of our aunts and uncles, there is nothing between us the and great beyond.
Uncle Jack was married to my mom's sister. He was my favorite uncle. My uncles on the Flaherty side I really never got to know too well. The Uncles on the Hurley side were the ones I have the most memories of. Maybe it was that Uncle Jack WAS'NT a Hurley that made him so nice. : ) All my memories of uncle Jack are good ones. He was gentle and kind. Always friendly, always happy.
Back in 1967-68, when I was 8 or 9 year old, the drive from Daly City to San Jose seemed like it took FOREVER, and back then it probably did. There were times when me and mom would take the trip down there so she could visit her sister. Uncle Jack and Auntie Maug had a nice house with big family room, but not much for a little kid to do. On one such trip, Uncle Jack knew I was bored so he suggested that I take some of the old coke bottles that were out in the garage over to the local store and redeem the deposit. He said I could keep whatever money they gave me. Uncle Jack opened the garage door and, in my memory, the bottles went from floor to ceiling in one corner of the garage. WOW!! So uncle Jack pretty much says "go for it".
For the next several hours, I would load as many bottle that I could carry in a paper bag, carry them 2 blocks to the local market, and get about seventy-five cents or a dollar for all the bottles in the bag. That was big bucks for a little kid back then! With my first windfall, I bought a candy bar and a coke and headed back to Uncle Jacks for another load. Back and forth, Back and forth. Back and forth. After a while, the lady at the market thought I was stealing the bottle from the back of the store and bringing them around front for redemption! Uncle Jack got a kick out that. By the end of the day, I hadn't even made a dent in the wall of bottles in the garage, but I had over $20 in my pocket and it was all thanks to good old uncle Jack.
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