Sunday Facts Supplements

Oh, hey guys. I won't bore you with assorted excuses and equivocations for my lack of blogging.

But I do want to share a piece of my family history.

My Mother had an older brother and three sisters. Her oldest sister married a gentleman whom could only rightly be described as the most decent man on the planet.

Uncle Cart fought in Vietnam. Came home. Bought a Mustang. Got staff sergeant stripes and found himself at Fort Polk training guys to go back to Vietnam. And in 1967 they offered him two rockers and an early ETS if he's go back as a platoon sergeant.

And he did. I never got the whole story. But I know at some point in that tour he was crawling about on his knees with an M-79.

For my prior service readers; I'll let his ribbon rack tell his story.

Yeah, that's a bunch of fruit salad.  Uncle Cart is that old timey understated bad ass who never raises his voice.

He turned 76 the other day. It was a good time. We watched the Braves and I drank half a dozen beers.

Uncle Cart has Alzheimer Disease. And it fucking sucks.

Cart could wire a house, bust a bronc, and nail a coyote with a Ted Williams 30-30 off hand.

He didn't hunt much. He tuck me duck hunting a handful of times when Grandpa James would flood some of the bottom land on the farm. He wielded that old 30 inch Model 97 like a skeet champion.

But he rarely killed for sport. Never swore except under duress. Didn't keep a lot of guns around except his old Ted Williams .30-30 lever gun and a S&W .32 revolver in his saddle bags.

In my later years it dawned on me that he did plenty of killing in South East Asia.

Uncle Cart often wore a cardigan sweater after he ditched his coveralls and smoked a pipe. He liked westerns and WWII movies. He got up with the sun everyday but Sunday.

Jackie and I went and saw him last week. He's not doing great. But he refuses to die until his daughter and her husband move back to the farm. Relief in place and all that.

If anyone ever sees me put tie down straps on a trailer; they will probably remark that I could drive it through a hurricane. I come by that honest.

I'm pretty decent on a horse. And I'm half way decent at backing a trailer. My Old Man fought in just about every war the USA got involved in from 1973 until 2008. So that means I spent a lot of time with Uncle Cart. He's one of the last of a dying breed. And I pray that I will be good relief in place.