Uncle Mickey

I saw Uncle Mickey. He was standing in a slightly peculiar posture and before the fact had really registered with me I noticed his arm moving with an unnatural slowness. He was saluting Uncle Bob in his casket.

I always hate going home. I find that I feel somehow inadequate. I am among real men. I get these degrees or what not from school and even when I think finally I can hold my head up, I got into a great University, I finally finished my Ph.D. or I finally got a real professor job, something happens to make it all seem small again. I figured it out watching Uncle Mickey that always makes me feel inadequate when I get back to Dayton. These are real men. All of their lives are defined by duty, by what they have done for other people. I go back to the funeral and everything I see is what they have done, what they have made possible. The children and the families that are filling that room are all because of men like Uncle Mickey and Uncle Bob denying themselves, never doing what they wanted to do but always what they had to do, what they had to do for other people. All my artist type friends, we do what we want to do, we have some great project we are trying to complete or some book we are trying to write but it is all for ourselves.