Book

 Book Gandy. I knew him years later.

It’s funny the things you think about I woke up this morning with my Great Uncle Book on my mind. “Book” I knew him as Uncle Book. I think that is one of the coolest names I’ve ever heard. And maybe that is one reason I love books so much. He’d get so mad if someone called him Booker because that was not his name. I’ve mentioned him before but today I remembered things about him I had not thought about since I was a child. Granny, Mom, Regan, Barbara, me and Uncle Book lived together until about 1963.

He was tall, and wore khaki pants and always rolled the sleeves up of his white shirt. He used a walking stick, when he walked, because he had what we called “his bad leg.” We don’t know what caused it but he had a place on his leg that wouldn’t heal. He kept it clean and always bandaged. When his facial hair would become scruffy my granny would sit him down in a chair in the kitchen and give him a shave and a haircut.

Uncle Book didn’t have any teeth so in the mornings granny would make hot buttered biscuits she’d put one in a saucer and Uncle Book would pour his coffee made with cream and sugar over it and eat it that way.

He would crack pecans and put them in a kitchen towel cover them and hit them with a hammer, grinding them, so he could eat them.

He always had a pocket knife and he whittled. He would take an apple or orange or potato and peal it carefully going around and around without breaking the pealing. To me that was magic. I’ve tried to do that over the years but never have mastered it. A childhood memory that has lived on even to this day, maybe by the time I am 70 I will have mastered it just like Uncle Book.

The man had unlimited talents and as a child I’d watch him with wide-eyed wonder. I never thought about this before, but growing up without a daddy, I suppose I looked to him as my role model. I didn’t know anything about his life before me, and as a little child I never even thought about it. All I knew was, he was there in my life and he did amazing things.

He did something we called, ‘throwing his voice.’ I learned later that it’s called being a ventriloquist. He played the fiddle and made music with spoons and glasses of water. Those were happy times of dancing around the room and laughter.

A man always has a best friend and Uncle Book’s best friend was called Ja’boe, his dog. We’d sit down on the stoop for the longest times not saying a word just Uncle Book, his dog and me. I look back now at those times of days long gone and remember the comfort with an understanding of how life was simple and uncomplicated, difficult at times but they were days of peace and there was love among family and friends.

 Great Uncle Book and me.

I know some of you reading this remember Uncle Book, too, and have your own memories of him. He comes from a long line of Gandy’s he was my grandfather’s brother. I never knew my grandfather and that’s OK, I love my Uncle Book. Uncle Book wasn’t perfect he had his vices but he had a heart bigger than the Milky Way, at least to me anyway.

He’d cut poems and articles out of the newspaper and glue them in a scrapbook. I didn’t realize why he would do that until many years later; he was making a book of memories which he kept in an old trunk. That image has stuck with me. He loved poetry and he’d recite little jingles.

At 79 years old, Uncle Book had a stroke and was taken to the hospital. I was 9 years old. I didn’t get to tell him goodbye or say I love you. But I’m sure he knew he was loved.

Our family loved to tell Tall Tales, we are story-tellers from way back, all the way to Ireland and Scotland and England. My mom started her genealogy in her fifties and she told how that there were three brothers who had to leave Ireland and settled in the Isle of Wight in Virginia. I wonder now if they related that to the Isle of Wight in England. If that is true, and someday I’ll need to research that, I found something very interesting about who lived there. In the 18^th Century, a radical journalist name John Wilkes came from there and in the 19^th Century the writer Charles Dickens and poet John Keats were among the inhabitants (great company). I don’t know why Uncle Book was on my mind this morning but I had another thought come to me. You hear many times about people expressing that in some horrific time in their lives, an angel comes to them, and the angel has the likeness of their great-grandmother, most times they resemble a female figure…why not a male figure? I thought about that, what if Uncle Book came to me this morning to remind me that everything is going to be just fine. I don’t know but these were my thoughts this morning along with how God has a great sense of humor…he wants us to laugh…and be full of joy…now there’s a story to be told…

Baby boy, list of names below… such as Peleg and Naggai…

I wish now that I had named one of my sons, Book…who knows maybe one day someone in our family will name their son Book…like the Good Book…and it truly is, a very good Book!

~Marla Shaw O’Neill March 16, 2018

God does keeps records: Is your name written in God’s Book!

Luke 3:23-38 The Message (MSG)

Son of Adam, Son of God

When Jesus entered public life he was about thirty years old, the son (in public perception) of Joseph, who was—

son of Heli, son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Melki, son of Jannai, son of Joseph, son of Mattathias, son of Amos, son of Nahum, son of Esli, son of Naggai, son of Maath, son of Mattathias, son of Semein, son of Josech, son of Joda, son of Joanan, son of Rhesa, son of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, son of Neri, son of Melchi, son of Addi, son of Cosam, son of Elmadam, son of Er, son of Joshua, son of Eliezer, son of Jorim, son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Simeon, son of Judah, son of Joseph, son of Jonam, son of Eliakim, son of Melea, son of Menna, son of Mattatha, son of Nathan, son of David, son of Jesse, son of Obed, son of Boaz, son of Salmon, son of Nahshon, son of Amminadab, son of Admin, son of Arni, son of Hezron, son of Perez, son of Judah, son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, son of Terah, son of Nahor, son of Serug, son of Reu, son of Peleg, son of Eber, son of Shelah, son of Kenan, son of Arphaxad, son of Shem, son of Noah, son of Lamech, son of Methuselah, son of Enoch, son of Jared, son of Mahalaleel, son of Kenan, son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God.