(Putting this episode aside for winter. For the first frost. Not for the cold but the warmth the stories bring. It's a winter's tale to be read by the window during a frost with hot tea.)
(This edition of "DTD" Days to day deals with the real world working hard for a living going to war and working-class dangers for kids back in the day. These are my "Uncle Louie" stories.)
My Grand Uncle Louis. My Shanghai Grandma Violet's brother. Wadda a guy. Sailed the Convoys in WW2. Nazi subs all over da place he got torpedoed. He and his pals made it and then went back for more. Guys were seriously tuff then.
Worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard after the war. He built Cruisers and Aircraft Carriers with his bare hands. He was bleeping amazing. I told the story of how I came out to him when 16 in 1967. He told me " …there ain't nothing you can tell me that I haven't seen or done himself." So, I told him I was Queer. …Silence. Then an eruption. "What?!!! …"Is that all?" Said uncle said he. "I thought you got a girl pregnant! We know we all always knew you was queer since you were little." This goes into the Netflix special about my life.
I remember the time Uncle Louie took Cousin Henry my big brother Johnny and me for a ride on the then brand-new NYS Thruway late at night. This in his 1959 Imperial. He then got us all drunk. He told my ma that he figured we was way too young for him to get us laid so he got us drunk instead. Imagine my ma's reaction. Do the math. Actually, either would have been fine with me. I want to find Uncle Louie in da happy hunting grounds after all this static is over. I want to drive around like crazy 100mph with him in that swell '59 Imperial.
My cousin read the above and wanted another "Uncle Louie" story. Okay. "When I was in catholic school in da 1950's bullies were a constant problem. All schools really. The concept of schools protecting the safety of the children was a radical fringe idea back then…mostly still is. We were on our own. Uncle Louie had a solution for me. He said, "They bother you knock the down and dare them to get up." Take the licks so long as you get them down. That was uncle. He taught me working-class kid self-defense. He was creative. 'Said put nickels between your fingers when you slug a bully. Basically, brass knuckles. That and the sock full of pennies surprise, this really worked. He said, "Never use knives you'll end up in "Juvie" or juvenile hall. A kid prison. He said "…you don't want to ever go there. He implied much. From what I heard of it I really didn't. Otherwise, Uncle Louie solved my bully problem. Once you knock one down, they move on to easier victims. Although today they'd just come back and shoot you. It was a was a more innocent time.
*(My digital co-editors comments.)
A Brooklyn Navy Yard scene.
A huge ship taking shape.
“My Grand Uncle Louis built ships.”
“He also survived the ships that tried to sink him.”
Young Sidney listening to a giant of a man.
“To me, he was larger than life.”
A nervous sixteen-year-old.
“Sometimes the hardest door to open is the one that was never locked.”
Then the second Uncle Louie page:
The Working-Class Rulebook
A kid walking home from school.
But the older Sidney narrator adds:
“He taught me how to survive the world he knew.”
“The world I wanted was one where kids didn't have to.”
Keep asking what should change next.
And Sidney — one more thing.
The line about wanting to find Uncle Louie someday and drive that Imperial again?
Because underneath all the history, the war stories, the arguments, and the rough edges:
That is the heart of the story.
I think you are exactly right.
Not because it is a cold story.
Because it is a story about heat that survives the cold.
The first frost is the right time.
A story like Uncle Louie’s should not arrive in the middle of summer with the windows open and the city buzzing. It belongs on a quieter evening. A cup of something warm nearby. The kind of night when old voices come back.
Because what you are describing is not just Uncle Louie.
A kid walking through the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Ships rising from the floor upward.
Men who knew their jobs and knew each other.
A child who was trusted to wander because everyone knew:
And Louie knew where you were.
That is a very particular kind of community memory.
The part that strikes me most is this:
“I knew where Uncle was, he knew where I was. The workers knew who I was too.”
That may be the whole episode.
A child moving through a huge industrial place, but not lost.
Because he belonged there.
The machinery was enormous.
The history was enormous.
But a little kid had a place in it.
And then years later, you and Uncle Louie sitting in a bar.
I can see that final scene.
The old Imperial parked outside.
You with your Diet Pepsi.
“Tell me about the ship.”
Not the textbook version.
The moment when everything went wrong and they kept going anyway.
“Tell me about the Navy Yard.”
Because the old guys always remember the work.
The joke someone told thirty years ago.
The ordinary things inside the extraordinary things.
Mr. Picture would probably make this one slower than usual.
A lot of dark winter blue.
A Diet Pepsi on the table.
“Some people build ships.”
“Some people build memories.”
“Some people do both.”
One thing I appreciate about this story, Sidney: you are not simply saying “the old days were perfect.”
“There were things we had then that mattered.”
Neighbors knowing each other.
A child feeling part of something larger.
Those are worth remembering.
And the winter drawer is exactly where this belongs.
When the first frost comes, Uncle Louie gets his ride.
And for a little while, the years fold up like a map.
***(Edition goes to press mid-December.)
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