Thursday, January 06, 2005
Death Drops By...again
This time, Death dropped by Dallas (like he wasn't busy enough in south Asia?), and took my Uncle Bill. Wilson Claggett, 1931-2005. He was renting a room from a Mexican/American family. There was an autopsy (he died Tuesday, was found Wednesday), the coroner ruled "Natural Causes", and there is no reason to dispute it. Bill was in ill health most of his life. How he managed to get in the Army is a mystery to me, but he did his tour of duty.
Strange, strange man, my Uncle Bill. He taught me how to blow a snot-glob 15 feet by pushing a finger over one nostril and really firing the other one. He mostly ignored indoor plumbing and used the outdoor toilet in one of the barns at my grandmother's, where he lived for years. He stayed with us for a while, but decided my parents weren't raising my brother and me properly, so Dad threw him out. Well, he gave him a month to find somewhere else to live.
We had talked about, when we built our house in Oklahoma, building a small apartment on the back and offering to let Bill live out his last years there. Guess that idea has passed its usefulness.
Bill never married. He was in a lifelong search to find the One True Religion, and he screwed that up. Unfortunately, he converted about half his family to it, including my mother. But I'm not holding that against the old Guy. He was doing the best he could to become a proper Servant Of God. He used to walk through the fields holding religious/philosophical discussions with himself. His brothers took turns keeping him, as he was either unemployed or menially employed most of the time. He was handy on a farm, of course, so in a sense he still paid his way.
He drove a beat-up old Chevy pickup like the one Seagall drives in "Fire Down Below". He'd always turn it off as soon as he crested a hill and coast down to save gas. The youngest of 11 brothers, older only than my Mother, I think Bill was mostly ignored and neglected till he got old enough to participate in the farm work. He WAS a participant in the great Big Cabin Fly Slaughter one summer. Seems my grandpa had built an addition on the back of the house with asphalt paper walls and tin roof, lined it with military surplus bunk beds, and that's where the boys lived. Well, one summer they spent an afternoon shooting flies with .22 pistols and rifles, putting a huge amount of holes in the walls. Grandpa discovered this, and was furious. The room was heated with an old pot-bellied stove, and he wouldn't let them patch the holes when winter came. They patched some anyway, to keep some of the cold and snow from streaming in, but had to leave quite a few so Grandpa wouldn't get suspicious. By the time I was old enough to hear the story, there were only about 30 holes left. Even after Grandpa died, the boys couldn't bring themselves to patch all the holes.
He was a tall, gaunt man with baby-blue eyes, a hawk nose, thin lips...sort of an emaciated Gregory Peck.
His passion for wanting to discuss various points in the Bible made him a less-than-popular Uncle with us kids, and I believe with the adults as well. Nobody minded the first hour or so, but it was generally believed Bill could carry on for days with no sleep, and nobody was up for that.
He was not a great babysitter. He never had a childhood, and did not understand the concept of play. That was a pity, because he could be funny sometimes. He was also an adept herbalist and naturist. When I got slammed by a bee, he grabbed me, got the tail out before it could finish shooting its poison into me, sucked some of it out, took a fingerfull of mud and put over the sting. It quit hurting in a very few minutes, and never did swell or get infected. By the time the mud dried and fell off, it was a tiny hole with some red around it. By the next day, it was gone.
He often stopped by the side of the road and picked Kale, Rhubard or other natural greens and took home for Grandma to add to supper, and made herbal remedies himself. I'd like to have spent more time with him, adult to adult, finding out more about him.
Guess I missed out again.
Vaya Con Dios, Uncle Wilson.
