A Christmas Sort Of Away

I love Christmas, but not for what I think the usual reasons are. Not that I'd have any idea what the usual reasons could be, I guess. So forget all that.

In 1978, my dad and I had the great idea of attending the U.S. Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. After all, we lived 12 miles from the track; we could just show up and buy a couple tickets and head in the morning of the race and get in.

Well, as we didn't know until we tried: nope. We got a nice long walk in great weather out of the deal, though, so it wasn't a total loss.

Fast-forward one year: my dad is working in some sheet-metal place or other somewhere within 60 miles of Dundee, New York; I'm in eighth-grade in a school I'll be leaving very soon after, mostly wishing I was in our back field (yes, we had a big field on top of a hill and I had a bat and ball and friends who were honest but even more kind) so as to facilitate continuing my imagination's ability to let me think being a New York Yankee was possible...

And somewhere in this, under anyone's radar, was my Uncle Al.

And one day, toward mid-September, sitting in my grandparents' place on Harpending Avenue, he gets up and says something and hands my dad two yellow tickets.

And so, by the grace of my uncle's kind intentions (not a rare instance), Dad and I find ourselves in Watkins Glen at 4:30AM on the day this video was shot. It was, is, and always will be among the top several days of my life.

And I understand why it might seem funny to read that. After all, if you watch this you will not see lots of sunshine to loll in, not that I've ever been much of a sunshine loll-er. This thing just shows part of a 40-year-old auto race. Yet in telling you that one of my favorite Formula 1 drivers EVER won the race, I must tell you that I sometimes forget that detail. Because like always in great moments, the things that seemed like most people would think matter took a back seat to a lot of silliness and fun and details no one else but their includents (I just made that word up) would ever know about. For instance:

* Dad and I walked the entire track in darkness...I don't mean around the edges of the track; I mean we walked ON the track, passed every inch of every straightaway and turn. I remember walking past campers with lights on and people laughing (I assume laughs) and lots of beer, but we hiked in the mist and while I don't recall every turn now (and wouldn't have then, being distracted by many things) I know we made the circuit. Dad and I completed a lap. Never thought about it that way, but it makes me laugh now to do so.

* Dad and I made it to the paddock, which is or was then like the biggest coolest unguarded collection of cars on the planet. We walked in, figuring it might be drier, and were alone except for a few other fans up that early... and all the freaking Formula One cars. Seriously: we just walked in and hung around and no one thought to say we shouldn't. There were a hundred thousand people at that race and any one of those people could have conceivably changed the race's results by...what...swinging a ball-peen hammer for fifteen seconds? They could've. I could've. And we didn't. Because we wouldn't. Something to consider when you wonder if security is more important than remembering common decency and manners. Not taking a political side here; just saying it's something to think about given the chances people (who after all are always people) didn't take then.

* After our paddock time, we went back to the car, which was a red Toyota truck my mom named Truckee. And this, like Al getting the tickets at all, is where fortune shows itself to have shown up before it was noticed, because in the darkness of our arrival Dad parked Truckee right next to the entrance/exit from the Skid Pad, where the drivers sometimes landed in helicopters. Which explains why, among others, Emerson Fittipaldi stood out the window and chatted and Jody Scheckter (crowned 1979 world champion a few hours later) sat on Truckee's hood and talked.

* After some truck time, the race started and Dad and I were trackside watching cars fly by. And I tell you, my friends: it was a scene. People with bedsheet banners saying "Welcome CBS Sports" on one side which they'd flip when they thought they were on camera to reveal such sweet words as "Show us your tits!". About ten thousand little brown stickers with a profile of someone who looked like whichever Carradine (David?) was in "Kung Fu" but emblazoned with the words, "TUCSON'S NEXT MAYOR". People on scaffolds four stories high quickly building mountains of beer cans beneath their lairs. And lots and lots more, and rain and mist and racing.

It was awesome in the truest, most pure and undiluted sense of that word. And it's Christmas, and though it doesn't seem like much of a Christmas story, I share it because I am thankful to have it to remember and have looked forward to and kind of keep. And the video will show rain and the race and will give you clues to what matters about it all but unless you can reach deeper it will end up telling you nothing. Evidence is not the same as facts, and the facts are not the story.

And yeah: Merry Christmas! And thank you Uncle Al, wherever you are right now! Your kindness and love are never forgotten.

Calling My Name

Cookout fire getting ready.  Moose River, New York, May 12, 2018.

The Man In The Middle

This post may very well have nothing at all to do with Moose River, New York; neither the former town which still tries its best to remain alive nor the flowing waters which roll past knowing (maybe) they are that town's namesake and reason for being will be mentioned more often here than almost anything else will. This will not, I think, be a post to draw genealogists and researchers and fans of nature photography, nor do I expect it will be popular among anyone who doesn't feel linked however tangentially to the aforementioned groups. In other words: if you're looking to get something meaningful out of this, you might have to dig a bit.

And yet, given what the term "Adirondack-y" (hyphenated or otherwise) implies in my heart and my soul and not least in my sense of absurd humor and appreciation of juxtapositions and ironies and stuff like that, this may make complete sense.

I type all this preludic (I don't know if that is considered a word by anyone else but it is by me just now) nonsense because a man died four days ago, a loving and very interesting man, a beloved and appreciated man, a man I have known my entire life, a man with more stories told and told about than anyone else I know, a man I have loved for as long as I can measure forever. A man who spent one night in Moose River, New York.

One night. Parts of two days, but one night.

Uncle Al.

I want to tell you a few things I know firsthand about my Uncle Al. If you don't enjoy reading or thinking about these things I am fine with it; go watch some Spectrum ads or fight for some cause someone told you matters fervently enough to convince you, or bail and hang out with "the girls" or "the guys" and do whatever the hell people do; there's a reason grocery stores hang packs of ping-pong balls in the beer aisles; I never see any paddles or replacement netting so I know there's a lot of stuff I don't know. But you, if you are so wired, do. So, do.

(Did that sort out any of the riff-raff? If so, please beckon them back. I love the riff-raff. It's the people who are sure of things that worry me. Not saying you should leave if you're sure of things; just saying consider the use of distance and perspective and reconsideration.)

All the inducements to leave I can think of having fizzled, you are still here. And so am I.

And so here is my story of Uncle Al.

***

Those three asterisks seeming to form an ellipsis were supposed to make some sense, to give me a jumping-off point from sadness to tell a bunch of great (or terrible) stuff about the man. But I have no great moments (judging by what I think other people I know consider greatness) and I have no terrible ones either (for the same reasons). But the man was in Moose River, New York, for about 18 hours (which is a guess, because I couldn't measure the time because I WASN'T THERE) and if that information isn't worthy of an official MRD obit, I don't know what is.

So here goes.

(Here comes some more asterisks; you have to use something.)

***

Allan F. Jones

1941-2019

He was born near Rochester, NY, USA, and spent a lot of his childhood and beyond watching out for his brothers, he was a lover and protector and supporter of them; myriad tales I have heard of Al pulling up next to them in his car and asking if they needed anything, money or otherwise.

He was a gun lover but never would have been without his focus on gun safety. He took at least one nephew into his parents' woods with a gun and drilled into him the importance of "every gun is loaded", "never walk behind anyone while carrying a gun", "barrel up or down but not forward".

He once said "excuse me a moment" and hopped out the front passenger door of his brother's station wagon while it was at the drive-thru window of the Panorama Plaza Burger King. He proceeded to walk to the rear of the car, climb on the bumper, and jump up and down and make theretofore unknown noises while bugging his eyes out, making the occupants of the car almost pee themselves with laughter and causing goodness knows what reaction from the cars behind them. He then jumped off the bumper and walked around as if it was completely normal, got back in the car, and said "Hi".

He was walking with a nephew down the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, when a man asked him "Got a quarter?". Allan's response was a deadpan facial expression (his specialty, I think) and the words "Two blocks down, then left."

He was a million fun and funny things, to me, but he was much more to me too. He was the person who taught me that the people who seem like they are in charge probably don't know shit. I never heard him say that word but his existence among us on this planet seems to serve as an example that he wouldn't be offended by it. I've spent fifty or so years on this planet and I think Allan's teachings are more valuable than anyone else's when it comes to expressing yourself in ways which influence formidable obstacles to question what they know. I cherish the wisdom he imparted; I often use tactics I call "channeling Uncle Al", and they work without fail.

In 1974 he yanked a Florida license plate from 1955 off a trailer in his backyard and gave it to a nephew. That plate is at Moose River.

He married a woman who loves him when he was close to 50 years old, and they have two daughters; their love is an inspiration to anyone strong enough to accept that you can't fight it: great people eventually find you.

His brothers cried when he passed. As of right this second I'm sure they aren't alone.

He spent a night at Moose River.

That's plenty. Or should be.

When I think of Uncle Al these few days he's been away more than normal I think of the offhand comment made about seemingly nothing, completely unnecessary except for its necessity, its need to make Al hear our laughs and look down as long as possible to some point on his chest, until maybe our responses or maybe something else made the stone face pass to an almost smile and then a laugh and an understanding of something causing something causing something again; is it wrong to say the man could guffaw? I don't know. I DO know he created laughter out of nowhere, and he doesn't play favorites. Wherever he is right now, he has me laughing (after all, the tears stopped fifty seconds ago), mostly because he refused not to laugh when it was necessary. He roared when it was called for, and it often was.

I'm sure he's still roaring with laughs some place, and I want eventually to hear his laughter again, and so he is claimed, Virginian though he surely is, as a Moose River...persona yes grata?

Whatever that means, it is.



-MJ