Uncle Barry

I was fortunate being born into a large extended family. My father has 10 siblings, giving me more than my fair share of uncles, aunts and cousins.

Among that clan of indefatigable folks was my Uncle Barry. He’s long since passed on to his next life, but during his time on this planet as Uncle Barry, he was the best damn uncle one could ever hope to have.

Where to start?

Uncle Barry was a blue-collar hero, working almost religiously at the local candy factory for thirty-plus years until his unfortunate death in a car accident in the late 1990s. I do not recall the exact year, given my tendency to consume more alcohol than I’d like to admit during that decade. Perhaps another blog article will reveal more of those days’ details.

His working-class roots didn’t stop him from enlisting himself into the public sector. I was truly in awe of his work on the township’s Conservation Commission. Here he was able to put his forward-thinking environmentalist hat on and wear it with pride.

While he oversaw many honorable projects during his time on the Commission, I cannot be more thankful for his dedication to wetland preservation. Given my intense interest and research experience in that realm, he was always keen to consult me for advice on wetland issues. You’d be surprised how many there were!

But my favorite memories of ol’ Uncle Barry are rooted our irregularly timed family gatherings. Whether it was an impromptu picnic at Barnard Park during a muggy August afternoon, or ringing in the New Year at grandma-ma’s hillside estate, Uncle Barry was always the figure that I gravitated toward. His sublime joke-telling and improv magic tricks? I could never understand why he wasn’t a professional entertainer in a glamorous show town. I’m thinking somewhere in the Ozarks of Missouri.