Do you know-ow-ow Uncle Joe-oe-oe?
My Uncle Joe has died. My godmother, Aunt Dede, and I have both lost our “Joes,” and it is very sad. I wish I could have gone to California to the funeral last Saturday, but Uncle Bobby and Dan flew out and represented us. I am glad. Uncle Joe was a part of my formation. When I was little, I spent a lot of time on Wayland Avenue where the Sullivans lived. I also spent time in Hyde Park in their big old Tudor house in Cincinnati, but not nearly as much. Since Memes lived with the Sullivans, I was there to be with her, and to be with my godmother, and to help with my little cousins since Aunt Dede had some serious problems with back trouble. After we were older, and Aunt Dede began teaching in the Catholic school in their neighborhood, we traded teaching stories. I’ve been thinking about Uncle Joe a lot and wonder if some of you have some of the same memories. If you have others, email them to me, and I will publish them here in another entry.
1. Uncle Joe was a master carpenter. He built many things in the house on Wayland Avenue, especially finishing off the “attic” into bedrooms with all kinds of built-ins.
2. Uncle Joe as an adult could see play through a child’s eyes. He built wonderful things for play. I was amazed to go to his house (and a little jealous) to see a child-sized railroad which extended around the perimeter of the back yard. There was a child-sized train to ride in.
3. The girls had a little kitchen complete with stove, refrigerator, sink with water, table and chairs, and hutch cupboard for dishes. I was fortunate enough to receive a hutch of my own, and for years I kept Mombo’s little blue tea set on it. It was also a dress-up cupboard. It has had many coats of paint and is still in my downstairs bathroom at Kelley Ridge. Now it holds Caitlan’s things.
4. There was a magic booth in the basement at Wayland Avenue. It could be anything–an airplane cockpit, a machine control booth, a rocket ship–I think there was some kind of steering wheel, and every light, switch, bell, buzzer, and dial imaginable. It was indeed an imagination stimulator simulator. Long before the day of role-playing games, Uncle Joe created a role-playing machine. I loved it!
5. Uncle Joe could not eat onions. Whenever Mombo made her potato salad, she had to make a little bowl full without onions for Uncle Joe.
6. Uncle Joe was the originator of the Dixonary entry on “Real neat–Want some meat?”
7. Uncle Joe was a master gardener. He distinguished himself, however, as a rose gardener. He shared his love of roses with Aunt Dede who loved to display vases of the fragrant blooms in her home. She would also take them to the cemetery sometimes. Memes also shared this avocation with Uncle Joe. I think this hobby was more of a Cincinnati thing and then continued in California. I loved the garden off the stone deck on Erie Avenue. I never got to see the one in Laguna Niguel, but Janet tells me it was magnificent.
8. Uncle Joe went to Patterson Co-op for high school with Mombo.
9. Uncle Joe was a master educator. He taught at Stivers High School in Dayton. He was an award-winning gymnastics coach, and long before gymnastics for young people came into vogue with Olga Corbut, Uncle Joe was a tumbling and trampoline teacher extraordinaire. I can hear him calling out commands at the backyard trampoline at Wayland Avenue (long before every other yard had a trampoline), “Knee Drop! Seat Drop! Swivel Hips!”
10. Uncle Joe was a renowned researcher in the field of learning disabilities as related to large and small motor development. When he was at Xavier University, I went to visit him. This was after I was into my education studies big-time (perhaps even my masters degree work in reading education), and he amazed me with his knowledge and ground-breaking research on the relationship between the ability to learn to read and neural pathways forged by the repetitive large and small muscle skills learned (or not learned) by young children at an early age. He gave me some rough draft documents that I read and used in my classroom. I never really knew if he followed through with any kind of publication.
11. Uncle Joe was instrumental in establishing the intermural sports programs at Xavier.
12. When Uncle Joe started to lose his hair, his combed the long ones all the way over the top of his head from one side to the other.
13. Uncle Joe had an incredibly marvelous sense of humor. I’m not sure that Grandy-bo ever got it. I didn’t get it until I was older, but when I did, he kept me smiling or laughing whenever I was around him.
14. Uncle Joe was in love with his grandchildren.
15. Uncle Joe was Catholic. I believe he was Jeffrey’s godfather and either John’s or James’s Confirmation sponsor.
16. I like to think of Uncle Joe in heaven, tending the roses, sculpting wood, cracking dry jokes. My Joe and Uncle Joe met at the last Dixon Reunion at the Valley (thank goodness we had it), and they hit it off. Maybe they are building together. Maybe Uncle Joe has introduced Joe Wood to Memes and Grandy-bo. I hope so.