Uncle Pat

It's easy talking about my Uncle Pat. He was my favorite uncle when I was young. I never knew what Uncle Pat was going to bring me next. He was Mom's brother, and he worked at the Woodbury dump with Pop-Pop. Uncle Pat was a gentle man who wanted little out of life. All he needed was a steady job and a family to come home to. And beer. Uncle Pat loved his beer. And cigarettes. He had close- cropped hair and a dark complexion. Uncle Pat also had a drawl in his speech. Come to think of it, a lot of my family has some kind of accent that almost reminds you of a western or southern slow drawl. A South Jersey drawl, I guess.
Uncle Pat would always have some kind of wondrous new toys for me, stuff that was no longer found in the stores.
One time he brought me a shield. It was a metal replica of the shield that Prince Valiant carried. Prince Valiant was one of the most popular comic strips ever, drawn by the great illustrator Hal Foster.Magnificent tales of Vikings and King Arthur and his knights.
Along with the Prince Valiant shield he gave me a triangular shield and a sheet metal suit of armor. It was like a sandwich board. Two pieces of sheet metal painted to look like a knight's armor. You put your head through the top and secured it at the sides with some good strong string. I was ready to slay many a dragon.
Another great find he brought me was a Marx space station. Marx playsets were the cream of the crop. It was a tin lithographed space station with launch pads, rocket ships, astronauts and aliens. There were also all kinds of control panels and weird looking contraptions I could never figure out.
Uncle Pat never let go of the kid inside of him, and he shared that joy of childhood wonder with me. When I got older and learned to read, he would bring me stack upon stack of comic books.
He would also bring me army helmets and canteens and a sword that looked like it was from the American Revolution. When Uncle Pat pulled in the driveway, I always knew something exciting was in the wings.
"Got a beer,Mary?" was his usual greeting to my mother.
"Take a look at this, little Jim." usually came next.
During World War II Uncle Pat was in the Army in Italy.
He could not fight. He could not bring himself to kill. The army placed Uncle Pat on permanent KP, so he was able to feed men instead of destroying men.
Mom calls Uncle Pat a Lost Soul.
I call him a good one.