COLUMN: In high spirits with my “Drunkle”

PINE VALLEY, N.J. — It is time I stop railing at politicians and start making fun of my family again.

According to focus groups reading my upcoming book, my Uncle Mac seems to be someone about whom folks want to hear more. It seems everyone but my family wants me to talk about him. When you are drawn into the beguiling beauty of becoming a part of my family, he is that tattoo you find out about later.

So, at the risk of sharing too much, here are more reflections on the blackest of the many black sheep in my family.

We have a drunk uncle; I call him my “Drunkle.” He drinks a lot. In fact, drinking is an integral part of his persona. He once engaged in a drinking contest with David Hasselhoff, and “The Hoff” left in tears. One night he came home drunk and tried to open his house door with his car remote.

Yet he was philosophical about his drinking. He said excessive drinking was like watching soccer or opera; it was its own punishment. To this day, he is the only person I have ever seen drinking bourbon from a bell pepper.

Like most people who spend their money on beer, lottery tickets and cigarettes, he is always broke and he is certainly not healthy. He would be a great candidate for the “free” Obamacare, but, since he is an inveterate racist, he probably would not accept it.

As a further illustration of his enlightened philosophy, he is also against gay marriage. Uncle Mac is old-fashioned; he believes divorce should only be between a man and a woman. He said he would have divorced his first wife sooner, but she could not live on just half of his money.

I’m not saying he is immature, but he once cussed out a 14-year-old. He is equal parts child and intellectual — the latter being more in a W.C. Fields genre. He is the one family member who is not judgmental and whom all the kids crowd around during family reunions to be told life’s unvarnished realities.

Listening to my “Drunkle” is sort of like experiencing an oral presentation of writings on a bathroom wall.  And I remember every one of them.

Uncle Mac has a moral compass, and it always seems to be pointing north when he is around women. When I was in college and brought a date home to a family event, he listened to her yap on about herself for hours. I tried to get her away from him because I knew that the situation could get very ugly very fast. He later told me she was no good for me and to cut her loose. I asked, “Couldn’t I make it work?” He said, “No, not unless you can put a mute button on her.”

For years he had no luck with women. Imagine that. His lack of success taught me what not to do. Kids can be told what to do by parents with manners, and we do not listen.  But for an uncle to demonstrate what not to do on a regular basis, well you remember that.

My uncle dated ugly women for years — not just ugly, but transient, carnival worker ugly. He said of one date that she looked like she ran a 100-yard dash in a 90-yard gym. That was the kind of romantic prose that made him a babe repellent.

Yet he felt compelled to have “the talk” with my boy. I had to remind him twice that a sex talk with a young boy need not involve how much to pay and the proper amount to tip.

My “Drunkle” is one of the great characters of all time and a slice of Americana.

I will update you on him after our family reunion next summer — if we can get a permit to have another one.

Ron Hart is a libertarian columnist who can be reached at www.ronaldhart.com His book, There is No Such Thing as a Pretty Good Alligator Wrestler, will be out in November.