Uncle Joe
I hate the word creative. In fact, I hate people who say they’re creative. Okay, hate’s a strong word; I abhor people who say they’re creative.
So many people are touting creativity these days that saying “I’m creative,” is like saying, “I have a lung.” The word creative has been so thoroughly beaten it means about as much as “hero” or “green.” Media tag people as heroes for doing everything from picking up trash in their neighborhood to returning a wallet to its rightful owner. [Note: That is not being a hero that is being a citizen.]
The 60s, man, now those were creative days. (Watch the series Madmen. Crazy mothers. No-holds-barred creative.) What I like best about that era was that the creative was so, so … simple. No fancy tech-gadget-this, or wireless-that, just … simple. Twister: That was creative. But it took Eva Gabor playing it against Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show for it to really take off. Chia Pet was cool … and Rockem Sockem Robots … and my Uncle Joe.
Uncle Joe, that guy had it. He was creative, man. But, he never said he was creative, you just knew it. He was a natural. He ran a photography studio and survived only by the wave of teens coming in during high school picture season. The rest of the time, he invented ways for us to have fun.
One year, he shows up with two dozen M-80s. Hell, just getting his hands on those things was creative … in October(!). The first couple he fired them up, threw them in the air and, BLAM! Cool, but not cool enough.
You could always tell when Uncle Joe was churning something around in his head. While all of us kids were jumping around celebrating the last explosion, he had a glazed look on his face like he had just dropped acid. He was hosting an internal brainstorm. The next thing you know he’s clanking, clinking, clanging around in the basement. Then, suddenly, here he comes with a six-foot-long steal pipe and a sledge hammer. Nice! He pounded that sucker in the ground at about a 45-degree angle, dropped in an M-80 followed by a small stone and – PHOOM-ZING! – a canon. Awesome! But there was more…
Same pipe, drop in an M-80 followed by a drumstick from an old set of drums and – PHOOM-SHOO! – a rocket launcher. Toss a Frisbee with an M-80 firmly Duck Taped to the top and –WHIP-BLAM! – a mid-air collision. Hang an M-80 from a string two inches above a bucket of water and – BALOOOSH! – a humanless cannonball. Place an M-80 under an upside down bowl with a baseball on top and – BOOF-WOOSH! – a sky-high pop up. (He had outfitted three of us with baseball gloves, but we still missed it.) Okay, it’s October, you had to know it was coming: put an M-80 in a pumpkin and – PAHWP! – pumpkin pie! Everywhere.
We worked our way through 18 of the 24 M-80s, but our zealousness for creative blew up in our faces, so to speak, when I convinced him that the doll I handed him was an old one of my sisters that my Mom had already thrown away. With my sister watching in horror from her bedroom window, Chatty Cathy underwent instant open-heart surgery, M-80 style – PHWAP!
That shut us down for the day.
Uncle Joe ultimately replaced the doll, however, bringing it over to the house … along with four balsawood propeller planes and a cache of firecrackers.
– Jeremy