Family Myths
By Gordon B. McFarland, Jr.
2006
Uncle Will
The one family myth I can think of, was that of my father. He always said, “If you take one drink, you are an alcoholic.” As far as I know, the only alcoholic in the family was Uncle Will. He was actually my father’s second cousin, once removed, (or whatever) but all elders were called by their first names with the prefix of Aunt or Uncle, hence Uncle Will. Uncle Will was a hopeless alcoholic but was the best loved member of this upright, Protestant farm family.
I didn’t know Uncle Will well until after he died. Dad took me and my brothers to the hospital one time to see him. I remember thinking that I had never seen such a big belly. It was enormous and looked a little like a blimp hanger. Will was in liver failure and the big belly was full of fluid. They drained him now and then but he would fill it right up again.
A
few years later, Uncle Will passed on to that big bourbon barrel in the sky. My
two brothers and I were designated as pall bearers. The setting of the funeral
was unbelievable, or perhaps excessively “homesy, folksy.” The service took
place in Ladonia
My wife sat on the front row with my two month old son between her and my mother. In the middle of the service my mother decided to change the baby’s incredibly dirty diaper. As the perfume spread throughout the room, the preacher got faster, and soon the service was over. We were told at that point that we had to carry Uncle Will to the hearse, a converted twenty year old station wagon. Brother John was a city boy who was appalled that he had to carry a dead body. My immediate thought was, “I hope they drained him”. Michael the youngest of the three brothers, giggled at both of us. We barely made it down the steps after stumbling. We were all white faced at the thought of Will coming out of the box to comment on our skills.
We put Uncle Will into the hearse and went to our places in the pallbearer’s limousine, another ancient station wagon and began the procession to the cemetery. John was still decidedly uneasy, sitting next to the window, holding on to the window handle in case he threw up. As we bounced along the dirt road toward the cemetery, the back doors of the hearse swung open. I had this mental picture of Uncle will sitting on John’s lap! The ropes held though, and we finally got to the planting field. At the burial, we had to let Will down into the grave with ropes. By this time Brother was no longer white faced, he was green. Then to cap it off, the pall bearers were each handed a shovel and were told to put this big pile of dirt on the casket, until we filled the grave. Mike and I thought brother John was going to faint. Mike and I who frequently ganged up on John were in hysterics. I looked for my wife, and after a while found her behind a large live oak tree with Brother Pat, the preacher, who also was a cousin, with tears running down their cheeks with laughter. When we had finished covering Uncle Will, The black grave digger came up and shook each of our hands, thanking us for helping him. We then went to Uncle Bose’s house. Uncle Bose was Will’s first cousin. The quilts were laid, the deviled eggs, custard pie and a huge pile of biscuits were there with lemonade punch. We had an all day singing and supper on the ground. The stories about Uncle Will took the rest of the day.
By this time John had recovered. With great good humor, we all kidded each other all the way back to the big city.
P. S. The Uncle Will is William Sylvester
McFarland, son of Cyrus Sylvester (Bose) McFarland.
He is buried at the
