Uncle Joe Comes To Visit

In 1987, my parents planned a trip to Alaska - and brought my Mother's brother who was visiting from England.  Now, I had met my Uncle Joe in the early 80's when he and his wife - my Aunt Til - came to visit Mom and Dad in Washington State.  My Aunt passed after her second visit over here and now Uncle Joe was on his own.

When they arrived, everyone was - of course - excited about the visit.  But we had to settle down to it first.  My husband didn't plan on taking any days off from work - no surprise there.  I took Mom to work with me for the one day that I planned to work during their visit - a planned day of course.  So the first day, Mom and I went to work,  Hubby went to work, Rod went with Dad to do some work on the airstream and that left T at home with Uncle Joe.

A couple of hours passed and I decided to call and check on things at home.  "Uncle Joe isn't here."  My daughter said.  "He went out for a walk."

"How long ago?"  I asked.

"I don't know.  Not long after you guys all left."

"Don't worry."  My Mom said.  "Joe takes walks all the time.  He'll get back OK."

So an hour or so later, I called again and still he wasn't back - and neither was anyone else.  I hung up, my thoughts  a jumble as I talked it over with Mom.  "Where could he have gone to?  He doesn't know the area, he couldn't have gone far.  He should have been back by now."  Mom talked me out of leaving, but try as I might I kept getting this mental image.

Now, understand that my Uncle Joe had a hard English accent that I couldn't begin to understand.  I had been around Mom all my life and her accent to me was not even there until after I had been away from home a few years.  Aunt Til had had a lovely accent and we teased her and repeated her accent constantly.  But Uncle Joe?  I smiled and listened and laughed when he did, but the rest was just plain some other language that made no sense at all to any of us - except Mom of course.  And I could just see Uncle Joe trying to explain to a uniformed Alaska State Trooper that he was lost and didn't know where he was.  Just as plain as day I could see that trooper listening with a puzzled look on his face, reaching up to lift his hat and scratch his head wondering how in blazes he was going to fix this problem!  I couldn't shake that image and I couldn't work any more.  I called it a day and we left.

As we drove into the driveway, Dad and Rod were pulling up coming from the opposite way and Uncle Joe was walking calmly up the walk - totally unaware of the concerns he had raised.  We talked to him and I had to laugh - he had gone down the drive, turned right and walked all the way down to the corner and turned right and then right again - making continual right turns until he had decided he had best turn around and retrace his steps.  Asking questions I discovered that he had turned around about two blocks from his second right turn!  He laughed.

A few nights later, we planned on going out to the Malemute Saloon show and everyone got ready to leave only to discover that Uncle Joe had once again disappeared.  We piled into the car and drove the route of his first walk - no Uncle Joe.  We went back out to Airport Road and drove down to Alaskaland - no Uncle Joe.  Baffled, we returned home, made a pot of tea and sat down to game of cards.

A couple of hours passed and the front door opened and in walked Uncle Joe.  "Uncle Joe!"  I exclaimed. "Where have you been?  We've been looking all over for you!!"

"Oh I'm sorry, I went for a walk, you know.  I've bean out to the airport - you know where all the big jets take off?"

"Uncle Joe!  Do you know how far that is??" I asked in amazement.

"Aye!  I know.  I've just bean there."  He stated.