Uncle Ron

My dad's younger brother.  He never married.So he lived in the house he grew up in with his parents. When I was little I always thought he looked a little like Steve Martin.  He was a terrific tennis player, and I remember my dad and my uncle battling it out on the courts during his summer time visits.  Ronnie IS a lot younger, we used to joke to our dad.  If I remember correctly, I am pretty sure Ron beat the pants off of my dad during those matches.  Both were really good players. but Ron was into exercise, and Den was into Couchercise.

Ron had his staples:  always there would be Cheez-Its on top of the fridge. A pile of change on top of the dresser in the guest room.  Baby powder.  He would walk into town and come back with Mr. Goodbars for all of the three kids. He did love his sun and the ocean.  And if you can believe it, he actually SMOKED CIGARETTES.  (Gasp.)

He helped teach me how to ride a bike. He took me into the Long Island Ocean at the age of four or so, and the LI Ocean is no joke,  He would count the number of times I jumped rope just because I asked him to.  Sometimes, if you can imagine, I made it to a hundred. The poor guy.  He took me to see Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when I was seven and he fell asleep while the movie highlighted human sacrifices.  An evil cult master was pulling a fiery heart from the chest of a prisoner and Uncle Ron was snoring away.

He also invented the Dollar Game.  With no kids of his own, Ron gave us lots of cashy casharoo when he came to see us.  But it gets boring just placing dollars in your hand. So he came up with the Dollar Game. Man oh man, would my sisters and I scratch each others eyes out for a chance at the Dollar Game.  A dollar bill has a serial number.  Ron would ask us how many 7s are in it? If you got it right, the dollar was yours!


So we went to visit Uncle Ron this Christmas.  We played Crazy Eights, Chess, and an extremely long game of War,  It was lots of fun for all of us.