by Randy Reynolds
(Photo: Uncle Bobby, 1955)
I was a first-grader the first time I saw my teenaged Uncle Bobby naked in the bathtub. The sight of his pubic hair sent me running through the house with my first news bulletin: “Mother, mother, Bobby’s got a mustache!”
To my surprise, she greeted my news with a laugh instead of horror and explained that Bobby was not a freak, that everybody has hair down there—which was news to me.
Uncle Bobby spent a few months in our household when I was six and he was fourteen. He had gotten into some kind of trouble, or wasn’t getting along with his parents, or something, so he’d been sent to live with his older sister Violet and brother-in-law Gene and their little family until things blew over. After staying with us a while, he must have been relieved to get back to whatever trouble or tribulation had driven him from home, because I didn’t exactly make life easy for him.
I was his shadow. His paparazzi. My reporting at the time included:
“Daddy, Bobby’s smoking cigarettes behind the church and he smokes Winstons.”
“Daddy, Bobby’s cussing—he said dookey.”
“Daddy, Bobby says there’s such a thing as a pink elephant.”
One day after school, Bobby came up to my school bus window and said, "Randy, tell Gene I'll be home later. I'm going out for the track team."
When I got off the school bus alone, Mother asked, "Where's Bobby?"
I told it like I understood it. "Bobby said he's going to work on the railroad track."
As usual, Bobby had some explaining to do when he got home.
One day after school, Bobby came up to my school bus window and said, "Randy, tell Gene I'll be home later. I'm going out for the track team."
When I got off the school bus alone, Mother asked, "Where's Bobby?"
I told it like I understood it. "Bobby said he's going to work on the railroad track."
As usual, Bobby had some explaining to do when he got home.
My biggest scoop in the Bobby era was showing my daddy the bird. Daddy was lying in bed with Ricky and me after Mother had sent him in to calm us down. We were lying there talking about first one thing and then another, when I felt compelled to tell him something he didn’t know. I stuck out my middle finger and used my other hand to bend back the fingers next to it and said, “Do you know what this means?”
Daddy paused. “No. What?”
“Funk,” I said.
Daddy sat bolt upright. “Who told you that?”
One of my friends across the street was the guilty culprit but I didn’t want to get my friend in trouble so I said, “Bobby.”
“Violet, come in here!” shouted Daddy.
Poor Bobby had no way of defending himself; he and his mustache and his Winstons were gone a few days later.
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My mother's brother, Ensign Bobby Cecil Appling was the first official “rocket scientist” in our family. Bobby wanted to be a fighter pilot, but flying made him dizzy and he became a rocket scientist instead.
