Uncle Orville

[fflo]

Yes, it's dead relative time again, only I'm not so sure Uncle Orville is dead. Orville remarried after my great aunt Dora died, and his new wife didn't want him to stay in touch with any of her family. He was a campus cop at Emporia State, and probably 20+ years younger than Dora, the strict old school teacher. (Speculation about their relationship still fascinates me.) Orville & Dora had a zillion outdoor cats running around the place, often under the porch where the lattice work was---cats were pretty mysterious to me back then. They also had a refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom, opened by stepping on a pedal. Very cool.

Orville had a John Deere tractor my brother loved to ride on, and so I did, too, but even more I loved his dog, Rover, and that Rover's name was Rover. And I loved the funny (and a little scary) long low barn with straw in it. And the fact that every time he came to see us in Manhattan he gave me & my brother each a JFK half dollar. Oh---and that he taught me how to do those sliding-number or -letter puzzles he loved so well. You know the kind. Slide the boxes around to restore order, or make a picture, or achieve some other goal (though Orville's were always letters or numbers, usually with a lot of blocks/tiles---like, 30ish or so---and well made of plastic, with tight action, and smoothly lubed). (This page has some sliding block puzzle action, if you've got the plug-in.) Having been paying attention to what was stymieing me, Uncle O showed me a trick, and I got it, and that was great. For all the thinky types in our clan, it's odd how rare that sort of moment was in my experience. An affable good guy, he was and maybe is!

At one point I tried to convince my friends that Orville's last name was also Orville, and that, in fact, his middle name was Orville, too. Alas, it was not true. Orville was (or is) a Swender.

Comments

[paperkingdoms]

Not really on topic... but you'd probably enjoy bean_shadow's postcard blog. She talks about it here.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Thanks! She apparently moved the address, but that wasn't too hard to find. Her taste in postcards seems not entirely unlike mine!

[paperkingdoms]

::nods:: It's newish, she's still working things out. But there seemed to be a definite overlap. :^)

[vjsmom.livejournal.com]

Your Uncle Orville looks a lot like some of my dead relatives--at least the hair, the clothes, and the facial expression. We didn't have many "thinky types" in our clan, except for my Uncle Marvin--he was a old ship captain who kept lots of his old ships' logs and photographs and memorabilia that has long since been passed on to someone besides me. He had a lot of interesting stories to tell. He was my Great-Aunt Mary's second husband--she was the most glamorous one of that side of the family, so it kind of fit that she had the most interesting husband (at least of the ones who didn't die before I came along).

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

And what *was* the tile puzzle trick?

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Hard to describe here---or at least I think it would be, having never put it into words. I don't think it's too fancy a bit of logic/planning, but it was how to fix it when you've got two tiles transposed and seemingly (to a little kid) not enough maneuvering room. Turns out, of course, there IS enough maneuvering room.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

BTW, when are you around this week? I have something from squirrelykat I'm WAY overdue in gettting to you...

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I'm teaching every weeknight but Friday. This Saturday and Sunday I'm on the road, flying rockets in Fort Wayne.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Okee-doke.

[squirrelykat.livejournal.com]

that's a way cool picture. love the wallpaper! he sounds like a few of
my great uncles. My Uncle Mike had a whoopie cushion. loved it!

from the Social Security Death Index, is this him!? so sorry, if it is:

Name Birth Death Last Residence Last Benefit SSN Issued
O D SWENDER 20 Jan 1915 15 Dec 1996 (V) 66801 (Emporia, Lyon, KS) (none specified) 513-12-2292 Kansas SS-5 Letter

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Gee whiz. I guess that's Uncle Orville. Last I'd heard of him was around 1990, I think---my now-dead grandmother had heard tell of somebody seeing him, or saw him herself.

Alas, also proof that his middle name definitely wasn't "Orville"!

Thanks, Jewels, for the research.