Ever since I started this blog, I've wanted to sit down and interview my Uncle Jim and write a story about him. That project like so many others, however, has taken a back seat to the struggles of everyday life.
But as I sat here, watching the rain fall outside my window on this Independence Day, I thought about Jim and figured now would be as good a time as any to write about him.
Perhaps that's because some of the best July Fourths I can remember took place at the lakeside home of Jim and my Aunt Jean in Richmond, Virginia. A few times, my entire family on my mother's side got together there on Independence Day. Their home was in the city, but you'd have never known it as you sat in the shade of the tree canopy that covered their property. The city seemed far away as we paddled the canoe across the lake or stood on the dock catching bluegill after bluegill and the occasional lunker bass.
When darkness fell, you'd also have been surprised to hear that most good fireworks are illegal in Virginia. The show that Jim put on put to shame many of the professionally done ones I've seen. I'm not sure where he got them, but Jim always had the best fireworks.
As far as I know, those pyrotechnic diplays have been the only time my Uncle Jim has bent the law a little. In fact, he spent most of his life enforcing the law as an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and later with the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation. He joined the state police after retiring from the FBI and never talks a lot about either. But once in awhile, I pry a little information and a story or two from him.
"I was called 'special agent accountant,' and I was supposed to investigate white collar crime," he once said of his tenure with the state police. "But I did whatever the local sheriffs needed help with: murder, rape, whatever they needed."
I asked him if it was hard to learn how to work a murder after investigating white collar crime for so long with the FBI.
"It's just like anything else," Jim said. "Legwork and asking questions."
That conversation took place in the cabin of the hunt club to which Jim belongs in King William County. The cabin and the surrounding thousands of acres hunted by the club are where Jim spends as much time as he possibly can each November and December. It's also where I deer hunted for the first time.
Other stories that Jim has told me have concerned various stages of his life: how he grew up on a plantation near Arcola, Mississippi; Aunt Jean grew up on the same plantation, but the two never dated until they both ended up moving to the Washington, DC area shortly after the Second World War. Jim has also told me about his stint as a merchant marine and how he had a pet monkey for a couple of months. Once he got out of the merchant marine, Jim returned briefly to the plantation, got bored and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.
"Worst mistake I ever made," he's told me more than once.
Jim is long-retired from police work now, and he and Aunt Jean gave up the house on the lake to move to something smaller and easier to take care of. But Jim's accomplishments in retirement are as notable as his earlier ones. He and Jean have travelled the world. He's hunted, he's fished, and he's SCUBA dived just about everywhere it can be done. He took me deep sea fishing, and he got me into deer hunting, which, aside from marrying my wife and having my kids, was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.
Even now, at an age when many men have left the hunting to the young bucks, Jim still hunts hard and hunts often. He invites me to the club every year, and each time I go, the trip is one of the highlights of my deer season.
Only last year I didn't make it. The trip had been planned for a few days before Christmas, and work and other seasonal obligations had me so stressed I felt like I wouldn't be able to enjoy the hunt. I called Jim the day before I was supposed to leave and backed out.
Several times since then, I've looked back on that decision with regret.
Still, it's July Fourth. We're at the halfway point of the year, and the countdown to the 2008 deer season is on. I know that sometime around Thanksgiving, my phone will ring. Uncle Jim will want to know when I can come down to the club and hunt.
That's an opportunity I won't let pass me by again.
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