Raymond Bradley

(Uncle Ray's wife, Carolyn, Aunt Dar and Uncle Ray)
(Uncle Jimbo and Uncle Ray)
(The Grapes of Wrath)
(Clint and Ray Bradley -- Ace's great grandpa and great-great uncle)

My Uncle Ray passed away in Jackson, MS (my birthplace) last week. So I wanted to give a shout out to a great man.

As many in my family know, Uncle Ray had a way of keeping things light as a feather, which is probably how it's even possible that my favorite memory of him isn't from childhood, but from the days following my Dad's tragic death. It was a dark time for obvious reasons, and my brand-new husband and I were blessed with the opportunity to stay at Uncle Ray's house in Mississippi in the days surrounding the funeral service.

My husband, Arich, is reserved and shy and is a born-and-raised California boy. Uncle Ray was to be his crash course in the subject of "Deep South," a fact of which Uncle Ray was acutely aware and by which he was utterly delighted. The duration of the four days we stayed with him, Uncle Ray "couldn't seem to recall" Arich's name. No matter how many times Arich answered the gravely-voiced question, "Boy, what's yo' name?" Uncle Ray still managed to "remember" it as Chuck, Steve, Stan, Stu, Mike, Surfer Boy and a few others which I can't recall. Uncle Ray did finally "remember" Arich's name on the way out the door when he hugged his neck.

To add to this torment, Arich and I joined him on ride to the convenience store in his old pickup truck. As we buckled up, Uncle Ray buckled down with a Saturday Night Special he'd pulled out from under the bench seat. He proceeded to drive slow down the country road that led from his house, eyes darting left and right, with the gun in his steering hand because "It's what you gotta do when you cain't trust nobody."

In that four days we heard of endless escapades out west, of smoochie poohs riding on the back of chopper bikes, of building great things and taking long road trips with my grandpa, Clint (who is another story all his own on another day), and of motoring around the Sierra Nevadas in "The Grapes of Wrath," his do-it-yourself motor home, which amounts to an elaborate fairy-tale sort of cedar-shingled shanty built on the bed of an old black pickup, and which sits on the side of the road in Truckee, California, as a local curiosity to this day.
I honestly don't think my husband has laughed as much in the past thirteen years as he did in that four days in 1996.