Uncle Charles Chronicles

Back when I was a kid, my mom's cousin, who we all called Aunt Doyle, and her husband Charles moved in to our neighborhood. They went from relatives that we saw maybe once or twice a year at most, to a five minute walk away.

Charles was a retired oil field worker of some sort. When they moved to the neighborhood, he turned over his old coveralls to my dad for some reason, and Dad wore them around the house for years. I also remember him wearing the coveralls, with some other last name stitched on the chest, to the car dealerships when shopping for a new car. "No one would dare cheat a roughneck," I assume he was thinking.

One day last week, I was driving on one of those service road lanes where even though you're driving straight, you have to yield to the cars coming off of the interstate. I had my head up my ass, and I got an angry hong when I failed to yield.

I remembered a similar merge mistate by Uncle Charles all those years ago in Little Rock. I was the only passenger, and he got hot when the other car honked at him. But he wasn't angry at the other driver -- he was angry at the city.

"In Houston, they would have a yield sign to tell us who had right of way."

I nodded as I turned my head, where I easily spotted the yield sign in Charles's lane.

Charles was legendary for his ability to clean you out at the bourre table. Even after a stroke that took his ability to make words (which must have been torture for the talkative old dude), he could and would win all of your lawn-mowing savings.

He was also famous in the family for his brisket. I don't have his exact recipe, but it was something like this:

1. Put strips of brisket into a large shallow pan.

2. Add water, enough liquid smoke to kill a rhino, and presumably some other seasonings that would be entirely drowned out by the liquid smoke in the pan with the meat.

3. Cook in the indoor kitchen oven for something like 12 hours.

If you walked in off the street, it was probably pretty good. But if you had been in smelling baking smoke all day long, you were plenty sick of it by the time it made its way to your plate. I'm going to go ahead and put it in writing: it was over rated.

I have no idea how to make a brisket. There was a place right on the border in Laredo where I once had a brisket that was so good that it would be worth making the 9-hour drive just to have it again. I checked not long ago, and unfortunately, the restaurant appears to be closed now. Mrs. theskinnyonbenny found the owner on LinkedIn. I might message him. I'd really like to master the brisket this fall.

One more rememberance about Uncle Charles: he once told me that if he were forced to choose between living in France and living in Hell, he would choose Hell hands down. Apparently, the French treated him rudely.

I have some experience with that, but it was in a part of france 1000 miles from Europe, and the story requires hearing me speak it. Next time I tell it, I'll make a recording.