Uncle Cecil

I want to tell you about my uncle Cecil. He was my dad's brother and only a couple of years older than my father. He was a great storyteller. I guess some people would call him a teller of tall tales....or a b.s. artist. Whatever title you want to bestow on him, he could entertain us kids for hours with his tales. I think I got my ability to spin a tale from him....at least I would like to think so. Uncle Cecil was a teacher and so am I. He taught air conditioning and refrigeration at the Palm Beach County trade school. He was good at his job....but he had a few hidden talents as well. He could write some of the prettiest poetry you have ever read....which many of us never knew until his death, and he could tell some of the greatest stories. Mark Twain would have been envious of this man's ability to weave a web of intrigue. My favorite story was about a fishing trip he went on one time. We lived in South Florida and all the men I know would fish the canal banks behind our house in the evening and the canals off the interstate on Saturdays. My uncle was no different. He loved to fish. One fall Saturday he was fishing a canal off the Florida turnpike. He had been fishing for hours and had finally run out of bait...problem was the fish were still biting. Uncle Cecil was a resourceful man and he looked around for something else to use as bait, when his eyes fell on a snake who was coming ashore with a frog in its clutches. He waited til the snake made land and walked over and thumped the snake on the head. The snake immediately opened his mouth and released its catch. My uncle was known to take a sip off the bottle every now and then....today was one of those now days...after he took the snake's frog. He reached in his back pocket and pulled out his flask of Johnny Walker and shook a bit from the bottle in the snake's mouth. He took the frog and continued to fish. About an hour later my uncle said he felt something tugging at his pant leg. He looked down and there was his snake buddy. He was sitting there with his mouth wide open and had a line of frogs waiting for my uncle to use. My uncle shook a bit more Johnny Walker in the snakes mouth and continued to fish for many more hours with the bounty from the snake. Ok, now....remember....I was a kid. I bought into this story....hook, line, and sinker.....do you? Believe it or not!