A very rare photograph of my dear old uncle, Edward Mabey. Uncle Ed was incredibly camera shy, and Dad was most fortunate to have captured this picture of his brother.
By Richard Mabey Jr.
In early June of 1983, my dad, my Uncle Ed and I built a barn at the old Mabey Homestead, along Mabey Lane. By the end of June, the good Lord would call my Uncle Ed to begin a new life, far from Lincoln Park. This was to be the very last project that the three of us would ever work on. At the time, none of us knew that.
We had begun building the red barn, on a Saturday. As a young man, I faithfully kept a daily journal of the day’s events. I am immensely grateful that I saved those hand-written diaries. It was now Tuesday. We had successfully finished building the platform for the red barn. It was a little after high noon, we were placing the vertical two-by-fours, to act as the foundation for the walls of the barn. I remember, out of the blue, Dad said to me, “Richie, why don’t you run downtown and pick up a couple of pizzas for us?”
I remember telling my Dad, “No problem.”
When I returned home, with my two pizza pies in hand, there was Dad and Uncle Ed talking to the neighbors, who lived across the way on Mabey Lane. Nolan and Erin McCarthy lived in the old canal house. They were engrossed in conversation with Dad and Uncle Ed. Nolan’s brother’s daughter, Devon, had been visiting her aunt and uncle for the summer. Devon was 25. She had incredibly beautiful red hair. Freckles adorned her face. And she had the most sensitive green eyes that I had ever seen. I was 29 at the time, and I confess that I secretly had a most painful crush on Devon.
As I opened the door to my old Ford Galaxie 500, I couldn’t help but to hear my Uncle Ed talking. Uncle Ed was showing Devon the latest issue of The Lincoln Park Herald, the down-home weekly newspaper that brought the town’s news to the good people of Lincoln Park. I had been blessed with getting a front-page story published that week.
“That’s just one of the many articles my nephew’s written. Yes sirree, that boy’s smart as a whip. He keeps them big wheel councilmen on their toes,” Uncle Ed bragged on me, with a voice tone that was bigger than life.
Truth be told, I was totally embarrassed. As I carried the two pizza boxes to the table, in front of the wooden platform, my heart kept beating like a big old bass drum. My hands trembled a bit, as I placed the pizza boxes on the table. And I looked up and saw Devon smile this private smile at me, almost saying to me, “I gotcha boy. Old Uncle Ed’s been talking all about you, boy!”
Dad invited the McCarthy’s to join us for lunch. But Nolan said he had to go to the doctor. Then Erin said, “but maybe Devon would like to join you all.” Upon which Devon shyly replied a kind of “Why not?”
We talked beneath the pine trees that once bordered our side of Mabey Lane. Devon talked about herself a little bit. Devon worked as a third-grade schoolteacher in Chicago. I remember that she spoke most briefly about how her boyfriend had most recently broken their engagement. The bottom line of it all was that Devon was glad to get away from Chicago, to be with her aunt and uncle, and to come to know the charm of our little Mayberry.
I remember that I had bought two big bottles of Dad’s Root Beer soda. One of the bottles must have flipped around a bit in my car, on the way home from the pizza parlor. Because when I twisted open the bottle cap, the soda fizzed up a bit high and squirted onto my T-shirt. I felt like a complete knucklehead. Here I was, in the presence of this really cute girl, and of all times the soda bottle went and betrayed me.
Devon laughed when the soda sprayed up out of the big bottle and landed all over my shirt. I wanted to crawl under the table. But once again, Devon gave me this private smile, that almost seemed to say, “I gotcha again, boy!”
To be continued next issue.
Richard Mabey Jr. is a freelance writer. He hosts a YouTube Channel titled, “Richard Mabey Presents.” He can be reached at richardmabeyjr@gmail.com.