I was just a little kid, but I knew what was happening. The entire family stood around the bed and listened to the priest administer the Last Rights to one of my favorite people. He was ‘Uncle Sam’. Not really my uncle but my great uncle, my father’s uncle. He had come from Arizona for a visit and had taken sick. He was in the old veteran’s hospital in Memphis where his son had taken him when he could not get his breath. You see Uncle Sam had been gassed in the First World War and his lungs were ‘burnt’. That’s how it had been explained to me.

Everyone left the room when the priest finished and were standing around talking in the hall.

“I’m afraid he is not going to make it through the night,” said the doctor. The priest led the family in prayer and left after telling my father to call him about the ‘arrangements’. I forget who it was, but someone came out of the room and said Uncle Sam was asking for my dad. I followed him back into the room.

Uncle Sam was sitting on the side of the bed!

“Boy open that closet,” he said to me.

I opened the closet door to reveal his clothes. Uncle Sam always dressed like a cowboy, jeans, Western shirts and boots. At that time of my life, I wanted to be a cowboy like him.