Friday, April 6, 2012

A LONG POST, BUT SO MUCH TO REMEMBER Part I

Welcome to another Fishducky Friday.  I always look forward to Fridays.  Here she is, folks!  Oh, and don't forget to come back tomorrow for Part II.
    What is written here is not in any particular order, but then, neither is my mind!  Bud’s late uncle, Lee, was a lawyer & my husband’s first law partner.  Lee probably would have retired earlier, but he wanted to be able to train Bud as an attorney.  He practiced criminal law, but he wanted Bud to learn what the practice of law was all about & what options there were before he chose a specialty.
    In the early 1940’s he enlisted in the Army & was stationed in England.  Somehow he pissed off an officer—& for Lee, this was inevitable. He learned that if he were stationed on a ship, the Navy would have jurisdiction over him, instead of the Army, & he could avoid contact with this officer, so he got a job as an assistant ship’s librarian.  When the officer found about this, he had Lee transferred back to land & had him digging lead out of sand piles—literally.  (On the rifle ranges, spent bullet casings were dropped into piles of sand, retrieved, melted down & recast.)  He was less than thrilled by this new assignment.  Since he was already a successful attorney & was certified to appear in California & before the US Supreme Court, he had business cards printed.  He handed them out to his fellow lead diggers & told them that if they or their friends were ever court martialed to request that he represent them.  They did--& he did--& Corporal Lee won most of his cases against the captains & majors representing the government.
    Losing to a lowly corporal undoubtedly pissed off many more officers so Lee was sent back to the States.  He was ordered to run a rehabilitation fishing boat for ex-Army personnel out of Santa Monica, California.   This was a few miles from his home, so every morning he’d drive his Cadillac to the pier & take the boat out.  One day, someone fell overboard & Lee, who had worked as a lifeguard while he was a teenager, jumped in & saved him—no problem!  For this he was awarded the Soldier’s Medal, which was the highest medal you could get for bravery outside of combat.  They were catching a lot of halibut—much more than they could eat—so the entire crew decided to go into business.  They sold their catch to local fish markets.  Lee’s Army salary was about $50.00 a month & his share of the business was more than $50.00 a day.  The Army discovered what was happening & told them they were going to become a partner in this thriving new enterprise, so one day they sent out 2 men in a 2 & ½ ton truck to pick up the fish.  They loaded the entire day’s catch—somehow (?) it was only 2 halibut—into the truck.  The Army backed out of the deal & the next day they were back in business.
    After his discharge Lee wanted to let his clients know that he was out of the Army.  He didn’t want to send out announcements.  He reasoned that some of them might not be seen (if the client was in prison) or left unnoticed & unopened.  He had a typically brilliant Uncle Lee idea.  He ran for mayor of Los Angeles!  He wasn’t elected, but he didn’t want to be.  He figured that, for much less than the cost of printing & mailing announcements, people would read the newspapers or listen to the radio & say to themselves, “Oh, good!  Lee’s back!”
Lee once shot--& killed—his TV set.  He claimed he was cleaning his rifle & it went off accidentally, but those of us who knew him weren’t too sure he just didn’t like the program.  I think this was his early version of remote control.
Two car stories about Lee:  #1--He was rear-ended (by an escapee from the Camarillo insane asylum!) & the gas tank was driven into the back seat, where it caught fire.  The driver’s door was wedged shut so Lee climbed out the window.  He was lying on the street yelling, “My back!  My neck!  My knee!”, when he heard the other driver say that he hoped he wasn’t injured too badly because he didn’t have insurance.  Lee jumped up & said, “No insurance?  C’mon, help me put out this damned fire!”  #2—He had a model A or model T Ford—I don’t remember which.  He used to play with it as a hobby.  He took the engine completely apart & cleaned it.  After he put it back together he had 2 or 3 parts left over.  The car worked fine so he threw them away.
This is too long for one post.  Come back tomorrow for the rest.
----fishducky

21 comments:

  1. Oh, Elisabeth! LOL It's so nice to read one of your posts again! It's been a while...I've just revamped my blog and ran across an old review entry and your kind comment, so I popped in to tell you I'm so grateful you were there in the old days! Ha!! Come back and see me some time. I'm coming back to visit you, too. You're still going strong, I see!
    Deborah/TheBookishDame
    http://abookishlibraria.blogspot.com

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  2. Lee sounds like a hell of a person to have known, Fishducky. Looking forward to reading more about him. He reminds me a bit of my late grandfather, another fellow who was in far too many adventures for just one blog post to sum up. Much awesomeness.

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  3. I would certainly like to have known him and learned from him. Enjoyed this post a lot and look forward to reading more. Have a wonderful day.
    Odie

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  4. Sounds like a very interesting person! Hope your enjoying the challenge!

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  5. fishducky, I swear you've known the most interesting people ever. And you're so good at telling us about them.

    Love,
    Janie

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  6. DEAR EVERYBODY--Uncle Lee was such an amazing person, it was difficult to put his life into ONLY 2 posts!

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  7. What a total character! I loved the rolling around on the ground feigning injuries until he discovers the guy had no insurance!!! But then, he has a lawyer's mind. This was such fun to read, can hardly wait for the rest. Thanks, Fishducky!

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    1. Just wait until you see tomorrow's post--he was one of a kind!!

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  8. I love this parade of the characters and events of your life. Uncle Lee must have been some guy. And you made me LAUGH OUT LOUD! Thank you because I really needed a good laugh. And thank you Elisa for providing the space here for all these stories.

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    1. As I said in my interview with Jenn, "If I can make someone smile, or pee their pants, my day was not wasted."

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    2. I'm so thrilled that she lets me post them here :)

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  9. hahaha maybe he was just ahead of his time and wanted reality TV. So he shot out the screen and got reality by staring through it.

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    1. Maybe, but I really have no idea of when Uncle Lee's "time" would have been.

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  10. He sounds like a character like someone else we all know and love

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  11. You gotta love a guy who actually shot his TV. I've wanted to many times but have never had the hutzpah to really do it.

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    1. Tomorrow you can read examples of his chutzpah (either spelling is correct) in his law practice. I think the man could "out-chutzpah" himself!

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  12. Such fun stories. I especially love this post because Lee reminds me of my dad who can come out on top of any situation. :0)

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    1. You mean there's another "Uncle Lee" out there? I hope your dad uses his powers for good!

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  13. hi there! my comment is out of this blog post topic but I just want to say that you and your husband played a good music together! Keep it up! :)

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  14. He sounds alot like my father. What a great story!

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