There was a gathering at Al's house on Ridge Drive sometime around late 1969. We took turns capturing some of it with the Super8 movie camera. For the Cleveland family, there are lots of familiar faces in this video who are no longer with us.
Click here to view the video.
What I recall the most about Uncle 'Bee', as he was called by my Mom (his Sister Dottie) were the compulsory spelling contests I was obliged to have with Buddy every time we visited Glen Hills. Uncle Bee was so very proud of Buddy's academic ability that every time we visited, I (the older cousin) would have to shame myself with my poor spelling. Naturally, Buddy was the perfect speller, and the champion intellect. Uncle Bee always beamed with pride at his eldest's gifts.
In the early 1960's, Mom and Dad thought that camping would be a great (and affordable) way that the family -- Mom, Dad, and we 6 kids -- could go on vacation. So Mom made a tent, large enough for all of us to sleep in, by sewing together large pieces of heavy green canvas. It was so big, that she had to set up the sewing machine in the back yard. Our first camping trip was to Deep Creek Lake in Garrett County, MD.
One afternoon, we -- Tommy, Mike, myself and maybe Timmy -- walked with Dad down to the lake. There were several boats with people water skiing out on the lake. One guy finished skiing and let go of the tow rope, expecting to coast all the way to shore. Unfortunately, he stopped about 90 feet short of the shore, which at Deep Creek Lake was about 30 feet of water. The guy began to flounder with the ski belt lifting his butt up and forcing his head below water. The guy's wife started screaming to him and hollering that he couldn't swim. Dad watched all this and then said, "I believe that man's in trouble." With that, he took off toward the dock, stripping of his sweatshirt and shoes along the way, and dove in off the end of the dock (Dad told us later that he was in the air, just about to enter the water when he remembered that his wallet was still in his pocket). He swam out to the guy and got with in a few feet of him. He said to the guy, "I'm going to get you in, but don't grab me. If you grab me, I'm leaving you here." The guy nodded that he understood. Dad then put his arm around him and swam to shore with him. When he pulled him out if the water, all the guy's friends gathered around him to see if he was okay but no one said anything to Dad. We picked up Dad's things and all started to walk back to the camp site. When we were walking away, the guy waved at Dad and said, "Hey, thanks" as if all Dad had done was hold a door for him. On the way back to camp Dad started grumbling that all the other campers who saw us walking back to camp probably thought he was some drunk who fell off the dock. We never heard from the guy he saved, so he doesn't even know his name. (We did have to hang all of the paper documents and money from Dad's wallet on the clothesline at the camp site for it to dry out.)
Tommy, Danny, Mike and myself shared this story at about 2am while we were sitting in Dad's room at the hospice facility a day or so before he passed away. Tommy said that what he remembered most was that as we walked back to camp he was just in awe of Dad. I'm sure we all were.
I will always remember the first day Al drove his new Black and Silver Dodge pickup to work. He was so proud of that truck. On the second day he drove it, I went out to the parking lot and put a note under the windshield wiper blade that read "I just backed into your truck with my car, all the guys looking out the office windows think I am leaving my name and address, but I am not." Al came into the office after lunch that day and was fuming, he had the note in hand and told fellow co -worker Larry Six that he had been all over that truck and he could not find where that SOB had hit his truck. At that point in time he looked over at me and I bust out laughing and the chase was on, right down the middle of the SNUPPS model.
