Hey Monkey Boy!

Every girl should have an Uncle Mike. But you can’t have mine – he’s … well … MINE.

Uncle Mike is my birth mother’s brother and was one of my Pop’s best friends. Many of my earliest childhood memories involve Uncle Mike.

Ever see the 80’s sitcom Full House? That was us – me, my sisters, my Pop and Uncle Mike.
And he was the best.

He always treated me like an equal – even when I was five or six and he was, well, NOT. He never talked down to me, told the absolute best stories, and always seemed to have such great ideas. I loved listening to him and my Dad talk about books they were reading, books Uncle Mike was writing, movies, politics, you name it.

He had a sense of theatricality about him and whimsy. And the most soothing voice – to this day he is among the most recognized voice-over talents in our region.

He would chase us around the house and really play with us – wasn’t afraid to get down on the floor and play dolls or tell us ghost stories. We’d climb all over him, ride him horsey style and beg for piggy back rides – he never said no…was never too tired.

When he got his first recording equipment – with individual tracks – he spent hours with me (I must have been around 12) showing me how it worked and letting me test it out by singing Karen Carpenter songs.

Sometimes – particularly during my teen years and early twenties, years might pass with little physical contact between us. It was a non-issue – we always picked right up where we left off. I can talk to him every day…or twice a year … it matters not.

In later years he’s become something of a mentor – keen business sense, great advice and probably the most genuinely creative person I know. He is always present.

It amazes me sometimes that he seems to know when I need him…a phone call or email out of the blue, just as I am thinking “I need a little Uncle Mike today…”

One of the final conversations I ever had with my Dad was about Uncle Mike – Dad said he wanted to speak to me privately and then basically told me that he was turning the reins over to Uncle Mike – that Uncle Mike would always be there, no matter what. He said that he trusted him more than almost anyone he’d ever known and that Uncle Mike had shown him time and again what friendship really meant over the years.

Pop was right. But then he almost always was.

I could fill up this entire blog with stories and ways that Uncle Mike has helped me over the years – some of which he probably isn’t even aware of.

One of my early memories of Uncle Mike involved a stuffed monkey – a toy that you could wind up and it would bag cymbals. One day, in anger, Uncle Mike pretty much tore up the monkey. I’m sure he thought I was upstairs in bed, but I saw it happen – and called out to Uncle Mike in a way that only a precocious six year old can and told him “well now you’ve scared me for life!”

We’ve laughed about that line for years.

And it’s a scar I wear proudly.