July 17 - Uncle Fucky

Of all my uncles, Uncle Fucky was probably my favorite. Him and his second wife, Aunt Buffy, would take care of me and Becky whenever my mom and Steve wanted to go out for the night or get away for the weekend.
They lived on a boat just outside of Cape Coral and even though they didn't take it out that much, Becky and me didn't care. A boat was a boat. Uncle Fucky would always put on this black eye patch and put a fake parrot on his shoulder and play pirates with us. He would try to make us call him Cap'n Jack, but we always called him Uncle Fucky because that's what everybody else called him. Anyway, we had sword fights with these cardboard tubes and then he would always make us walk the plank. And even though he didn't actually have a plank and walking the plank was just walking off the side of the boat into the water, we didn't care.
Whenever we got out of the water he would always be standing up there on deck with a Corona in his hand and a Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned all the way so his gut was sticking out. And even though he lived in Florida year round, he always got a really bad sunburn. His belly would be the color of baby mice. Sometimes he would make Becky and me slap him in his belly to see who could make a bigger whiter hand print. It looked like it hurt like crazy, but he always just laughed.
When I was 11 years old, Uncle Fucky took me to my first Jimmy Buffet concert. And it was during the tailgating before that concert that he gave me my first beer. It made me really dizzy and I couldn't stand still, and Aunt Buffy was giving us both all kinds of dirty looks, but we didn't care. We just laughed it off and went into the concert and had a blast.
All the time I was growing up, I must have seen Jimmy Buffet like a thousand times or something. And even though he always played the same songs, you didn't care. You were too busy dancing around with all the parrot heads in your Hawaiian shirt and shit to care. God, I loved the summer.
Later on after high school, Uncle Fucky got me a job being a roadie for Jimmy Buffet when he was out on tour. It was hard work, but it was a blast. Getting out there on the road, seeing the country, getting fucked up every night. Man, we had a blast. Even though we never got to meet Jimmy Buffet himself, it was cool just being in that environment. Everywhere we went it felt like summer.
Uncle Fucky and Aunt Buffy split up a few years ago. They ended up selling the boat. I don't know where Aunt Buffy is, but Uncle Fucky is still in Cape Coral. We hang out every once in a while and listen to Buffet and drink beers. All these years later, he's still my favorite uncle.