Remembering Gordon...

What can I say about a man who would get up at three a clock in the morning to cook just in case someone might drop in for lunch?

How can we forget that special greeting 'I suppose you people expected to be fed.'

On finding me painting the trim of the cottage I thought I was piling up the points just painting away expecting a huge "atta boy". Uncle Gordon arrived, got out of his car and looked skyward, with that expression we're all familiar with, he intoned "God spare me from the well intentioned."

Two rules of the cottage: don't ask what's for dinner and don't ever touch the TV channel. Gordon was on first name basis with the channel 2 auctioneer.

One of Gordon's favorite stories is of his nephew, who shall remain nameless, but it's rumored he has become a member of the clergy, who was sent to the store with $20 to buy dessert and came back with a shopping bag full of penny candy just as proud as could be; some can still be found around the cottage if you look carefully.

How he would ask the visiting niece or nephew during the summer months if perhaps their parents had packed their back-to-school clothes in their luggage or, were they beginning to miss mom and dad just a little?

All those wonderful cards with the special handwriting that needed no return address, but we know who they were from; Uncle G.

World-class traveler, gourmet chef, connoisseur of Modern Art, photographer extraordinaire, I called him Eric Hoffer, the waterfront philosopher. "Himself" was known from Ireland to Yugoslavia, but he was at his happiest when he was simply Uncle Gordon, recounting with relish to friends, neighbors, coworkers and anyone he would encounter all the accomplishments of his nieces and nephews.

And now, as uncle Gordon would say, you have to leave now, the nice people are coming.