Chuck Amuck

child, or man. He had somehow, somewhere, someway done something they, too, had done, and from this common ground an uncommon miracle always occurred: two average small boys and one average small dog digging luxuriating toes into that same lofty loamy lovely dirt, as Uncle Lynn talked to the enchanted driver about Missouri mules, Malayan buffalo, hickory shafts, goatskin hames, and rattail files. As for the two small boys and the one small dog, they guarded the surprise and pretended that they did not know of the false bottom in the old wooden dray that would send us tumbling into the landfill when the driver pulled the long wooden release bar. And after we had scrambled clear, he would look back down with surprise. “Lost ’em,” Uncle Lynn would say. “Guess we’ll have to go back and get some more boys.” “And a dog,” the driver would add. “Load’s not complete without a dog.” That’s the effect Uncle Lynn had on some people (and on all dogs and boys, of course). They became part of the enactment of fancies that only dogs and boys and Uncle Lynn understood.

“Scaring the Tennis Ball”—a highly technical game: TWO’S A CROWD (1950)

I remember all of us listening with the most slavish love to Uncle Lynn’s stories. He never disappointed us, the ending was all a small boy could hope for: there was never a hint of morality, no overt heavy-handed effort to make us better children, better adults, or better at anything except learning the love of listening.

“This friend of mine,” said Uncle Lynn, “was a swordfish strangler out of San Diego Harbor. After the marlins and broadtails were brought aboard the fishing smack The Drunken Nymph, his job was to strangle the swordfish. Dirty job, but somebody had to do it. Name of Wiltford. Only swordfish strangler I ever knew by that name,” said Uncle Lynn. We nodded our approval of the logic, we had never known a swordfish strangler named Wiltford either. “Actually,” continued Uncle Lynn, “his name was Wiltferd W. Wiltford, last name had an ‘o’ in the ‘ford’ part, first name an ‘e’ in the ‘ford’ part. Well, I don’t know whether it was working around fish or not, but he developed a severe case of liver trouble. Worst case of liver trouble he’d ever seen, said Wiltferd’s doctor, looking solemn, the way doctors always look whenever they diagnose liver trouble or a strangulated pimple or an ingrown earlobe. Couldn’t offer a cure or even an easement—too advanced, he said. Sorry and all that.

Charles Jones chauffeuring the 1920 Rolls-Royce of tricycles, Ocean Park, California, 1920

“I don’t know how many of you have carried around a troubled liver.” Uncle Lynn looked carefully around at us, seemed reassured by what he saw, and continued. “Well, Wiltferd had to cut down on swordfish strangling except on weekends and national holidays. He was a Sixth-Day Adventist, hadn’t quite made it to the seventh, so he didn’t have to observe religious holidays. So what he’d do, as a matter of courtesy, was to strangle half a swordfish or half strangle a whole swordfish. Takes practice, that,” said Uncle Lynn, nodding his approval at us. “But nevertheless old Wiltferd got weaker and weaker liver-wise and he got despondent, too, because by contrast everybody else in his body—spleen, lights, heart, all the valves, esophagus—were all going top speed and on all eight cylinders. He thought it would be a pity, did old Wiltferd, who was knocking eighty at the time (oldest swordfish strangler south of San Luis Obispo), it would be a pity and a shame if a two-bit liver would put all those other organs out of business. So as a kind of therapy he went up into the mountains behind San Diego and strangled a bear and two Gila monsters. But it didn’t seem to help and he’d just about given up when he met this Indian, name of Forgot-to-go-to-Meeting Smith, who was considered by many locals as an authority on livers and liver ailments. Wiltferd endeared himself to Forgot-to-go-to-Meeting Smith by strangling a tarantula that had taken up residence in Forgot-to-go-to-Meeting Smith’s pants, and had become a source of some irritation to Forgot-to-go-to-Meeting Smith, he was grateful indeed to Wiltferd.

Ralph Phillips studying: FROM A TO Z-Z-Z-Z (1954)

“So, to show his gratitude to Wiltferd, Forgot-to-go-to-Meeting Smith concocted this liver-leavening medicine made of wolfbane, owlbane, Indian paintbrush, cowbane, shredded wheat, poison oak, wildcat bane, and the blood of unborn acorns.

“Well, you know,” Uncle Lynn said (obviously relieved that relief was at hand for Wiltferd Wiltford), “Wiltferd drank three gallons of that medicine, which by the way you can’t get over the counter, and immediately his liver hauled up its braces, snapped to attention, and started everybody up at 5 a.m. on double time. Talk about pushy livers, this liver ran Wiltferd’s insides like Black Jack Pershing’s first platoon. No nonsense, shape up or ship out. Oh, that liver was a taskmaster, but in all fairness, it never asked anything of any other organ that it wouldn’t do itself. However, whatever—time took its toll, and in spite of all this admirable liver’s power, strength, and will, every other organ gradually deteriorated, and one day, like the wonderful one-horse shay, the whole lot of them gave up, handed in their uniforms, and Wiltferd Wiltford died before his time at one hundred and seven. Every organ died with him, every one, that is, but that magnificent liver. After Wiltferd died, they had to take it out and kill it with a club.”

We were all at peace with the world and ready for bed after such a wonderful, believable story with such a satisfactory ending, each of us sleepily wishing that we could have been there to help chase down that wonderful liver.

My Father and the English Language

“A fellow uncurbed, unfettered, uncontrolled of speech, unperiphrastic, bombastic, loquacious.”

—MY FATHER, QUOTING