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Mac and I have this new social life these days.

Our closest alliances now seem to be with our doctors. I discovered that he had not seen his Primary Care Doc (Dr. Ken Moyd) in several months. Well, he had been sort of busy trying to stay alive with the help of Doctors Grainger and Eddleson, and a good job of it they did. So I made the appointment and off we went today. I had put the address in the TomTom to see which was the shortest way to Society Hill. It took us a way we had never been before. When we got on #1 we went through Patrick.

Patrick doesn’t get much attention as towns go, but it’s a lovely rather bucolic little town. Just after we had turned onto the highway I saw a sign that read “Brown Cemetery.” I think our county may have more family cemeteries than most. I recalled when we were children that on at least four Saturdays a summer my grandparents received a visit from uncle Led Brown. He walked and hitchhiked from Patrick to Chesterfield on 145 to Mammy and Daddy Dwight’s. I can see him walking up the dirt drive off highway 145, dressed in an old timey (even for that time period) suit, crisp white shirt with a campaign-type hat clamped on his head. You know I was nearly grown before I realized that uncle Led was uncle Ed, it was that hat. I identified him as if the hat were a lid or in our vernacular a led so, uncle Led.

It didn’t seem that anyone was particularly glad to see the old man, but he was always glad to see the entire family. He would sit with a hot cup of coffee, pouring it from his cup into his saucer and sip at it gingerly, as though it might get away from him if he wasn’t careful. He would talk about a lot of nothing, just visiting and enjoying the fellowship, as he called it. He would rave on about Mammy’s biscuits (one of which he held in his bony old fingers, occasionally dipping it into the coffee left in the cup). He would ask if mayhap she had fried any of Dwight’s sausage for breakfast, and mayhap there was any left of that flavorful meat we were treated to on a Saturday. He would sit soulful eyed, that old war hat rocking on his knee, giving Mammy the look. You know the look, most old dogs perfect it by the age of seven. Sighing deeply, she would look in the oven to see if there were any left over bits and pieces and sure enough there would be cold scrambled egg and that sausage attributed to Daddy Dwight and it went just so well with that angel pillow of a biscuit.

That old man wasn’t much to look at, but he had a way of getting things done to his advantage. So today when we were traveling down to Society Hill via the sweet little town of Patrick, uncle Led was once more on my mind. I know where the Brown Family Cemetery is now. I think one day soon I’ll go look him up. I wish I could offer him a cup of coffee and a biscuit. Maybe I will just have a cup and a bite in his honor.

Cheers uncle Led. I always loved you.

— Sandi McBride is a resident of Jefferson, who blogs regularly and enjoys her garden and her furry and feathered friends. She is a wife and mother of two sons.