seeing around corners

"The reflection isn't meant for everyone..."

(one of mine)

I'm getting so much better that I scare myself. Seriously. In fact, I'm rapidly attaining (in my own mind) a place of almost legendary status.

And, of course, my previous statements beg the question, "What the hell are you referring to, Steve, specifically?"

First, let me set it all up for you who shall (at some point in your lifetimes) either read this, or be subjected to similar events and experiences, or both. That might help shed some extra light on the self-observation above. Keep in mind, however, that none of this may even take a place of relevance in your lives (as you know them), but it may aid you in understanding the title for this piece.

It's about people. More to the point, it concerns certain people. And these 'certain' people happen to be relatives. We can't choose who our family members will be, and damned if some of them aren't the ugliest (inside) people we will ever have to interact with on even an occasional basis. If they had just the slightest modicum of common sense, I'd be shocked, no, horrified, because then I'd wonder why it is they do and say the things they do. Maybe I should feel sorry for them, but I don't think so. They've gone too far through their lives, and had dealings with too many other people not to have had cause to think about their actions somewhere, somehow, along the way.

I have an uncle on my my mother's side. He's well-educated, well-traveled, married into a very wealthy, influential east coast family, and has, from my meetings with them, very nice, agreeable, respectful children.

But, he's an asshole. Excuse my choice of nounage, or don't, because he really fits the term to a 'T'.

In addition to his extensive education, travels, high-falutin' friends, and east coast connections, he's an arrogant elitist, and a drunk one at that.

When someone like that uses a special occasion like my father's memorial service reception as an excuse to get stupid drunk, it gets my attention. And, when this 'gentleman' gets so inebriated that he loses all respect for others, namely my son, then he's really stepped over the line, and I take back every ounce of respect I ever had for him. It's made me wonder just how much respect he's ever really had for anyone other than those like-minded fools like himself. He's nothing more, I see now, than a frustrated old drunk. In fact, it's hard to remember a time when I've seen or had to deal with anyone who lacked more character. He's a character all right, but his 'character' to me now resides in the bottom of a bottle.

Why am I legendary? I am because I managed to not only dodge the wine he threw around as he so graphically gestured while raving at me about what I do or don't do, but I also then grabbed his arm, took him aside, and told him, to his face, that I wasn't going to talk to him while he was so messed up. And then I walked away. Well, apparently, he wasn't finished, because later on, at my mother's house, he started it up all over again, this time with my son, who had, up until this happened, a genuine interest in meeting and getting to know him.

I will never forget how distraught, frustrated, and angry he made my son. Never. And Aaron has more going for him than my uncle will ever dream of having. He has only his little life, his sad, empty, frustrating life.